Theme : Variation traces an arc spanning 400 years of composition, beginning with Orlando Gibbons’ The Italian Ground ca. 1605, and culminating in Variations on a Fantasia of J.S. Bach (2017), an original work from Rogosin’s friend Kevin Morse. The result is an album whose explorative gusto is matched by its sweeping scope. Theme : Variation sees Rogosin navigate through hundreds of years of compositional variation with aplomb. The liner notes, found in the accompanying iTunes booklet and written by Rogosin, are an indispensable companion as you listen through the record. Rogosin meticulously explains the variations and technical underpinnings of each track while highlighting important or noteworthy nuggets for the discerning listener to catch. Interspersed with technical explanations are personal asides, offering insights or anecdotes surrounding his relationship with the composition.Album Booklet

VC2’s second full-length album, I and Thou, reflects on the role relationships play, whether fleeting or lasting, in how humans construct meaning in the world. The title of the record, and the philosophy to which it refers, comes from Philosopher Martin Buber. This idea became particularly salient during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the relationships we enjoyed with our family, friends, and community weathered a strain never before seen in modern times. In the spirit of the album’s context, VC2 invited some colleagues with whom they enjoy the closest of relationships to contribute to the album. Together, they form the record I and Thou. A pensive, deliberate rumination on the power of relationships to undergird a pillar of a person’s well-being; the need for meaning.Album Booklet

Durme, Durme: Four Ladino Folk Songs is a personal exploration of a unique aspect of Elisha Denburg’s Jewish and musical heritage: Judeo-Spanish poetry and song. Although not a direct descendant of Jews who lived in—and were exiled from—the land called S’farad (Spain), these folk traditions have been shared in his family through the teachings and performances of his uncle, Moshe Denburg, and grandmother, Miriam Ben-Ezra Denburg. In this song cycle, each one tells a different story, yet all are interwoven, lyrically or conceptually. The poems’ traditional melodies have been used as springboards to a newly rendered work, in the Jewish tradition of “renewing days as of old.”   Album Booklet

The Rosebud String Quartet was formed in 2013 at the inaugural Rosebud Chamber Music Festival, an annual summer chamber music showcase in rural Alberta. Comprised of principal players from the Edmonton Symphony and the orchestras of the Canadian Opera Company and National Ballet of Canada, the RSQ is one of Canada’s most dynamic ensembles with a unique voice and a deep love for the music of Haydn.This recording brings together three great, late works by the acknowledged masters of Viennese classicism, Mozart and Haydn, and on it displays the Rosebud String Quartet's remarkable chemistry and depth.Album Booklet

Kate Read’s debut solo album After has arrived on Leaf Music. Artfully mixing Baroque repertoire with experimental electronics, After delivers a stirring mix of antiquity and modernity from one of Newfoundland’s most in-demand violists. Read takes listeners on a journey that entwines the purity of Bach with the chaos of electronic improvisation in ways equally surprising and satisfying. She’s joined on the last track, Aftermath, by award-winning audio engineer Michelle LaCour, whose improvisational synth stabs and found effects provide a counterpoint to Read’s modern interpretation of Bach.

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De mille feux sees James Wright in collaboration with the Andara Quartet — Marie-Claire Vaillancourt (violin), Jeanne Côté (violin), Vincent Delorme (viola), and Dominique Beauséjour-Ostiguy (cello) — to realize four unique works. The first, written by Benjamin Britten at the age of 28, String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25 is undoubtedly the most luminous of his four string quartets. The Andante sostenuto begins with one of the most remarkable opening pages in English chamber music: the violins and viola are seemingly suspended—weightless, pianissimo and molto vibrato—at a stratospherically high pitch, like a trail of twinkling, distant stars. The remainder of the work takes us on a series of voyages between earth and the cosmos, between the rooted energy of the ground under our feet, the impalpable shimmering of the ether in which we seem to bathe, and the human aspirations that travel between the two.In 1936, Samuel Barber completed the String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 (his only string quartet), and he arranged its Adagio movement for string orchestra later the same year. The quartet was premiered by the Pro Arte Quartet on December 14, 1936, at the Villa Aurelia, at the end of Barber’s Prix de Rome residency there. In its arrangement for string orchestra, the Adagio for Strings ultimately became Barber’s best-known work. The power of its pathos and passion is such that the work has often been performed in the United States during times of national trauma. It was first heard in 1945 during the broadcast funeral services for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, just three weeks prior to Germany’s surrender at the end of the Second World War.Dark Energy, from Kelly Marie-Murphy, was commissioned by the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the CBC as the required piece for the 2007 competition. In a single movement, the quartet opens softly and simply. It explores and displays a variety of string colours and techniques, and it continually gains momentum, eventually consuming itself with its own propulsion. The piece is virtuosic in every way, yet there are flexible moments in which each performance can yield a different interpretation.The final piece is James K. Wright’s own String Quartet No. 1 (“Ellen at Scattergood”), a work commissioned by Carleton University professor David Cray as a gift for his wife, Ellen, in celebration of their life together at their cottage on Lac Scattergood, Quebec. Some of the descriptors that listeners have ascribed to the quartet’s four movements—including joyfulness, romance, playfulness, celebration, energy, vigor, drama, transcendence, nostalgia, serenity, peace, and tranquility—result from Wright's attempt to capture the many moods and textures of David and Ellen’s life at their cottage. American composer Dr. John Cornelius II writes: "Ellen at Scattergood is a really decisive string quartet with attitude! The pacing of the movements really allows the listener to get inside the piece, and it takes traditional forms and genres (Tarantella, Waltz, Rondo) and turns them on their ear. This is a brilliantly sophisticated work that has nothing to prove, except its composer’s audacity.”De mille feux was released on November 4, 2022Album Booklet 

