Sony Classical is pleased to announce a new batch of reissues from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor/BMG back catalogues. This latest instalment of the popular series showcases Mozart and Chopin along with conductor Robert Craft’s pioneering Webern recordings and the global journeys of that irrepressible musical explorer Yo-Yo Ma.

The supremely versatile Yo-Yo Ma has been aptly referred to as a musical omnivore. In addition to all the significant classical works written for his instrument, the eclectic cellist has passionately embraced the music of Latin America and Asia as well as American bluegrass and jazz. Seven of his most adventurous and acclaimed musical journeys have been collected by Sony Classical in a CD box entitled “Crossing Borders”. They include Appalachia Waltz and Appalachian Journey with Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer (Grammy 1998: “Best Classical Crossover Album”); Soul of the Tango – The Music of Astor Piazzolla (Grammy 1997: “Best Classical Crossover Album”); Obrigado Brazil – traditional songs and compositions by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Pixinguinha (Grammy 2000: “Best Classical Crossover Album”); Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet and Japanese Melodies; Anything Goes: the cellist playing mostly Cole Porter with Stephane Grappelli; and, last but not least: Hush, his famous collaboration with Bobby McFerrin.

Review excerpts of previously released volumes included in this set:

Appalachian Journey / Yo-Yo Ma, O'Connor, Meyer

The Mark O’Connor/Yo-Yo Ma/Edgar Meyer power trio took a while to follow up their 1996 hit Appalachia Waltz, yet, no doubt about it, Appalachian Journey was worth the long wait. I love the gnarly funk of the opening cut, “1B”, with hard swinging fiddle and cello lines anchored by Meyer’s earthy, off-center pedal points. The less driving, more reflective reels, and lyrical Duet for Cello and Bass fuse bluegrass, wistful folk tunes, and stark Copland-esque landscapes into organic wholes that sound better with each rehearing. The deliciously virtuosic Caprice for Three proves that players of this caliber can channel their super-chops toward listening out loud. Guest vocal stints by James Taylor and Alison Krauss add the spice of variety to the mix, along with a potential wider audience. And why not? The arrangements are judiciously varied, perfectly paced, and exploit the violin/cello/string bass configuration in ingenuous ways. One wonders how this trio might approach certain pieces over a looser, more extended improvisational time frame. I hope we won’t have to wait another three and a half years to find out. If you’re in a blue mood, this disc will provide an antidote with long-range positive side effects. Fun, fun stuff.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10, Jed Distler)

Obrigado Brazil / Yo-Yo Ma:

The music on this enchanting, flavorful CD varies from classical to samba to bossa nova; the combinations range from guitar, flute, and cello to female voice (the remarkable Rosa Passos), cello, guitar, percussion, piano, and bass; to simple cello and piano; to cello and two guitars. The overriding element is rhythm; each selection has a beat which is both infectious and sensual, but the contexts are splendidly varied. It's impossible to get bored or tired listening to this creative CD; it's unique--just like Yo-Yo Ma himself--and endlessly surprising. It may not be quite what we'd call "classical" music, but it is many kinds of music, and they all will delight. The other musicians are as impressive on their instruments as Ma is with his cello, and that's saying a great deal.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Robert Levine)

Silk Road Journeys - When Strangers Meet

Silk Road Journeys is an invigorating, eye-opening ride. To be sure, some pieces fare better than others, but as with any unforgettable trip, you tend to forget the occasional bumps you hit along unknown roads. Our guides are a generally stellar selection of master artists, including the luminary pipa player Wu Man and kemencheh and setar player Kayhan Kalhor. These two musicians in particular can go head-to-head in virtuosity with Yo-Yo Ma any day. Complemented by cleanly articulated sound, Sony Classical has produced a real keeper in its Yo-Yo Ma catalog, but the cellist makes his collaborators the true focus of this album.

Enescu is one of the great composers, although the world has yet to realise the extent of his achievement. His small published œuvre of 33 opus numbers belies the amount of music he produced: he composed prolifically but, as he was both a perfectionist and a busy performer, much of his music is still unknown, allowing us to present herein, the Unknown Enescu.

