Our year-end review of albums continues with our second installment, featuring some offerings by contemporary composers.
(Platoon, July 2025) Gabriela Ortiz: Yanga is the third album in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s series celebrating orchestral music from South and Central America. The orchestra is conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel. The previous albums in the series have already won multiple Grammy Awards. This third album presents three large works by composer Gabriela Ortiz, Carnegie Hall’s 2025 Composer-in-Residence and who has multiple Grammy Awards and Nominations in her own right. At the time of this writing Yanga—the title work of this album—has been nominated for upcoming awards in 2026. The three large works included on the album are Yanga for choir, percussion quartet, and orchestra, Dzonot, her cello concerto, and Seis Piezas a Violeta for string orchestra and piano. Yanga is inspired by the story of a 16th century African prince who was enslaved in Mexico. In addition to conventional orchestral percussion instruments, Ortiz has also orchestrated Yanga with instruments that historically arrived in Latin America from Africa via the traditions that enslaved people brought with them, including batás, guiros, shekeres. and cabasas. The album also includes Ortiz’s new cello concerto Dzonot—an LA Philharmonic commission—and is played on the album by cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Weilerstein gave the premiere of the concerto last season. The final piece is six movements inspired by Chilean composer Violeta Parra and polyrhythms traditional to Latin music. The original versions of the piece was commissioned by the Cuarteto Latinoamericano for their 20th anniversary, and then arranged for orchestra by request for Gustavo Dudamel. The album is available to stream via Tidal, Spotify, and Apple Music.
(LPO, July 2025) The London Philharmonic Orchestra released Tania León: Horizons, Raíces (Origins), Stride, Pasajes this year on their in-house label. The album features four pieces for orchestra—one vintage, three recent—by composer Tania León. León’s two-season residency with the orchestra completed in July 2025, and the orchestra has played these chosen pieces in recent years across the UK and Europe. The vintage piece, Horizons (1999), is a study in asynchronous rhythm from earlier in León’s career. Raíces (Origins) (2024), a co-commission between the London Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Brugge, explores León’s Latin heritage in three parts. Stride (2020) is her work inspired by both black music traditions from the Caribbean and United States and the work of Susan B. Anthony, it won a Pulitzer Prize. The final piece, Pasajes (2022), has four parts that celebrate the composer’s early years in Cuba. The album is available from the LPO store, on Tidal, Spotify, and Apple Music.
(Bandcamp, September 2025) Asuka Kakitani (Inatnas Music – BMI) released In The Nights, her most recent solo album displaying a collection of contemplative piano pieces. The album is particularly atmospheric for winter, with tracks titled “The Night of the First Snow,” “The Scattered Night,” “The Night Before Flying,” “The First Night I Held Her,” and “Some Purple Night.” The composer writes that “Together, these pieces offer an intimate glimpse into my inner world, where memory, emotion, and sound intertwine.” They reflect moments of contemplation and transformation that occur in large-scale and specific moments: the quietness of the first snowfall, experiencing sleeplessness during the very late hours of the night, and the anticipation of change that comes leading up to travel; and then the specific moments of when her daughter was born and a phrase she later assembled with magnets on the refrigerator. The album is performed by Shannon Wettstein (piano) and was recorded at Wild Sound Recording Studio, Minneapolis, MN. In the Nights as well as the rest of Kakitani’s music is available to purchase and stream on Bandcamp.
(Resonus, March 2025) One of my favorite albums of 2025, and one that could also have easily fit onto several of WPA’s end-of-year lists for this year, Errollyn Wallen – Orchestral Works brings seven of concert works by Errollyn Wallen (CBE) into the BBC Concert Orchestra’s recording studio. One of my recommendations for this album appears in I Care If You Listen’s Top Contemporary Classical and Experimental Albums of 2025. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m an Errolyn Wallen superfan, as readers who caught my review of her BBC Proms premiere of The Elements from this past summer might remember! 😀 The pieces on this album draw from Wallen’s 30-years-and-counting career, and the present a wholly joyful and high-spirited portrait of the composer. The World’s Weather (1999) is the oldest piece on the album, and Mighty River (2007) is also vintage; the remaining five pieces were composed between 2018 and 2023: Dances for Orchestra (movements I – XII; 2023) This Frame is Part of the Painting (2019), Fondant (2018), By Gis and By Saint Charity (2022), and Postcard for Magdalena (2020). The album streams via Tidal, Spotify, Idagio, and Apple Music.
Let us know who you’re listening to this season! Email us at info@wophil org.