This production of Britten's most important song cycles for guitar and voice is released on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Britten wrote all these works for his longtime partner, Peter Pears, and the exceptionally talented guitarist Julian Bream. The works are heard here in a superb interpretation on this recording.
The live album by Syrian clarinettist Kinan Azmeh is dedicated to the memory of his father, who died in 2024, but it also celebrates the musical friendship between the four musicians, who first played together in New York in 2006. Many of the pieces on his album were composed during the Syrian uprising in 2011 and are characterised by anger and sadness, but also by unwavering optimism and hope. Azmeh is convinced that making music is an act of freedom and has ultimately prevailed against violence and tyranny in Syria.
Anatolijus senderovas, one of the most interesting voices in Lithuanian music, passed away in 2019. This production presents all the string trios by the composer, who was awarded the European Composer Prize in 2002. Senderovas had a lifelong friendship with cellist David Geringas, who can be heard here as cellist of the Grand Trio Vilnius. The piano trios represent the most important phases of senderovas' work: Beginning with Piano Trio No. 1, which the 26-year-old wrote while still under the influence of Dmitri Shostakovich's music, to the late works "Song and Dance" and "Pages from a forgotten book," which reveal a composer who has grappled intensively with the roots of his Jewish heritage.
With Wu Wei, Ingolf Burkhardt and Florian Weber, three outstanding musical personalities have come together in the Silk Jazz trio. Their music is created freely - no agreements, no notes, just pure listening and interaction. Over 90 tracks of freely improvised music were created during the recording session. With Into the unknown, the trio succeeds in developing a musical narrative from the sheer endless material that conveys the naturalness of playing together as well as the adventurousness and enthusiasm to search for and find new colours.
Aynur, the most prominent Kurdish singer of our time, represents Kurdish music heritage as a global genre and introduced it to the international music world. Aynur's music has received the acclaim of fellow artists. She has collaborated with acclaimed artists including world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Kayhan Kalhor, Javier Limón, Kinan Azmeh, the Nederland Blazers Ensemble, the NDR Bigband, and many more. She appears in one of the most remarkable scenes of Fatih Akin’s documentary “Crossing the Bridge / The Sound of Istanbul” and is part of Morgan Neville's documentary about Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, "The Music of Strangers”. Aynur has enthusiastic audiences in sold-out Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg as well as Carnegie Hall in NYC or Southbank Centre in London. In 2017, Aynur received the "Master of Mediterranean Music" Award in the category of “Mediterranean Women in Action” from the Berklee Mediterranean Music Institute. In 2021, she was awarded the "Womex Artist Award". Aynur's new album, RABE, features Chinese-American pipa star Wu Man as well as Michael League on guitars, Chris Jennings on bass, and many more. Like only exceptional artists do, Aynur is reaching listeners in all generations, she is connecting the young generation with the roots of Kurdish music, combining treasures of the past with a musical language of today. "She is a reason to love live music for centuries.” - Javier Limón
Yamen Saadi was born in Nazareth in 1997. He started to study the violin at the Barenboim-Said Conservatory in Nazareth, and after that began to study under the guidance of the renowned Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra Concertmaster, Chaim Taub. At only 11 years old, Saadi joined the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. 6 years later he served as concertmaster of the orchestra. VOICES FROM PARIS is the debut album of this outstanding young musician. Saadi is a numerous prize winner of competitions and scholarships such as 1st prize Aviv Competition, The Prince von Hessen Award, 1st prize Paul Ben Haim competition, 2nd prize Clermont competition, AICF scholarships. Saadi is currently playing on a violin made by Antonio Stradivari 1734, the “Ex Lord Amherst of Hackney, Ex Fritz Kreisler” and a beautiful Jacob Eury bow, both generously loaned to him by Stephan Jansen on behalf a member of the Stretton society. Born in 1995 to a family of musicians, Nathalia Milstein starts the piano at the age of 4 with her father Serguei Milstein, and completes her studies with Nelson Goerner at the Geneva Haute Ecole de Musique as well as with Sir András Schiff at the Barenboim-Saïd Akademie in Berlin. Nathalia launches her international career in 2015 by winning 1st Prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition and has been since then touring extensively around Europe, appearing in major concert halls and festivals, as well as with orchestra with, among other conductors, Mikko Franck, John Storgårds, and Arie van Beek. In 2017 she was awarded the Young Soloist Prize by the Médias Francophones Publics.
Sakina Teyna was born into a Kurdish Alevite family in the small town of Varto in Turkey. As a teenager, she started singing with Turkish choirs and bands, but it wasn't until she entered university that she became acquainted with Kurdish musical traditions and set out to defy cultural assimilation. In 1991, she joined the Mespotamian Cultural Centre in Istanbul, a proponent of Kurdish culture, as a vocalist. Like many other Kurdish musicians, she was forced to literally go underground to practise her music, and soon she had to choose political activism over art. It wasn't until Sakîna arrived in Austria as a political refugee in 2006 that she took to singing as a full-time pursuit again. The first fruit of her concentrated creative efforts was released in the form of her first solo album ROYE MI. Suret is the story of a photograph, of a face. A story that also whispers the silent tales of the faces hanging on the walls of almost every home in Kurdistan, or hidden away in the quiet pages of photo albums. Some people visit the living world only briefly-they depart before dawn breaks, before their names are spoken widely, before their faces become etched in the memories of others. (Sakina Teyna in the booklet accompanying this CD)
