Discography

Available Recordings


LOVE LETTERS Christian-Pierre la Marca, cello
Released: August 2, 2024
NAÏVE V7364 (2 CDs)
Michelle Barzel Ross: Désenvoyé (2024), written for Christian-Pierre la Marca

LOVE LETTERS
The love letters of the title are both the missives and the music which Robert and Clara Schumann wrote for each other during their long courtship and subsequent marriage. French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca has devised a two-disc tribute to the pair, with the emotion behind the letters convincingly brought alive in his playing.
 

Reviews

Gramophone Review for Désenvoyé, January 2025
”I've especially enjoyed the many shapes and colours of the echoes across Ross's wistful Désenvoyé ('Unsent'), inspired by Schumann's hidden voices and the world of 'unsent' longings, with further references to Webern's little pieces for cello and piano.”

By Janet Banks, The Strad, January 2, 2025
“Ever the innovator, La Marca includes his own arrangements of works by Clara as well as some contemporary perspectives on the love letter theme. … Ross’s very effective Désenvoyé (‘Unsent’), with overtones of Webern, has the two instruments coming together then spiralling into space.”

 

HERS Carr-Petrova Duo
Released: March 8, 2024
Michelle Barzel Ross: Where Things Weigh Nothing at All, for viola and piano

HERS
Described as “ravishing” (Strad), “enlightened” (BBC), “explosive” (Virginia Gazette), and “irresistibly elegant” (Diario de Leon), violist Molly Carr and pianist Anna Petrova have compiled a remarkable list of accolades in recognition of their fiery musical expression, refined artistry, and relentless entrepreneurial dedication to social initiatives.
  
 

Reviews

Textura Review for Where Things Weigh Nothing at All , June 2024
"The contemporary compositions make a powerful impact too. Its title taken from a line in Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Where Things Weigh Nothing at All was composed by Ross in 2020... she is ideally suited for this album project...Pitched at a hush and with the instruments engaged in dialogue throughout, the piece swells from its fragile beginning into a dramatically intense and harmonically bright statement, momentum passionately building to two peaks until the music falls back into a less frenzied state...The affection Carr and Petrova have for the composers, be they living colleagues or late groundbreakers, shows in their deep engagement with the material and the seriousness with which they give voice to their creations. While these formidable composers and performers might have emerged during different time periods, they're united by the fearlessness of their expressions, and HERS thus registers as a triumph on more than performance grounds alone."

 

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons With Eric Jacobsen and The Odyssey Orchestra
Epidemic Sound
Streaming available on December 8, 2023

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

 

[IN]VERSE Arlen Hlusko & Fall for Dance North
Released: March 10, 2023
Michelle Barzel Ross: Haiku

[IN]VERSE
Arlen Hlusko’s album [in]verse is co-produced with Toronto's premier international dance festival Fall for Dance North and features music curated by Hlusko and poetry readings by Canadian and International dancemakers. Hlusko's second album also features guest performances by Francis Carr, Lun Li and Vicky Chow.

  
 

The Whale Song Released: February 11, 2022
Buy Album + Streaming

The Whale Song originated from my own improvisations and explorations with a cello. It begins with a chant inspired by Hildegard Von Bingen. It is a story of a Whale and Monks.
Sæunn is from Iceland, and so I wanted to incorporate an element of folklore in her piece. As I was working, a myth came to me: The Whale swallows the Monks, sinks, and they chant exuberantly from within.

The Whale Song explores contrasts and shadows, linear and non-linear qualities, blurring and expanding the edges between abstract and concrete. The cellist explores the infinite dimensionality and expressiveness of fundamentals and overtones with both the bow and the left hand; teetering on this edge between form and abstraction of a note, the cello can sound like it is sighing, crying, yearning.

'Ablaze' is driven by a conflict between a rhythmic, microtonal theme, and the regal theme of the Whale. There are two conflicting momentums of the movement: large sweeping lines of brilliant rhythmic drive, interrupted by moments of inversion and sorrow. This conflict of contrasts propels the movement.

The Chorale is the culmination of the yearning theme fully realized, and moves towards unity between the natural world, the spiritual, and mankind.

An electronic Shadow emerges from niente after the final Chorale chord, as if the chant is swirling in our own minds, as it may have been echoing for thousands of years.

