Music by Oscar Winner Alexandre Desplat (The Shape of Water, The Grand Budapest Hotel)Starring Joe Alwyn, Golden Globe Winner Oscar Isaac, Mélanie Laurent & Oscar Winner Ben Kingsley MGM’s razor-sharp thriller, Operation Finale, brings to life one of the most daring covert operations in modern history. Starring Golden Globe® winner Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Ex Machina) and Academy Award® winner Sir Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Schindler’s List), and the film vividly captures the ingenious and brilliantly executed mission to capture Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust.Fifteen years after the end of World War II, acting on irrefutable evidence, a top-secret team of Israeli agents travel to Argentina where Eichmann (Kingsley) has been in hiding together with his family under the alias “Ricardo Klement” and execute an extremely dangerous abduction. In attempting to sneak him out of Argentina to stand trial in Israel while being pursued by the country’s right-wing forces, agent Peter Malkin (Isaac) is forced to engage Eichmann in an intense and gripping game of cat-and-mouse with life-and-death stakes.Operation Finale is directed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Twilight Saga: New Moon) from a screenplay by Matthew Orton. Oscar Isaac is also a producer, along with Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger under their Automatik company and Jason Spire’s Inspire Entertainment.Alexandre Desplat says about the soundtrack: “Writing a score for the abduction of Adolf Eichmann has been a tremendous challenge. Chris and I tried to bring the audience into the mind of the Mossad squad, struggling to succeed in one of the most famous chases of a Nazi official; a criminal with no regrets or remorse whatsoever, hidden in Argentina. Organizing the train transports of Jews throughout Europe and supervising their systematic killings in villages or forests were some of Eichmann’s tasks. The music I composed tries to modestly capture these elements of tragedy and madness. A group of 10 percussionists leads the London Symphony Orchestra into a Mephistophelian dance.”ABOUT ALEXANDRE DESPLATComposer, orchestrator and conductor Alexandre Desplat is a two-time Academy Award® winner, nine-time Academy Award® Nominee, with over hundred scores and numerous awards to his credit and is one of the most worthy heirs of the French film scoring masters.A true cinephile, his approach to film composition is not only based on his strong musicality but also on his understanding of film which allows him to intimately communicate with directors. Inspired by the works of Maurice Jarre, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota or Georges Delerue, he expressed his desire to compose for film early on but really made his decision after listening to John Williams’ score to Star Wars.After scoring 50 European films, with legendary French directors such as Philippe de Broca and Francis Girod, he burst in 2003 onto the Hollywood scene with his evocative score to Peter Webber’s Girl With A Pearl Earring earning him nominations at the Golden Globe Awards®, BAFTAs and European Film Awards.His singular and remarkable scores for the films of Jacques Audiard showed a new musical voice and his composition for The Beat That My Heart Skipped in 2005 earned him the Silver Bear at the Berlinale as well as his first César.Alexandre Desplat then started to expand his U.S. career keeping his European collaborations.In 2007 he received his first Academy Award® nomination for Stephen Frears’ The Queen which earned him his first European Film Award. The same year he won the Golden Globe, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award and the World Soundtrack Award for his score to John Curran’s The Painted Veil, performed by Lang Lang.He composed in 2008 for Florent Siri’s Intimate Enemy, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, and David Fincher’s The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, which earned him a second Oscar nomination and a fourth BAFTA and Golden Globe® nomination.With his score for Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer in 2010, starting an inspiring relationship, he won a second César and a second European Film Award. The same year, he wrote the music for Twilight-New Moon by Chris Weitz, a platinum record, Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel and for Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech for which he won the BAFTA, the Grammy Award and receives his fourth Academy Award® nomination and his fifth Golden Globe® nomination. In 2010-2011 Alexandre Desplat scored David Yates’ films Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2, which became the third most successful movie of all time.As eclectic as prolific, he wrote nine scores in 2011 including Terence Malik’s Tree Of Life, Roman Polanski’s Carnage, Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Daniel Auteuil’s The Wells Digger’s Daughter and George Clooney’s The Ides of March.In 2012, keeping his artistic exchange with European directors, Alexandre Desplat collaborated with Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty, Matteo Garrone for Reality, Gilles Bourdos for Renoir, Jérôme Salle for Zulu, Wes Anderson for Moonrise Kingdom and Jacques Audiard for Rust And Bone, the latter of which he won a third César. He also scored Argo by Ben Affleck, which was awarded the Oscar for best film and earned Alexandre Desplat a sixth nomination at BAFTA, as well as a fifth nomination at the Golden Globes® and the Academy Awards®.In 2013 he scored George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur and Stephen Frears’ Philomena, for which he received his seventh BAFTA and his fifth Oscar nominations.In 2014, he scored Gareth Edwards’s blockbuster Godzilla and received a rare double Academy Award® nomination for his scores of Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which earned him a BAFTA, a Grammy Award® and his first Academy Award win.In 2018, Alexandre Desplat won his second Academy Award®, second Golden Globe® Award and third BAFTA for Guillermo del Toro's The Shape Of Water. ​​​​​​​TRACKLIST: 1. Operation Finale2. Sacrificed Children3. Nazis Rising4. Malkin's Memories5. Setting Up Operations6. Stakeout7. Death8. Killing in the Woods9. Race to Airport10. Solingen Blade11. Number 4532612. The Monster13. Lost Children14. Air Control15. To Israel16. Operation Finale (Orchestral)17. Sorrow

