GRAMMY® Award winners Apollo’s Fire and founder / director Jeannette Sorrell present a fresh, intimate, and intense interpretation of J. S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor that draws the listener into an exceptionally emotional journey.

Jeannette Sorrell, the pioneering founder and director of baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire, always has unique vision for her interpretations of the classic repertoire. And so it is with this recording of J. S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor that draws the listener into an equally fresh, intimate and searing emotional journey – from the anguished opening outcry through to moments of joy, pathos, triumph, and ultimately, a vision of peace. Jeannette explains, “While music is always an emotional journey, I feel that Bach’s Mass is an exceptionally cathartic and healing one for our time”. Aiming to emulate the intimacy of Bach’s own performances of the B Minor Mass, which the composer completed in the year prior to his death, Jeannette utilises twenty-four instrumentalists and twenty-two choristers, including the five soloists.

As summed up by Chicago Classical Review, which named Sorrell’s and Apollo’s Fire’s live performance one of the Best 10 Concerts of 2025, “Easily one of the most memorable concerts of recent years … the vocal ensemble was inspired throughout … The instrumental consort was in brilliant form, playing with unimpeachable balance and intonation … and a sensitivity to the dancelike elements of the mass. Presiding over it all was Jeannette Sorrell, who with understated grace led her charges on a moving traversal of Bach’s unsurpassed canvas”.

A proliferation of programmatic music infuses Winter Night, composer Elena Ruehr’s seventh release on AVIE, the result of a particularly close collaboration with the international members of the Boston Trio – violinist Irina Muresanu and cellist Mihai Marica, both Romanians, and Korean pianist Heng-Jin Park –who are joined by native New Yorker violist Marcus Thompson in Elena’s piano quartet.

Emotions, energy and the natural world abound in the world premiere recordings of the album’s four works. The title track, Elena’s Piano Trio No. 3, is a four-movement narrative that is by turns lyrical, graceful and melodic. The joyful Piano Trio No. 4, subtitled “Ski, Kayak, Bike”, recalls childhood sports enjoyed with her father, the work’s dedicatee. The three movements of Piano Trio No. 5, “Troubled Times”, confront emotional responses to challenging personal circumstances, yet also seem especially appropriate now given the state of the world’s current events. Piano Quartet No. 2, “Maple”, is an homage to an ancient tree that has stood the tests of time, much like the Stradivarius instruments that were made using the beautiful, dense wood. Elena’s music appropriately references composers working at the same time as the famed luthier, Bach, Pachelbel and Vivaldi.

I first heard The Boston Trio almost 30 years ago at a concert in Jordan Hall in Boston.  I was deeply impressed by their musicianship and wanted to write a work for them.  Over the years I became close friends with both the pianist, Heng-Jin Park, and violinist, Irina Muresanu.  I went to many of their concerts and composed a number of works for them, including one concerto each and a lot of chamber music.  But I always wanted to write a trio specifically for The Boston Trio and to work with them on a recording.  This disc represents a compilation of works and the realization of a dream. It features Irina Muresanu, Heng-Jin Park, Mihai Marica and guest violist Marcus Thompson on the piano quartet.

“…a wonderful new work by Lindberg, who shows that it is possible to wed lyricism and virtuosic display with bracingly fresh sounds and musical ideas of substance.” – Boston Globe

“…a mesmerising landscape of icicle sharp glissandi and shimmering crushed glass punctuated by reverberant woodwind chorales… A masterpiece for our times.” – The Scotsman

Sebastian Bohren’s magisterial interpretation of Magnus Lindberg’s First Violin Concerto – available exclusively as a digital EP – sets a new benchmark for “a masterpiece for our times” (The Scotsman).

Swiss violinist Sebastian Bohren leans into Magnus Lindberg’s First Violin Concerto, proving to be a passionate advocate for the Swedish composer’s singular synthesis of luminous colour, harmonic depth, and rhythmic complexity. Available exclusively as a digital EP, Bohren – who is backed by Sergej Bolkhovets conducting the Swedish Chamber Orchestra – sets a new benchmark for Lindberg’s “standout work” (Gramophone) that The Scotsman has called “a masterpiece for our times”.

American mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski sings “from inside the music with unaffected purity and sincerity” (Daily Telegraph). Among her multiple international awards, at the prestigious Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation Song Competition, she was bestowed the Richard Tauber Prize for the best interpretation of Schubert lieder.

For her solo debut recording, Clara lends her lush mezzo-soprano to 19 lieder penned by Franz Schubert during the last 13 years of the composer’s all too short life. Landscape abounds in this collection – lakes, rushing streams, the rising moon, stars, flowers, birdsong. True to Schubert’s conception, Clara considers her voice and that of her collaborator, pianist Timothy Lovelace, equal partners.