It’s been a sensational month for science geeks. First, the super moon, and now “Inside the Hubble Toolbox,” the centerpiece of the outstanding new Portals and Passages. A collaboration between composer Ethan Wickman and pianist Nicholas Phillips, the solo piano collection presents a remarkable dialogue between Wickman’s textural prowess and the likes of Bach and Beethoven.

“How about that tango from Scent of a Woman?” may be one of the most commonly heard requests to Chicago piano freelancers. Had Al Pacino’s improbable footwork been set to a waltz, it’s likely “Por una Cabeza” would not be sitting atop wedding reception request lists. This enigmatic dance, with its passionate alternations of restraint and eruption, is instantly distinguishable, and the focus of Chicagoan Amy Briggs’ latest.

It’s fitting that Useless Creatures opens with the clip-clop of hooves given that the mention of his name instantly calls to mind Andrew Bird perched delicately atop a saddle, his riding crop embroidered with some synonym for “ennui.” A rerelease of the once-limited-edition bonus CD to 2009’s Noble Beast, these nine instrumental tracks are decidedly less precious than their counterpart, due primarily to the absence of lexical drive-bys like the rhyming of “plecostomus” with “posthumous.”

Like the Ground Zero chamber-music impromptus by Juilliard students during the September 11 rescue operations, composer Ted Hearne’s Katrina Ballads is an act of artistic empathy. Whereas the former sought simply to offer solace, Hearne’s song cycle serves as an exquisitely written, if caustic, reminder of the inert and fatuous responses by government officials in the wake of the hurricane.

Considering all the Botox, paparazzi and Mel Gibson, calling L.A. the “City of Angels” seems a stretch. But for Arvo Pärt, the nickname seemed serendipitous. The composer had been contemplating writing a piece based on Church Slavonic texts pertaining to guardian angels before the L.A. Philharmonic and its then music director Esa-Pekka Salonen came calling for a new work.

Tearing the air open with a shveee…GUNNGGG, composer Nico Muhly launches his latest, I Drink the Air Before Me, like a bottle rocket on “Fire Down Below.” A whip of flute streaks skyward into bursts of piano and trombone.

Being born into a famous family can be a blessing or a curse. For Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of classical composition titan Sergei, the surname can lead to both increased attention and unfair expectations. Fortunately, the handle has been no hindrance. Hot on the heels of his excellent 2009 release, Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra, the hip modern composer, DJ and Nonclassical label founder returns with Piano Book No. 1, a compelling collaboration with Ukrainian pianist GéNIA, for whom the scores were written.
 

As the recording industry grapples with the reluctance of music lovers to pony up for tunes, one obvious remedy is the production of swanky packaging. And pianist Michael Lewin’s first release with the Dorian Sono Luminus label rewards paying customers with a beauty of an album. Bound as a miniature hardcover book, If I Were a Bird: A Piano Aviary brims with paintings by John J. Audubon as well as the performer’s own program notes for each of these 20 ambrosial vignettes.

Looking like a page torn from Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell, Rembrandt’s 1653 sketch The Three Crosses served as the inspiration for Frank Martin’s landmark oratorio, Golgotha. During the worldwide tumult of 1945, the Swiss composer began to transform a diminutive 15"?x?18" etching into a 90-minute leviathan for mixed choir, vocal soloists, organ and orchestra.

MC Maguire’s moniker sounds like that of a rapper, and there is indeed a sampler’s mind-set at work in the Canadian postmodernist’s brainy mishmashes. The composer’s mission statement, per his website, is to save art from extinction via “reevaluation of high-art aesthetics in the light of popular culture’s ubiquitous, formulaic infectiousness.” The tone of the opening track on MC Maguire’s latest, Trash of Civilizations, mirrors Girl Talk’s ADHD cutting-and-pasting but replaces the whimsy with kaffiyeh-wearing grad-student pretension and moody video-game scores.

