After the beautiful 'Naked Truth' in 2022, trumpeter Avishai Cohen comes back with his quartet, including Yonathan Avishai (piano), Barak Mori (bass) and Ziv Ravitz (drums), with a new suite, 'Ashes To Gold.'

ASHES TO GOLD

This is the extraordinary recording debut of jazz phenomenon Anaïs Reno, who made it in 2020 at the age of 16. Reno has already won accolades for her dedication to the Great American Songbook. She recently received the Julie Wilson Award, and in 2019 won the Mabel Mercer Foundation competition for high school students. For this album she has chosen 12 tunes by two master writers: Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and Billy Strayhorn 1915-67), creators of some of the most challenging and sophisticated material in the Great American Songbook. Reno combines beloved hits such as "Mood Indigo," "Take the 'A' Train," "Lush Life" and "Caravan" with lesser-known but equally memorable tunes like "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing" and "It's Kind of Lonesome Out Tonight," all backed by a stellar group of jazz musicians led by pianist Emmet Cohen, who also did the arrangements with Reno. "I have a very personal relationship with these songs," says Reno. "Somehow I believe that the music of Ellington & Strayhorn understands me. This is why I want to honor it." Acclaimed jazz historian Will Friedwald, who has written the liner notes for the 12-page booklet, comments that "At 16, Anaïs achieved what precious few adults ever accomplish: namely, to actually enhance our appreciation and enjoyment of the Ellington-Strayhorn canon. Whether working together or separately, the two of them were always on the same page, both metaphorically and literally. And now, so is Anaïs Reno."

Franz Schubert:
Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 99, D. 898
Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 100, D. 929

Beaux Arts Trio

Recorded at Signet Library, Edinburgh, 13 July 1987 (Piano Trio No. 1) and 6 September 1977 (Piano Trio No. 2)

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: LPCM Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Running time: 81 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

The Beaux Arts Trio performs two central pieces of their repertoire on this DVD. Filmed at the majestic Signet Library in Edinburgh, the ensemble demonstrates its mastery in bringing out the deeply lyrical romantic expressions that have made these trios two of Schubert’s most cherished chamber music works. With founding member, Menahem Pressler on piano, Isidore Cohen on violin and Bernard Greenhouse on cello, the ensemble’s distinguished heritage is apparent.

The ICA Classics Legacy series presents a collection of historic performances by some of the world’s greatest artists. These performances are released on DVD for the first time, incorporating rare archive footage that has been expertly and lovingly restored. - ICA Classics

SONGS

Classical Music

2019 Grammy Award WInner - Best Classical Compendium


Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers. He celebrates his unique fifteen-year recording history with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra with this stunning release of three new concertos and an orchestral song cycle. Kenneth Fuchs has composed music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. His music has achieved significant global recognition through performances, media exposure, and digital streaming and downloading throughout North and South America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia. The London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, has recorded five discs of Fuchs’s music for Naxos American Classics. The first, released in August 2005, was nominated for two GRAMMY® Awards (“Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra” and “Producer of the Year, Classical”).

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REVIEW:

Now stretching back over the past fifteen years, JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra have been recording the major works of Kenneth Fuchs.

All of the present disc comes from the past six years, the most recent, Poems of Life, completed in 2017. The opening Piano Concerto, in the conventional three movements, was composed at the request of Jeffrey Biegel, who is the soloist on this disc. Often testing his technical virtuosity, the finale calls for prodigious dexterity in the fast flowing finale.

We can admire the London Symphony for the multitude of colours they provide, just as if the play the music regularly, and our gratitude to the conductor, JoAnn Falletta, the composer’s unstinting champion.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Tristan & Iseult Bodel, de Bornelh, Riquier, Joel Cohen, Anne Az�ma (Iseult), Henri Ledroit (Tristan), Ellen Hargis (Brang�ne), Richard Morrisson (Mark), Andrea von Ramm (narr), William Hite (Watchman/Sailor/Monk), The Boston Camerata. Composer: Jehan Bodel, de Dia, Beatriz, Comtessa, Giraut de Bornelh, Performer: Andrea von Ramm, Henri Ledroit, Anne Az�ma, Ellen Hargis, Conductor: Joel Cohen, Orchestra/Ensemble: Boston Camerata. What we have here is a Warner Classics reissue of the award-winning 1987 Erato recording (it won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1989) of medieval poems, songs, and music associated with the Tristan and Iseult legends, compiled by Joel Cohen and played by The Boston Camerata. It certainly makes for different and fascinating listening. - John J. Puccio - Classical Candor.

Includes work(s) by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Claudio Santoro, Mozart Camargo Guarnieri, Henrique Oswald, César Guerra-Peixe, Luiz Alvares Pinto, Alberto Nepomuceno, Radamés Gnattali, José Siqueira, Ernesto Nazareth, Fructuoso Vianna, various composers. Soloist: Arnaldo Cohen.

