Belarca was founded by American composer William Susman and is the label for the visionary OCTET ensemble. Its mission is to record and widely disseminate contemporary music by living composers who push artistic boundaries. With a catalogue of both concert works and film scores, Belarca maintains an impeccable recording quality and the highest standards in sound. Each album features extraordinary performances by some of the world's finest soloists and ensembles.
Since its founding in 2012, Belarca Records has released nine albums: Quiet Rhythms Live at Spectrum NYC with William Susman piano performing selections from his piano cycle, A Quiet Madness featuring Karen Bentley Pollick, Francesco Di Fiore, Stas Venglevski, and Patricia Zuber, Piccola Accademia degli Specchi's Collision Point, OCTET's inaugural Scatter My Ashes, Japanese pianist Erika Tazawa’s solo album debut Rhythm of Silence, Patricia and Greg Zuber's duo album debut Blackbird Redux: Duo Zuber and, award-winning film scores to Fate of the Lhapa, Oil On Ice, and the compilation Music for Moving Pictures including Native New Yorker, Tribeca Film Festival best documentary short.
Our past releases include albums with Pulitzer-prize winning, Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated composers, musicians and sound engineers. Our artists have performed with The Met opera Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, Verbier Festival Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and, at the leading concert halls and music festivals throughout the world.
Our 2014 release, Scatter My Ashes was no. 8 on Billboard and, our 2019 release Collision Point was no. 12. Our albums have been critically acclaimed in Gramophone, Fanfare, textura and consistently on "best of lists.” Our film scores have screened at over 50 film festivals worldwide including winning Best Documentary Short at The Tribeca Film Festival and honored at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. We have been featured on KCRW, WQXR, WNYC, WFMT, NPR, ABC, BBC, CBC, France Musique, ARTE Concert, ConcertZender and hundreds of radio stations worldwide.