To celebrate the Verdi bicentennial, La Fura dels Baus opened the "Centanario Festival 2013" of the Arena di Verona with a new production of “Aida”. The most popular opera of Verona Festival, Aida is the only one performed every year, in front of 17,000 spectators. Using their experience in leading large-scale shows, La Fura dels Baus created an Aida for the XXIst century. The young, talented conductor Omer Meir Wellber led the Orchestra, Coro, Corpo di Ballo e Tecnici dell’Arena di Verona.

This selection features Leontyne Price reading the story of 'Aida' along with highlights from the opera.
REVIEWS:
Opera News (5/00, p.82) - "...The narrative itself is completely successful. The plot has been reduced for clarity, but the characters maintain individuality....Most importantly, the directness, warmth and drama of Price's storytelling involve the listener irresistibly..."

Aïda Stucki's recognition as an artist is both inevitable and overdue. Her artistry is a timeless inspiration. Her interpretation incorporates bewitching sound, personal instinct coupled with great insight to the wishes of the composer. These recordings are a must for any string player and music lover. This second volume of her works shows her broad repertoire, and includes works from Brahms, Schumann, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Dvorak.

Hokum was a term from the '20s used to describe music full of double entendres dealing with sex, drinking and drugs, and thus no respectable person from the period would be caught dead listening to it! This compilation includes 20 tracks from The Hokum Boys, Banjo Joe and Blind Blake, featuring Hokum Blues; Gambler's Blues; Selling That Stuff; Jonestown Blues; He's in the Jailhouse Now, and more.

Put Pittsburgh guitarist Jimmy Ponder in a recording studio & he acts like a magnet attracting the best names in jazz - Don Braden, John Hicks, Dwayne Dolphin & Cecil Brooks III join him, swinging, dreaming, grooving & making beautiful bossa nova - the session combines the excitement of a club date with the control of the studio & shows why the Pittsburgh Post Gazette hailed Jimmy as "the Segovia of jazz".

Possibly the greatest orchestra of the 1930's swing era, the Count Basie Orchestra remained strong throughout the following decades, even beyond their leader's death in 1984. Winner of 17 Grammy awards, Basie's orchestra remains one of the most popular big bands in the world. The classic collection presented here was recorded in Chicago on October 20, 1969 and features Count Basie (piano), Freddie Green (guitar), Norman Keenan (bass), Harold Jones (drums), Gene Coe, Oscar Brasher, Sonny Cohn, Waymon Reed (trumpet), Grover Mitchell, Mel Wanzo (trombone), Bill Hughes (bass trombone), Eric Dixon, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (tenor sax), Marshall Royal, Bobby Plater (alto sax), Charlie Fawlkes (baritone sax). All selections newly remastered.

Drummer and bandleader Jim Black has been one of the most influential figures in progressive jazz since the nineties. In this new formation, Black brings together the young musicians Asger Nissen, Julius Gawlik, Felix Henkelhausen, who are among the most original and articulate voices of European jazz innovation, with the same basic instrumentation as two of the greatest bands Black has propelled and helped shape from behind the kit: Tim Berne's Bloodcount and the collective Endangered Blood. The music of this energetic quartet has a feverish intensity and from the first note the quartet's music goes straight for the jugular. Many influences and ideas come together without ever resorting to genre-hopping. "The music thrives on immediacy, and in some ways it's a visceral rejection of any kind of passivity", writes Peter Margasak in the liner notes.

Ain't No Sunshine is a previously unissued concert recordings from one of the greasiest and funkiest hammond b3 organists of all-time, Brother Jack McDuff. The album features his then working band saxphonists Leo Johnson and Dave Young, guitarist Vinnie Corrao and drummer Ron Davis. - The deluxe package includes an extensive booklet with essays by archival producer and label owner/producer/musician Cory Weeds, plus passages from Hammond organists Delvon Lamarr, Larry Goldings and Brian Charette; and rare photos and memorabilia. LP mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. - A marvelous bandleader and organist as well as capable arranger, "Brother" Jack McDuff has one of the funkiest, most soulful styles of all time on the Hammond B-3. His rock-solid basslines and blues-drenched solos are balanced by clever, almost pianistic melodies and interesting progressions and phrases. McDuff began as a bassist playing with Denny Zeitlin and Joe Farrell. He studied privately in Cincinnati and worked with Johnny Griffin in Chicago. He taught himself organ and piano in the mid-'50s, and began gaining attention working with Willis Jackson in the late '50s and early '60s, cutting high caliber soul-jazz dates for Prestige. McDuff made his recording debut as a leader for Prestige in 1960, playing in a studio pickup band with Jimmy Forrest. They made a pair of outstanding albums: Tough Duff and The Honeydripper. McDuff organized his own band the next year, featuring Harold Vick and drummer Joe Dukes. Things took off when McDuff hired a young guitarist named George Benson.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra joins Ukrainian pianist Svetlana Andreeva, conducted by Sergey Neller, to record works by French composer Christian Schittenhelm. The author of numerous musicals performed throughout France and Europe, he is also the creator of a rich symphonic and concerto output. The lush sonorities of Air, his fourth piano concerto, and his symphonic poem Dawn, to which the musicians of the RSNO lend their sumptuous color, meet here with Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune, which completes this triptych.

Air reveals the unbelievable game-changing partnership between rookie NBA superstar Michael Jordan and Nike's fledgling basketball division, which revolutionized the world of sports and culture with the Air Jordan brand. Air (Amazon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) takes listeners back to the '80s with favorites from Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, REO Speedwagon, The Clash, Night Ranger, Dire Straits, Squeeze and many more.

Spooky sounds and ghostly wailings are usually what come to mind when people imagine the sound of the theremin. With “Air Électrique”, Thorwald Jorgensen and Kamilla Bystrova go beyond the novelty of the theremin and let the music speak for itself. With the premier recording of Lera Auerbach’s “10 Preludes for theremin and piano”, the standard of the album is set. This compositional tour-de-force presents colourful melodic music which exploits the unique characteristics of both the theremin and the piano. The angular modernism of Lydia Kavina’s “Suite for theremin and piano” and Olesya Rostovskaya’s haunting “Juliet” show more of the theremin’s unrivalled sonic possibilities, clearly illustrating what is possible with this combination of instruments. The album also presents two chamber music pieces. The first is the world premiere of Joseph Schillinger’s “Bury, Bury me Wind”, in which Thorwald and Kamilla are joined by mezzo soprano, Itzel Medecigo. The other is the spectacular “Fantasy for theremin, xylophone and piano” by Valery Beluntsov, in which Thorwald plays not only the theremin but also the virtuosic xylophone part. All in all “Air Électrique” is an album for both lovers of the theremin and piano, and lovers of music in general.