Christina Haldane is thrilled to present Tu me voyais, her first record on Leaf Music has been released on October 21, 2022. Tu Me Voyais is the result of the collaboration between Christina Haldane and Carl Philippe Gionet, along with several other artists, writers, and composers who have contributed their own offerings.The album is anchored around Gionet’s new arrangements of Twelve Acadian Folk Songs, tailored for Haldane’s voice. These re-imaginings are set in the 19th century lieder aesthetic or art song where voice and piano play equal solo parts within the musical architecture.Carl’s approach to the Acadian folk song arrangements is rooted in the oral tradition, where music and texts are passed orally from generation to generation, without the use of musical notation. He selected folk songs that were already committed to his memory, passed on to him orally from family members and childhood musical activities. In the arrangements, Carl has remained as faithful as possible to his musical memory. He has also taken liberties with the traditional texts, often re-working the order of the storytelling, making omissions, and creating repetitions to enhance the dramatic arc of the pieces. Christina Haldane est ravie de vous présenter Tu me voyais, son premier album pour la maison de disques Leaf Music, à été lancé le 21 octobre 2022. Tu me voyais est le fruit d’une collaboration entre Christina Haldane et Carl Philippe Gionet, avec plusieurs autres artistes, auteurs et compositeurs ayant apporté aussi apporté leur contribution.L’album trouve son ancrage dans les nouveaux arrangements de Carl pour Douze chansons folkloriques acadiennes, conçus pour la voix de la soprano. Ces nouvelles versions des chansons s’inscrivent dans la lignée esthétique des Lieder du dix-neuvième siècle, qui correspond aussi au genre musical de la mélodie, dans lequel la voix et le piano interprètent tous deux des parties solos sur un pied d’égalité dans l’architecture même de la musique.L’approche adoptée par C. P. Gionet pour l’arrangement des chansons folkloriques acadiennes trouve racine dans la tradition orale, avec la transmission orale de la musique et des textes d’une génération à la suivante, sans recours à la notation musicale. Il a choisi des chansons folkloriques qui étaient déjà enracinées dans sa mémoire et qui lui avaient été transmises par voie orale par des membres de sa famille et lors d’activités musicales à l’enfance. Dans ses arrangements, il est resté fidèle autant que possible aux versions que renfermait sa mémoire musicale. Il a également pris certaines libertés vis-à-vis des paroles traditionnelles, en changeant souvent l’ordre du récit, en omettant certains éléments et en créant des répétitions quand cela était nécessaire pour donner une plus grande ampleur dramatique aux pièces.Album Booklet
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"A Woman's Voice" is an album written for female voices and piano. The repertoire is inspired by literature that celebrates the female spirit and their challenging, and changing, roles throughout history. The multi-lingual lyrics (English, French, and Mandarin) reflect the multicultural Canadian ethos and presents a wide spectrum of text, including ancient Chinese poems from the Tang Dynasty, a war poem by English poetess Charlotte Mew, as well as Alice Ho’s collaborations with seven Canadian writers across the provinces: Marjorie Chan, Madeleine Thien, Carole Languille, Phoebe Tsang, Tong Wang, Thomass Muir, Anna Camara, and Michael O'brien. These writers span a wide range, both in their racial and geographic diversity, as well as where they are in their careers.“A Women’s Voice” features an “all Canadian” lineup. Many astounding young performers have contributed passionately to this album, including pianist/vocalist Jialiang Zhu, coloratura lyric soprano Vania Chan, soprano Katy Clark, soprano Maeve Palmer, soprano Ariadne Lih, mezzo soprano Alex Hetherington, pianist/writer Tong Wang, and cellist Andrew Ascenzo.This recording intends to aim the spotlight at women’s empowerment and strength by leading the audience through a cross-cultural musicscape, and ultimately serves as a reflection on how women of the past and present navigate love, desire, grief, and hardship.Alice Ho’s opera, “Chinatown” premiers this September at The Vancouver PlayhouseAlbum Booklet

"The Equation of Time" is the Charke-Cormier Duo’s third album and their second to feature recital programming that spans various genres and styles. Like their first album, Ex Tempore, it showcases their shared aspiration to play music both old and new, original works and arrangements, to explore the stunning timbral combination of flute and guitar. Although both the album and its titular work were planned long before coronavirus became a household name, it is uncanny yet fitting that this recording project took place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that has greatly disrupted our sense of time. The Equation of Time exemplifies how truly special art can result when the artists are given the time and space to communicate and create.Album Booklet

Halifax-based record label Leaf Music is pleased to announce the release of cellist Robert DeMaine and pianist Peter Takács’s 2-disc album of Beethoven’s complete works for piano and cello. Set to be released July 8 2022, this stunning collection showcases Beethoven’s unprecedented textures and formal innovations found in his sonatas for cello and piano. DeMaine is a master of Beethoven’s conversational tone and technical flourishes, playing with “lapidary technical precision, and a persuasive identification with the idiom of the music at hand,” While Takács showcases the composer’s experiments in harmony and form with his noted ability to communicate musical interpretations.Album Booklet