Classical Music

Classical Music

On the present disc it is the all-Brazilian team of eminent pianist Arnaldo Cohen and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Neschling who join forces. Arnaldo Cohen is a highly respected Liszt interpreter, as he has shown on a previous BIS release (CD1253), which earned him an Editor's Choice in Gramophone as well as glowing reviews, such as the following in the Chicago Tribune: 'These performances pack a tremendous visceral punch...among the most musically intelligent recordings of these celebrated pieces to grace the catalogue.' The São Paulo SO and Neschling have recently been earning international recognition both after highly successful tours and a number of BIS recordings that among other things have been desribed as 'the most vibrant, colourful, rhythmically vital and virtuosic performances imaginable' (Classics Today.com)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Rossini: Maometto Secondo

Lamentations: Holy Week in Provence / Joel Cohen Conductor, Boston Camerata Performing Ensemble, Anne Azema Soprano (Vocal), Readings, Frederick Jodry Counter Tenor (Vocal), William Hite Tenor (Vocal), Paul Guttry Bass (Vocal), Christopher Kale Tenor (Vocal), Schola Cantorum of Boston Choir, Chorus, Daniel McCabe Brass Baritone

Classical Music

Classical Music

Barthold Heinrich Brockes wrote a libretto on the Passion of Christ – based on the account in Matthew’s Gospel – which was set to music by many composers of his time, including Reinhard Keiser, Georg Philip Telemann and George Frideric Handel. It is Handel’s version of the latter that the period-instrument ensemble Arcangelo has chosen to present here. Under the direction of Jonathan Cohen, these specialists in the Baroque repertory are joined by the voices of Sandrine Piau, whose numerous Handel recordings are regarded as a benchmark, the tenor Stuart Jackson and the baritone Konstantin Krimmel, recently revealed in a debut recital for Alpha (Saga, ALPHA549). Together they resurrect the operatic splendor of a work that was first performed in 1719 and is thought to have influenced numerous passages of J. S. Bach’s St John Passion, written a few years later.

REVIEW:

Conductor Jonathan Cohen is working with excellent soloists. They're led by soprano Sandrine Piau, who has a crushing 14 arias and brings personality to each one. Tenor Stuart Jackson has a big, exciting voice, and baritone Konstantin Krimmel is splendid in his duet with Mary Bevan. The oratorio also has smaller solo roles, here taken by members of the choir, and all are well handled.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

PADEREWSKI IN MEMORIAM (PADERE

Nicolas Altstaedt presents Bach's gamba sonatas on his fifth Genuin CD with harpsichordist Jonathan Cohen.

Sharon Kam discovers Hindemith on her third album on Orfeo label. Even if some people still consider him “too modern” today, Hanau-born Hesse Paul Hindemith is undoubtedly one of the most influential German composers of the generation after Richard Strauss. Few of his immediate colleagues have found their way into the international repertoire to the same extent that he has, or influenced subsequent generations through comparably extensive educational work. All three works for clarinet featured on this recording date from years of extensive travel: the Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano was written in 1938 around the time of his emigration to Switzerland, the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in 1939 during the course of the tours of the USA that immediately followed the emigration, and finally, the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in 1947 (written for and premiered by Benny Goodman) when Hindemith left his American exile to visit Europe again for the first time after the Second World War. Sharon Kam has teamed up with her long-standing musical partners Enrico Pace , Antje Weithaas , and Julian Steckel for the chamber music part of the album, and with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the musical direction of Daniel Cohen for the clarinet concerto.

Iain Quinn is joined by Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen in this recording of organ concertos by Haydn, recorded on the Grant, Degens and Bradbeer organ of St Mary’s, Woodford. Born in Cardiff, Wales, Dr. Iain Quinn is an award-winning organist, musicologist, and composer with over ninety publications across multiple disciplines. He is Associate Professor of Organ and Coordinator of Sacred Music at Florida State University. He has received a Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and grants from Musica Britannica, Society for American Music, The Prince's Trust, and the Music & Letters Trust. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University and a Visiting Composer at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. As a composer he has received commissions from churches across the USA and UK and from the American Guild of Organists. In 2017, he was a Fulbright Scholar teaching at The Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory, Russia and in 2018 he was the Rudolph Ganz Fellow at The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Classical Music

Corruption? Betrayal? Persecution? Tyranny? These subjects resonate with the current events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They also provide the subject matter of many seventeenth-century musical works. Kate Lindsey has chosen to devote this second Baroque recital with the English ensemble Arcangelo directed by Jonathan Cohen (following Arianna in 2020, ALPHA576) to the figure of Nero. Scarlatti, Handel and Monteverdi wrote works focusing on this tragic protagonist and his entourage, including his mother Agrippina and his wives (Poppaea and Octavia). Interpreted with incredible intensity by the American mezzo-soprano, the programme features world premiere recordings of two cantatas: Alessandro Scarlatti’s La morte di Nerone (c.1690) and Bartolomeo Monari’s La Poppea (1685). Tenor Andrew Staples and soprano Nardus Williams join Kate Lindsey for duets from L’incoronazione di Poppea, including the sensual ‘Pur ti miro’