Februarys’s New Album Releases 2026
18/2/2026
Continuing the fruitful collaboration with Harmonia Mundi, Gustavo Gimeno and Toronto Symphony Orchestra ascend the heights of two of Bartók’s musical peaks: his dazzling Concerto for Orchestra and infamous Miraculous Mandarin, here presented in its complete version. As a pendant, the sediments by Canadian composer Emilie Cecilia LeBel, commissioned by the Orchestra, is a fascinating meditation on nature, its stratas, and the collective memory it holds within.
Released on Platoon, on February 20, Willows is the new album from violinist, conductor and composer Pekka Kuusisto and Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. The centerpiece of the recording is a quietly radical re-imagining of The Lark Ascending — stripping away a century of accumulated sentiment to reveal the quiet subversion at the heart of Vaughan Williams’s score. Recorded during a period marked by profound personal loss, Kuusisto’s performance is a searching response to music long weighed down by its own mythology. Alongside The Lark Ascending is Ellen Reid’s Desiderium for solo violin, Caroline Shaw’s crystalline Plan & Elevation, arranged for chamber orchestra. The album also stars American folk singer Sam Amidon, whose songs have been arranged for ensemble by Nico Muhly.
Named for a tree whose light is never still, Willows is an album about remembrance, and the power of music to hold space for the past while pointing us toward the present.
“Bruckner in close-up and with full force” – this was the headline of the Hamburger Abendblatt in September 2024 after the concert of the SWR Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado at the Elbphilharmonie, where Anton Bruckner’s Te Deum was also on the programme. The Te Deum and Bruckner’s Mass No. 3 now appear together on an album with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Vocal Ensemble, and the WDR Radio Choir under Heras-Casado’s baton. Also featured are outstanding soloists such as Daniel Behle, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Matthew Rose, and Christina Landshamer, among others. The recording, made in 2024 and 2025, is released on 13 February by SWR Music.
Stream now on Spotify and Apple Music.
On 6 February 2026, Ksenija Sidorova released her new album Prophecy on Alpha Classics.
With these works for accordion and orchestra, Ksenija Sidorova and Paavo Järvi pay tribute to the music of the Baltic countries.
The Latvian and Estonian musicians, with a long-standing collaboration of over ten years, recorded this album in July 2024 in Pärnu with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, an ensemble created by Järvi, bringing together the best of Estonian talent and leading musicians from around the world.
Erkki-Sven Tüür’s concerto Prophecy explores the concept of the Seer, a person who can see the future but is often despised by the society in which they live. Prophecy exploits the full power and range of the symphony orchestra, in total interconnection with the soloist: “It’s the most technically complicated work I’ve ever played!” says Ksenija.
The album also features the world premiere recording of Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits’s accordion concerto Dances, written for Sidorova and premiered in Pärnu in 2024, and The Fruit of Silence by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, arranged by George Morton for accordion and orchestra and recorded for the first time on this album.
The album was featured on France Musique’s Le Disque contemporain de la semaine.
Listen and share: Spotify • Apple Music Classical • YouTube.
Buy/stream via the label: Outhere / Alpha Classics.
February saw three releases featuring Hugh Tieppo-Brunt, seeing him act as conductor. In Wuthering Heights, Tieppo-Brunt is credited and conductor and additional orchestrator to Anthony Willis’ stunning score of Emerald Fennell’s successful film.
In Crime 101, Tieppo-Brunt conducted and orchestrated for Blanck Mass’ tense and pulsating score, released on Lakeside Records. Finally Tieppo-Brunt worked alongside Rob Simonsen and Dan Romer, releasing orchestral cues from the the iconic series Stranger Things.
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