5 works for chamber orchestra by Krenek were written between 1931 and 1979 – both before and long after Krenek abandoned Hitler’s Austria for California. The emotions embraced here range from translucent lyricism, via powerful dramatic utterance, to uneasy existentialist humour – and much of it is very beautiful.

REVIEW:

This disc is titled Music for Chamber Orchestra, but Krenek uses large forces; the orchestra personnel list includes a string complement of 6/5/5/4/2, plus multiple woodwinds, trumpet, trombones, four percussionists, harp, celesta, piano, and guitar. Warsaw’s Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum will need neither recommendation nor resumé for those who hear this disc; the musicians, their instruments, and their ensemble are perfection. Ernst Kovacic is an Austrian violinist as well as conductor; he has been director of the Leopoldinum since 2007 and has a marvelous feel for Krenek’s idiom.

The Nightingale was written in 1931, when Krenek was 31; the other works came to fruition in his 8th decade, from 1971 to 1979. The 10-minute Von Vorn Herein is “a mixture of freely invented sections and those based on a twelve-tone row” (from the penetrating program notes by Krenek scholar Peter Tregear). Its opening measures have a distinct flavor of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, and it then pursues its own “old-fashioned expressionistic” (Krenek) path, closing with a loud yawp from the trombones—a far cry from what we think of as a chamber orchestra work. Im Tal der Zeit includes references to Krenek’s earlier, tonal works but comes across as a colorful, gentle gloss on Schoenberg’s Five Pieces, op. 16. Krenek had an unparalleled ability to make atonal music graceful and pleasing. Static and Ecstatic consists of 10 short movements, half of them serial and half freely composed. In his Ernst Kernek, The Man and His Music, John L. Stewart writes “The music is so sensual, so eloquent, and so immediately enticing that one is inclined to regret the years Krenek spent on the stark, obdurate serial works…” The Dissembler is an odd combination of the playful and the serious, a monologue (in English) about acting by an actor, touching on metaphysics (“But—what is truth?”), with quotes ranging from Euripides and Goethe to the Bible and Krenek’s own writings—each in its original language. The solo line varies from speech to Sprechstimme to song. The serial music suits the concept, as does a bass drum joining a chamber ensemble. Tregear again: “A dissembler is also someone who plays against convention and authority, a jester who resides inside the cloak of a sober classicist.” Krenek indeed!

Amid all this fascinating semi-serialism comes a magical orchestral song, a setting of Karl Kraus’s poem The Nightingale. The high-soprano vocal line has the luxurious golden ease of Richard Strauss’s writing for Sophie or Daphne, backed by a delicate, Mahlerian accompaniment. It is sung with stunning grace and lucidity by Agata Zubel, who is also a composer teaching at Warsaw’s Academy of Music. If Want Lists consisted of individual works, these eight minutes would be a sure bet. This Toccata Classics CD is a model of fine production values. Magisterial performances and honest, well-balanced sound aid Krenek’s eloquent music; the booklet includes complete texts and translations, plus artist bios and a list of orchestra personnel. It is an absolute must for Krenek fanciers, and everyone should hear The Nightingale.

-- Fanfare

Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) wrote a considerable quantity of piano music, but it is generally remembered today only for a single piece, ‘Étincelles’, which Horowitz enjoyed playing. The early works on this first instalment in Ian Hobson’s survey of Moszkowski’s complete music for solo piano reveal a debt to Mendelssohn and Schumann, but the craftsmanship already justifies a later remark of Paderewski’s: ‘After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano, and his writing embraces the whole gamut of piano technique’.

The Russian-born Mischa Spoliansky (1898—1985) became one of the major names in cabaret in 1920s Berlin and then, as a refugee from Nazi Germany, in London, he became one of the best-known composers of film scores. He also wrote a handful of orchestral works, which have remained unknown until now. His Boogie is a witty, tongue-in-cheek piece of orchestral jazz, and the Overture to My Husband and I, one of his stage shows, has a Mozartian sparkle and wit. But it is his only Symphony, an epic statement composed over a period of nearly three decades, that constitutes his real achievement as an orchestral composer – the fourth of its five movements apparently offering Spoliansky’s own musical commentary on the Holocaust.