New York label Orange Mountain Music’s latest, Philip Glass’s A Madrigal Opera, proffers fans of the minimalist icon perhaps the most incompetent handling of the composer’s music pressed to disc. The cycling arpeggios found throughout Glass’s scores are admittedly more difficult to play accurately on a string instrument than the fixed-pitch piano or keyboard, but for the eight-minute solo “Opening,” violinist Linda Hedlund’s intonation is a veritable moving target. Few violinists possess the facility of a Gidon Kremer, whose shimmering 1993 recording of the composer’s Concerto for Violin combines staggering virtuosity with technical acumen, but Hedlund’s wayward pitch here is exacerbated by a flat reading that is more Kreutzer étude than overture.

Was it trademark infringement that drove Owen Pallett to drop his Final Fantasy moniker? Or perhaps a worry that zealous PlayStation gamers might start showing up at his gigs demanding “One-Winged Angel”? His new label, Domino, would have us believe the former, but the Toronto violinist-singer’s writing has matured beyond video-game nostalgia with his latest and choicest to date, Heartland.

The charming title of percussionist-composer John Hollenbeck’s new album refers to the multicolored sprinkles atop mounds of ice cream. The 41-year-old composed the title track in celebration of his marriage engagement, and the deliberately out-of-phase teams of vibraphone/drums and guitar/clarinet/accordion indeed conjure the image of tiny cylinders of sugar cascading from spoon to dish.

“At one point during our recording session, Ben’s bow exploded!” Calder Quartet violist Jonathan Moerschel tells us of first violinist Benjamin Jacobson. The L.A.-based group is fortunate that horsehair was the lone casualty of the sessions for its outstanding latest release, Transfiguration. The word brutal is often used to describe the compositions of Christopher Rouse, whose String Quartets No. 1 and 2 and “Compline” are pressed to CD here for the first time.

Say what you will about the nausea-inducing style of director Eduardo Sánchez’s debut horror effort, The Blair Witch Project—it set a definite tone. The film also inaugurated the collaboration of Sánchez and longtime friend Antonio Cora, a mysterious Miami-based composer who shuns publicity and contributed an original work to Josh’s Blair Witch Mix, a goth and industrial-laden soundtrack inspired by the film.

For the Cuban-born director’s 2009 foray into Chinese lunar mythology, Seventh Moon, Sánchez commissioned Kent Sparling, sound designer for Skywalker Sound, to collaborate with Cora. The two were instructed to eschew any traditional Chinese melodies or stereotypes and instead work with an ambient and non-orchestral palette.

It’s been a tough year for our city: Blago and his dead-beaver ’do, the Olympic bid, Captain Interception (a.k.a. Jay Cutler). Fortunately, in the classical world, things have been rosier. Composer George Flynn’s latest release is a reminder that Chicago still boasts more uplifting heroes than indicted officials.

Violist Kim Kashkashian’s 16th recording for ECM, Neharót, meanders through a menagerie of culture-specific laments and prayer-song (Armenian, Israeli and Kurdish, among others). The record’s most compelling track, Israeli composer Betty Olivero’s “Neharót, Neharót” (Hebrew for “rivers, rivers”), refers to the streams of tears shed for the victims of Lebanese violence in 2006.

“Arvo Pärt’s music is a house on fire and an infinite calm,” posits R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. The magnificent opening of ECM New Series’ In Principio is the blaze of creation, not immolation. Voices cry out into the darkness, “In the beginning was the Word,” as Zarathustra-like timpani thunder the universe into existence.

Fortunately for classical music, industry awards carry an air of legitimacy that’s often lacking from any pop Grammys or the Oscars. There’s no classical equivalent to the Recording Academy’s conclusion that in three of the last ten years, the Foo Fighters made the single finest rock album. In the case of David Lang’s 2008 Pulitzer-winning The Little Match Girl Passion, evidence of what drew the jury to honor this haunting work immediately springs from the speakers.