Nii Okai Tagoe was born into a family of master drummers and dancers in Accra, Ghana. This new album, West to West, follows his successful debut, African Roots. Tagoe has toured worldwide as a singer, percussionist and artist with artists such as Baka Beyond, ADF Soundsystem, and Lorraine Ayensu. This release reflects his extensive international travels, and features musicians from Ghana, Venezuela, Wales, Nigeria, the Carribean, and France. “…We seek to benefit the world in exploring a side to music and culture people don’t always see- music as health, music as discipline, music for life.” (Nii Tagoe)

This first reissue in 25 years of a classic Original Cast Recording is a must-have for discriminating lovers of musical theater. Written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (THE FANTASTICKS, 110 IN THE SHADE and I DO! I DO!), CELEBRATION was produced on Broadway in 1969 and is considered one of the most provocative and entertaining musicals of the decade. Says Jones (now 92 and still writing for the stage): “CELEBRATION, along with HAIR, was one of the 1960s shows that sought to reinvent our musical theater...The score is rich and varied, the premise interesting and the characters and scenes funny and touching. I’m so grateful to Harbinger Records for wanting to share it with at least three generations!” In this battle between the Old Year and the New, Jones & Schmidt mixed symbolic figures with then-current prototypes. “Thus the Old Man typifies all the misgivings that the youth culture of the time had about the previous generation,” says Jones. “The Young Boy is the ultimate flower child. The Narrator is a sixties dropout who’s into booze and drugs. And the Girl is a teenybopper dreaming of being a celebrity.” The package contains a 24-album booklet with extensive notes by author Tom Jones; memories from two original-cast members, Susan Watson and Michael Glenn-Smith; and many recently unearthed photos of the original production. The album has been remastered by multiple Grammy Award winner Alan Silverman.

Ashton (b. 1859, Durham), is a best-kept secret of British music. He has a generous output of piano music, chamber works and songs. Ashton’s writing for both cello and piano is virtuosic. What strikes the ear is the quality of his melodic inspiration – the lyrical immediacy of his tunes suggests Schubert, set in a style of Brahmsian richness. This CD features world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Algernon Ashton, (1859–1937) was a British-born composer who was educated in Germany. When his father died in 1863, his mother moved the family to Leipzig where she was befriended by Clara Schumann. Even as a child, Algernon attended the famous Schumann soirees and rubbed shoulders with famous musicians. After finishing his education, he returned to England. He became professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London and spent the rest of his life in England. Ashton was a prolific composer but many of his works were not published and very few have been recorded. His chamber music output includes four sonatas for violin and piano, four for cello and piano, two piano quartets, and two piano quintets. He also wrote symphonies, but they were never published. The opening work on this Toccata disc is his Arioso, a beautiful piece in a contemplative mood. It has some of the colors of Brahms, but none of his rhythmic bite. The Sonata No. 1 in F Major opens with an Allegro Appassionato, an impassioned plea begging the listener to take a mental voyage to Ashton’s lyrical world of drawing rooms with polished grand pianos and crimson velvet drapes where chamber music was as common as video games are today. He develops the second movement, the Larghetto, with consummate skill and clothes it with jewel tones. Only in the Finale, which he asks to be played Allegro Frescamente, does he bring in a truly rhythmic melody. It could be a happy folk dance replete with clapping and stomping on the accented notes. It’s the kind of music that makes you get up and move! Abbate and Mizerska play all of this music joyfully and with great skill.

The Phantasiestücke is an invitation to reverie. Ashton is a master of melody and he begins with a broad sunny tune that might bring back memories of a hike in German or English woodlands. In the second movement, marked Andantino con Gran Espressione, he leads us away from the cares of the everyday world into the nirvana of pure musical concentration where we can spend a few blissful minutes. After we reach our goal, we return to the village for the last movement marked Allegro Scherzando. There we can relax and tap our toes to another of Ashton’s fast and furious folk tunes. The Second Sonata is a bit more dramatic than the First. Its markings, Moderato and Adagio ma non troppo are somewhat deceiving, because this work is constantly increasing in tension as it builds toward its marvelously animated finale. The two fine artists who currently reside and teach in London, the Polish-born Evva Mizerska and the Naples-born Emma Abbate, play all of this music with great finesse. Ashton’s music is a revelation. It deserves a much wider audience than it has had so far. The sound on the disc is clear with each instrument given equal presence. I enjoyed getting to know Ashton’s story and his music and think this disc should have a place in many record libraries.

-- Fanfare