REVIEW:

Some may recognize Spoliansky’s name as the composer for a host of British films from the 1930s onwards, including Sanders of the River, The Ghost Goes West, King Solomon's Mines, The Happiest Days of Your Life , Saint Joan and North West Frontier. That he wrote this marvelous symphony during his ‘time off’ is quite something – tuneful, richly orchestrated, cleverly planned and gloriously uplifting, it remains one of the biggest surprises I have come across for a long time.

-- MusicWeb International

Regarded as one of Europe’s leading horn players, Martin Owen appears as a soloist and chamber musician around the world. Currently principal horn at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he has previously served as principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and as solo horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Weber’s Concertino was written for the old, valveless ‘natural horn’; its limited range of notes (tied to the harmonic series) was extended mechanically with additional tubing (‘crooks’) and, more artfully, by virtuoso players bending notes, and varied hand stopping. The technical demands of the Concertino are testament to the extraordinary facility of the hornists of the period. The first Horn Concerto by Richard Strauss, written at the age of nineteen, whilst a student, is widely considered his first uncontested masterpiece. Although the influence of Brahms and Schumann are evident, his own compositional voice is unmistakable. Strauss would continue to write significant parts for horn in all of his orchestral scores (possibly an influence of his father, who was a virtuoso hornist), but the second Concerto was not composed until 1942 – some sixty years later. The style is much more neo-classical, even ‘Mozartian’. Schumann’s riotous Concertstück for four horns opens the programme, and features three more outstanding soloists: Christopher Parkes (Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia of London), Alec Frank-Gemmill (Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), and Sarah Willis (Berliner Philharmoniker).

A slipcase containing four 1CDs and a 2CD with archive recordings of the SWR which go as far back as 1952. The recordings belong to some of the greatest singers of all times, the repertoire consists of art songs (lied), arias and baroque arias.

The award-winning Silesian quartet present a new album featuring two composers from Warsaw – Joachim Mendelson and Graznya Bacewicz. After completing his music studies in Warsaw and Berlin, Joachim Mendelson moved to Paris in 1929, where he joined the Association des Jeunes Musiciens Polonais, a society founded in 1926 to facilitate the study, publication, and promotion of the works of young Polish composers. Bacewicz also received support from the Association, and from Paderewski, and studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. The associations’ aims included re-establishing a national musical life at the highest level back in Poland (after more than a century of joint occupation by Russia, Prussia, and Austria), and both composers returned to Warsaw and worked there until 1939. Mendelson taught at the Institute of Music, and Bacewicz became leader of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and continued her career and a composer and soloist. Mendelson was imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto until 1943 when he was murdered by the Gestapo. Five of his works survive, thanks to the French publisher Max Eschig, including the quartet and quintet recorded here. Both Bacewicz works on this recording were rejected by the composer, and never included in her catalogue of works. It is extremely lucky that the manuscripts have survived, preserved at the National Library in Warsaw. Half a century after her death the Royal String Quartet prepared performing scores and gave the first performances.

The music of Grazyna Bacewicz (1909–1969) has been enjoying a revival during the past two decades. Bacewicz was an outstanding figure in 20th-century music, a major Polish composer and a versatile musician. This album by the award-winning pianist Peter Jablonski, pianist Elisabeth Brauß, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon includes some rarely recorded gems: the composer’s Piano Concerto together with the late Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in its first digital recording. Also included is the composer’s homage to Bartók, Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion, as well as the composer’s early exuberant Overture, written during the German occupation of Poland.

John Wilson’s third volume of the music of Eric Coates combines some of the composer’s larger-scale works with miniatures and two marches.

The Cinderella Phantasy frames the well-known fairy-tale from Cinderella’s perspective, glossing over the more brutal elements of the original, with some notably descriptive writing for the dream sequences, the ball and of course the happy ending.

The Three Men is to some extent autobiographical, as Coates explores his love of his native Nottinghamshire countryside, his love for London and his love of the sea.

The Three Elizabeths is a suite of portraits of three great figures in English History – Queen Elizabeth I; Elizabeth of Glamis (then the Queen Consort, now remembered as the Queen Mother), and Princess Elizabeth (who of course became Queen Elizabeth II).

