Blue Griffin Recordings announces the July 24, 2026 release of Conversations, an album of chamber duos featuring oboe by Brian Raphael Nabors, Yusef Lateef, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Howard Levy. The album features oboist Jared Hauser, pianist Willis Delony, harpist Rachel Miller, and guitarist Richard Todd.
Conversations explores intersections between the distinctive voices of contemporary American composers and the luminous textures of French Impressionist composers through a unique pairing of oboe duos. At its core, the program is shaped by the expressive possibilities of musical partnership, works conceived as exchanges between two equal voices. The music of Ravel and Debussy, heard here in unique arrangements, offers a world of subtle color and poetic atmosphere, while compositions by Nabors and Levy contribute fresh perspectives to traditional forms, each unfolding as a dynamic interplay of lines within its own expansive sonic landscape. Lateef ’s compositional voice further broadens the album’s scope, drawing on global influences to create a sound that transcends tradition. Together, these works form a musical journey, illuminating the enduring power of melody, texture, imagination, and musical dialogue.
Framing the album are two sonatas for oboe and piano, alongside duo pairings of oboe d’amore and harp and oboe and guitar. These pairings bring forward distinctive timbral warmth and intimacy, along with the plucked sonorities associated with folk traditions.
Taken together, the works on this recording are unified not by period or genre but by a shared emphasis on color, lyricism, and immediacy of expression. Each piece reveals the duo as a uniquely responsive medium — capable of reflection, contrast, and collaboration — while traversing a wide range of stylistic terrain, from contemporary sonata writing to jazz-influenced idioms to the evocative subtlety of French Impressionism. Across these shifting traditions, the music unfolds as a series of dialogues, tracing a continuous thread of connection through sound.
Brian Raphael Nabors
Sonata for Oboe and Piano (2016)
I. Restless (6:34)
II. Contemplative (5:40)
III. Con moto (5:49)
Yusef Lateef
Romance for Oboe d’amore and Harp (1991)
I. With Love (2:31)
II. Cheerfully (3:37)
III. Freely (2:56)
Maurice Ravel (arr. Hauser/Todd)
Cinq Mélodies Populaires Grecques
I. Chanson de la mariée (1:54)
II. Là-bas, vers l’église (1:41)
III. Quel galant m’est comparable (0:55)
IV. Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques (2:46)
V. Tout gai (1:20)
Claude Debussy (arr. Hauser/Todd)
Arabesque No. 1 (5:02)
Arabesque No. 2 (4:10)
Howard Levy
Sonata for Oboe and Piano (2014)
I. (4:53)
II. (6:31)
III. (4:57)
