Releasing Music - Our Passion

We're all about percussion (classical percussion, drums...) and mallet instruments (marimba, vibraphone...), from solo pieces to larger ensemble works of varying degrees of difficulty, from educational works to concert pieces, from original compositions to arrangements. This repertoire will be published in the 'Percussion Series'.

Besides this we're happy to announce the 'HarpLine' Edition has finally been added to our publication range - check it out.

Most of our sheet music is available in both download (printable PDF) and print versions. Our catalogue gives you a quick overview of all our publications, including our sheet music range and music productions. 

Despite the term "record label", we've only released two physical sound discs -> by Duo SeidenStrasse with the enthusiasm of beginners. With the significant increase in music streaming and to avoid further high costs, we've been releasing music productions exclusively in digital form since 2020. We mainly release in the genres Alternative, Indie Pop, World & Asian Crossover, Electronic, Dance, Ambient and Meditation, depending on our own ambitions and preferences. Join us on a sound journey of an unusual kind and check out our music titles. 

NEW published Solos for Harp 

composed by Chanyuan Zhao 

Just right before Christmas it is done: we are proud to announce the release of our first 'HarpLine' publication »Little Dreams for Harp«, a wonderful little collection of cute concert pieces from the pen of Chaya Zhao to get your imagination going. Here are a few extracts from the content that illustrate the music: »The Lost Dream« Everyone has beautiful dreams. Through time and life, we sometimes lose them or forget to dream at all. Perhaps this little piece will be able to catch a dream, like a shooting star, and make it bloom in the moment. »Little Bird in the City« A little bird in a big city - noisy, cramped, fast - dreams of freedom in the open - mountain air, babbling brooks, rustling leaves - yet born and safe - between canyons of houses. »Blue Garden« I dreamed of a wondrous, mysterious garden, full of blue flowers and bluish grasses, a fantastic place of relaxation, meditation, healing, refreshment - a return to life. (...) »Spanish Dancer« It is not so much the rhythmic movement of her feet, the flowing ruffles of her skirt or the fiery, jet-black curls that burn her emotions into the memory of the spellbound audience, but rather her hands, drawing filigree figures in the air.

NEW published Percussion Duet 

composed by Karl Matthias Goebel 

The composer about the creation of the piece: "While looking for a third competition piece (Jugend musiziert), I realised that there are hardly any duos that celebrate the sound world of classical orchestral percussion instruments." 

Yes, this celebration is echoed in the variety of orchestral percussion instruments used in »A Classy Job« - just a great introduction to chamber music in the style of Bartók.

 Cello-Suites 1-3 by Johann Sebastian Bach

arranged for Marimba by Christian Roderburg

The six cello-suites are the most frequently performed compositions for a solo string instrument today and are available in numerous arrangements for other instruments. Christian Roderburg's recordings of the Bach cello suites in 1995 and 1997 were first released on CD on the Cybele label and will be available as remastered version in 2025 on all streaming stores released by our label Ars Metaphonia.

Ars Metaphonia is an independent record label and music publisher based in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. To be precise, we are a two-person company, founded in 2012 by percussionist Benjamin Leuschner and harpist, zheng player and singer Chaya Zhao (www.harfenecho.de). When we were looking for a way to professionally publish the debut album of our ‘Duo SeidenStrasse’ (Artist Website), we decided to put everything on its own feet, to have full control, to be self-sufficient. Over what felt like a hundred pages, we came up with the current logo as a lively calligraphy, which was meant to reflect our East Asian-Western musical symbiosis. More scribble sheets filled up with names, and eventually we settled on ‘Ars Metaphonia’, which is a conglomerate of our search for the sound & art between the lines, between the cultures, and its continuous changing. We create and produce what we like and what we can identify with, which makes our label and music publisher a very individual footprint – off the commercial track.