Composed by Michelle Ross, 2020
Performed by Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello

I Care If You Listen Video Premiere: The Whale Song by Michelle Ross

   Buy Album + Streaming
 

Reviews

Interview with the VIolin Channel
Violin Channel, February 22, 2022
The new EP was released on February 11, 2022, and was accompanied by a video by Lembit Beecher. The work originated from New-York based violinist and composer Michelle Ross' own improvisations and explorations with a cello. It begins with a chant inspired by Hildegard Von Bingen, telling a story of a whale and monks. The Violin Channel recently discussed the new piece with Ross.

postrockcafe, A Closer Listen, February 18, 2022
"This fever dream of a release should catapult her into a new career phase"

 

Virtuoso violinist Michelle Ross brings her joy and love of Bach to these performances.

Discovering Bach: Complete Violin Sonatas & Partitas Released: March 1, 2017
Albany Records (TROY1662-63)

Discovering Bach/Michelle Ross
Violinist and composer Michelle Ross is unique as both a solo artist and collaborative visionary. In 2013, she had her Carnegie Hall debut with Maestro Harry Bicket, and her European debut as both soloist and conductor with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris as part of Play/Direct, in Cité de la Musique. She is the recipient of the 2012 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts. A noted soloist and chamber musician, Ross is also in demand as guest concertmaster around the world with recent highlights including appearances with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National du Capitol de Toulouse and the Orchestre d'Auvergne. Ross is the Artistic Director and Founder of Music in the Mountains. A graduate of Juilliard and Columbia, her teachers include Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman. Ross says that "As a performer, my moments of greatest joy occur when I play Bach. I love to bring this music into unusual settings, allowing an intersection between countless strangers and this infinite plane of beauty…Every moment with this music, I learn something new about myself as an artist. One must be completely honest in front of Bach, and bring courage and love to this music."

 

Reviews

Jed Distler, ClassicsToday, July 2017
Artistic Quality: 8
Sound Quality: 9
"The delicacy and control with which Ross separates the A minor sonata Andante’s accompaniment and melody truly impresses, while the D minor Partita’s monumental chaconne moves in long, pliable arcs that enhance the overall drama and illuminate the music’s extraordinary harmonic terrain. No doubt this release represents a significant achievement for an interesting and serious-minded violinist, and I look forward to seeing where she goes from here."

 

Samuel Adler: Chamber and Instrumental Music Released: December 3, 2021
Toccata Classics (TOCC0624)

Samuel Adler: Chamber and Instrumental Music
The works of Samuel Adler – born in Mannheim in 1928 but long since one of the leading figures of American music – are both modern and approachable: they blend an edgy angularity with long flights of lyrical melody, and are often informed with both a buoyant charge of energy and an impish sense of humour. This conspectus of his chamber and instrumental music covers almost sixty years of his activity as a composer and thus presents a kind of portrait in sound.

 

Michelle Ross, violin (Tracks 2–6, 9–11)
Michael Brown, piano (Tracks 1–4, 6–11)
Cassatt Quartet (Track 12)
Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower, violins
Ah Ling Neu, viola
Elizabeth Anderson, cello

 

Reviews

Textura, April 2024
"Adler's fortunate to have as stellar a violinist as Michelle Ross in his corner for this release...who impresses on three pieces alone and as her partner on three violin sonatas. She also plays unaccompanied but on one piece only, 2012's In Memory of Milton, Adler's tribute to Milton Babbitt...Delivered with intense feeling and consummate poise by Ross, the compact Babbitt piece hews to an ABA form with an agitated central section framed by slow, lyrical episodes...the central “Lento espressivo” offsets its playfulness with lyrical poignancy beautifully rendered by Ross..Ross and Brown sustain a powerful connection throughout the sixteen-minute performance, regardless of whether the passages are torrential, plaintive, or brooding."

 

Jon Batiste | WE ARE Released: January 22, 2021
Verve

Jon Batiste | WE ARE
Congratulations to my friend Jon Batiste for your profound new album WE ARE! I am humbled and honored to be playing with you on Movement 11, and to be a part of this incredible album. Album Review

“Movement 11” was nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition
Complete Nominations List

Listen to MOVEMENT 11’
Listen to WORK IT OUT

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