Recordings

Release Date: August 11, 2023
Record Label: Navona Records (NV6550)
Performers: Trio Casals

With music echoing themes of persistence in the face of adversity, calls for reflection and attention on acts of injustice, and more, A GRAND JOURNEY VOL. 2 delivers resounding chamber music from a diverse range of contemporary composers. Performed by the critically-acclaimed Trio Casals, this Navona Records release offers a variety of sounds, from traditional classical forms to jazz-infused rhythms, mixed meters, and a deeply-moving piece for solo cello.

Release Date: April 8, 2022
Record Label: Navona Records NV6413
Performers: Anna Kislitsyna, piano

Time and Again, written for Anna Kislitsyna for her new Navona album PIANO SPECTRUMS premiere at Anna’s solo recital at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall on June 24, 2022.

Release Date: October 23, 2020
Record Label: Navona Records NV6315
Performers: Sirius Quartet

Bruce Babcock opens the album with Watcher of the Sky, a piece commissioned to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the birth of American astronomer George Ellery Hale. Four movements chronicle the astronomer’s achievements throughout the course of his career: the listener follows the rise from humble beginnings to great discoveries, always enveloped in a sense of marvel at the infinity of outer space.

Release Date: June 12, 2020
Record Label: Navona Records NV6289
Performers: Gloria Cheng

Ovidiu Marinescu’s Rorrim for cello and piano makes the start. Loosely based on a motif by Johann Sebastian Bach, it could be called a concept piece: its title, “mirror” spelled backwards, is reflective of the mirrorings and variations of Bach’s fragment therein. Bruce Babcock continues on a similar note with his riskily-titled Alternative Facts, a piece for solo piano characterized by a deceptively simple, mechanical main rhythm repeated in complex harmonies. As announced in the title, a deliberate systematic confusion prevails, and with astonishing accuracy.

Release Date: January 10, 2020
Record Label: Navona Records NV6265
Performers: Lindsey Goodman

A short one-movement piece, Soliloquy alternates between sections with and without meter, ranges in tempo from very slow to very fast, and explores all registers of the instrument. As the title implies, the piece is essentially an interior self-dialogue.

Release Date: July 12, 2019
Record Label: Navona Records NV6239
Performers: Altius Quartet

Quadrants Vol. 3 begins with Bruce Babcock’s The Present Moment. Richly harmonic, the piece is filled with themes that develop and recur like memories changing over time.

Release Date: June 28, 2019
Record Label: Navona Records NV6218
Performers: The Crossing | Donald Nally

Bruce Babcock’s meditative Be Still reflects on Psalm 46:10, with shimmering textures throughout the five-minute meditation on just eight words.

Release Date: May 11, 2018
Record Label: Navona Records NV6156
Performers: Trio Casals

Imagined/Remembered is tonal in nature and is characterized once again by linear melodic writing and unusual meters. The first movement is the most song-like. It was described by a jazz pianist friend of mine as a unique manifestation of “rhythm without pulse.” The second movement is the slowest and also the most dark and dramatic. The third movement is both the most energetic and virtuosic for the cello. It ends with a propulsive burst of exuberant momentum.

Release Date: September 8, 2017
Catalog #: NV6107
Performers: Douglas Masek, David Speltz, Louise Thomas

Irrational Exuberance, for alto saxophone, cello, and piano, is thematic and rhythmically active, and features conversational imitation between its three instruments. Although interior sections of Irrational Exuberance are more subdued, Babcock’s work is markedly hopeful and confident.

Release Date: July 8, 2016
Record Label: Navona Records NV6050
Performers: The Wembley Players

Babcock’s Event Horizon is the most abstract and dissonant of the album, using delicate and fluid orchestral textures to express momentum and arrival.

Release Date: April 14, 2015
Record Label: Navona Records NV5998

Don’t mistake the inference in the title of Emmy Award-winning composer Bruce Babcock’s multi-faceted new Navona Records album TIME, STILL – the music is serious and contemplative at points to be sure, but the effervescence of Babcock’s metrically shifting style and sound percolates to the surface throughout.

Release Date: April 27, 2010
Record Label: KlavierK11180
Performers: The Debussy Trio

SpringScape was judged to be the winning entry in the 2006 Debussy Trio Composition Competition. The combination of harp, viola, and flute is both beautiful and challenging. SpringScape is cast in a single movement with a fast-slow-fast structure. Predominantly in 3/4 time, there are also recurring sections in 7/8. The piece is upbeat and emphasizes melody throughout.

Release Date: March 31, 2009
Record Label: Centaur CRC 2865
Performers: Douglas Masek

Irrational Exuberance, for alto saxophone, cello, and piano, is thematic and rhythmically active, and features conversational imitation between its three instruments. Although interior sections of Irrational Exuberance are more subdued, Babcock’s work is markedly hopeful and confident.