The original score for Ken Burns’s two-part documentary LEONARDO da VINCI, with new compositions by Caroline Shaw, features performances by the composer’s longtime collaborators Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion, and Roomful of Teeth as well as John Patitucci. Shaw wrote and recorded new music for LEONARDO da VINCI, marking the first time a Ken Burns film has featured an entirely original score. The film is directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, who says: “Caroline’s existing body of music—joyful, daring, at times transcendent, and wholly unique—seemed to speak directly to Leonardo, a seeking soul who, 500 years after his death, can come across as strikingly modern ... The music Caroline created is dynamic, enthralling and filled with wonder."

"This song is one we’ve known forever and have loved, partly because of its vivid storytelling but also the incredible string arrangement," the Staves' Jessica and Camilla Staveley say of The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home," of which they made an acoustic recording. "We realized that there are actually no harmonies on this song, only the two voices of Lennon and McCartney singing—it felt like a sign."

Jeremy Denk's album Ives Denk, released in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Ives' birth, features the composer's four violin sonatas, performed with violinist Stefan Jackiw, as well as remastered versions of his Sonatas No. 1 and 2 for piano, from Denk's 2010 debut recording, Jeremy Denk Plays Ives. "Mr. Denk's playing exuded affinity for Ives and vivid imagination," the New York Times says of a performance. "Mr. Jackiw, deftly balancing fervor and elegance, beautiful tone and earthy colorings, proved a comparably inspired Ivesian."

Portuguese fado singer Carminho's EP Carminho at Electrical Audio was recorded in collaboration with the late Steve Albini at his iconic Electrical Audio studio in Chicago in October 2023. “Anyone who worked with Steve Albini knows of his humble authenticity and dedication towards perfecting raw sound," Carminho says. "He made the recordings sound as if we were performing in a fado house in Lisbon." 

Composer/guitarist Yasmin Williams' Nonesuch debut album, Acadia, her most sonically expansive work to date, is nine original, mostly instrumental tracks written and produced by Williams, and features her on various guitars, banjo, calabash drum, tap shoes, and kora. She is joined by an eclectic cast of collaborators—including Immanuel Wilkins, Dom Flemons, Aoife O’Donovan, William Tyler, Darlingside, and others—creating a folk music that reflects the wide range of musical influences that have inspired her throughout her life. "Yasmin Williams treats her guitar like a playground," says NPR Music, naming her its Breakthrough Artist of 2021, noting the “joy and possibility she brings to the guitar.” Songlines calls her “an original, a genuine trailblazer, one of those rare musicians who challenges your preconceptions about the possible.”

Composer/performer Gabriel Kahane celebrates Playwright’s Horizons' fall 2024 production of intimate solo musical plays drawing from his acclaimed albums Magnificent Bird and Book of Travelers with the release of "Give Us the Ballot," a previously unreleased song he wrote in October 2020, during the final month of a year spent off the internet, at the height of the pandemic.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway's six-song EP Into the Wild, a follow-up to their Grammy-winning and critically acclaimed 2023 album, City of Gold, features three new songs—the title track, “Getaway Girl,” and a cover of Kate Wolf’s “Here in California”—as well as previously released covers of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” and an alternate version of the City of Gold track “Stranger Things.”

Rhiannon Giddens joins forces with singer-songwriter Crys Matthews and the Resistance Revival Chorus for a reimagining of folk icon Peggy Seeger’s “How I Long for Peace,” released for National Voter Registration Day 2024, in partnership with Joy To The Polls and HeadCount. “Rhiannon, Crys, and Company have done an amazing interpretation of my song," Seeger says. "Thank you, Rhiannon, as always—now it’s on its way!” "I have been a longtime Peggy Seeger fan," Giddens says, "and think she has written an incredible song that says some hard but crucial things and most importantly allows space for us all to wish for a better world.”