The Knights are an orchestra of friends from a broad spectrum of the New York music world who cultivate collaborative music-making and creatively engage audiences in the shared joy of musical performance. This is the Knights’ second album for Ancalagon Records, and follows their 2011 Juno Award-winning recording of Mozart with Scott & Lara St. John. The album features music of Schubert, Satie, Glass, and Feldman, composers who either influenced or were influenced by the great playwright Samuel Beckett.

Without doubt, Monteverdi was the greatest of the early Baroque European composers. He revolutionized the music of the theatre and the church by his dramatic and imaginative use of voices and instruments, and by his daring harmonies and rhythms. Next to his Vespers of 1610, the Selva morale e spirituale of 1641 is his most significant and virtuosic collection of sacred music. This second volume of The Sixteen’s celebrated series includes the Messa à 4 da cappella; the celebrated first volume is also available on CORO.

For their third CD on the Challenge label, Cappella Pratensis turns the pages back to the very beginnings of the tradition of settings of the Requiem mass. The Requiems by Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410–1497) and Pierre de la Rue (c. 1452–1518) form an ideal pairing, as they are the first polyphonic versions of the Mass for the Dead from the brilliant composers of the Franco-Flemish school. By bringing these two works together, Cappella Pratensis offers the chance to hear the beginnings of one of the great traditions in Western music as well as two profound musical translations of the words of consolation that mark the passing of our fellow travelers in life.

Brilliant Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan debuts on Avie with Darknesse Visible, an album of colorful and atmospheric masterpieces by French composers Ravel and Debussy, and Englishmen Thomas Adés and Ronald Stevenson. Inspired by the title track, Adés’ Darknesse Visible—a wondrous and dreamlike prism on the John Dowland song “In Darkness Let Me Dwell”—Inon chose works that are linked by different characteristics of darkness in the music.

Following the chart-topping success of An Appalachian Christmas, Mark O’Connor presents the American Classics, on CD for the first time! This recording, featuring some of Mark O’Connor’s finest violin playing, includes beautiful and timeless tunes from the American Songbook. The music ties into the repertoire for the O’Connor Method, a series of books for music education. The O’Connor Method, which The New Yorker calls “an American-grown rival to the Suzuki method,” includes great folk songs, fiddle tunes, and classic themes culled from 400 years of traditional American violin playing. Since launching in 2009, the growth of the O’Connor Method has been astonishing. Some of the most prestigious music schools around the country have adopted it, including New York’s Third Street Music School and the Berklee College of Music, which will host an O’Connor Method Camp in Summer 2012.