Lost Love is a wistful Romance written in 1939, while the much later Sweet Seventeen is a beautiful waltz, inspired by Eric and his wife Phyliss’ love of dancing. In fact, the title refers to his first date with Phyllis, at the Blenheim Restaurant, the day before her seventeenth birthday. Two marches complete the program – the Television March was commissioned by the BBC (just three weeks before the date of broadcast!) for the resumption of television broadcasting in 1946. The Dam Busters March was used as the main title for Michael Anderson’s 1955 film and is arguably the composer’s most widely known work.

REVIEW:

The Dam Busters march became the biggest and final hit of Coates’s career. John Wilson’s way with it – letting that tune glide in almost imperceptibly, relishing the moment when the violins decorate it, like sprinkling icing on a cake – typifies his approach.

-- Gramophone

This second volume of the orchestral music of the Austro-American composer Richard Stöhr (1874–1967) reveals further marvels: the first of his two suites for string orchestra encases a moving slow movement between a charming prelude and an elegant fugue; and the four imposing spans of the expansive First Symphony offer grandeur and heartfelt profundity – as well as irresistibly catchy tunes that will set the foot tapping. Stöhr writes in a musical language somewhere between Bruckner, Mahler and his exact Viennese contemporary Franz Schmidt – but it is a voice increasingly readily recognised as his own.

Serbian-Swedish Djuro Živkovic has quickly established himself as one of Europe’s leading young composers. His musical style is strongly marked by Byzantine Orthodox music – spiritual, mystical and characterized by fantastic narration, virtuosic instrumentation and a stylistic, highly profiled sound. Živkovic’s music presents a profound and abstract space to reflect on the subject matter of mystery, ecstasy and transcendence. Citadel of Love is a highly personal ensemble work which manages to create a mystical aural experience. The narrative voice of the piano together with the other six instruments, subtly adding voices as well as percussion instruments, carries the listener from beginning to end through an inner drama of intensity and fullness of soundscapes.

I Shall Contemplate… II is an intimate chamber piece for viola and small ensemble, stylistically similar to a sacred cantata, in which improvisatory techniques contribute to the free and unencumbered compositional process. Here, Živkovic’s use of ancient scales creates an archaic, echoing space. The text, spoken by the soloist, comes from old Byzantine mystical books. Finally, Night Music is a fascinating crossover work in which piano works by Alexander Scriabin are mixed with newly composed musical layers, thus adding to the Russian composer an absurd fantasy, estranged passion and exotic illusions.

After acclaimed recordings of the Third (‘Dausgaard… makes the music sound vital and even revolutionary’, Fanfare) and Sixth (‘This persuasively played work could be no better served’, MusicWeb International), Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra now present Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, ‘Romantic’ in its second version (1878-1880), the one with which this work has become widely known. “Nothing like this has been written since Beethoven” conductor Hans Richter is said to have declared after the successful premiere of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony in Vienna in 1881. This success finally gave the 56-year-old composer the attention and recognition he sorely needed and one can affirm that it was from this day onwards that Bruckner was actually cultivated in Vienna after years of public humiliation. Despite its nickname given by the composer himself, this symphony in no way expresses existential pain. Rather, the romanticism refers to the experience of nature – from sublime forest magic to hunting scenes – emphasized by the horn, the quintessential romantic instrument, which is given a prominent role.

REVIEW:

Dausgaard emerged early on as one of the most convincing HIP conductors of standard repertoire, and he has earned the right to express his individuality in Bruckner under normal conditions, one might say. His involvement with the score is undoubted, which makes the issue of fast tempos mostly irrelevant. Being different is worthwhile only when the difference is musically meaningful. I think that Dausgaard easily passes that test, in a Bruckner Fourth that is among the most striking in years.

-- Fanfare

For the latest instalment in their Mahler series, the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of Osmo Vänskä presents what many consider to be the pinnacle of the Austrian composer’s entire work, the Ninth Symphony, his last completed symphony. After a vast and emotionally intense first movement that shows an astonishing fluidity of form, theme, texture and tonality, ‘the most glorious thing Mahler has written’ according to Alban Berg, the second movement brings joy and playfulness and seems to evoke both an urban Straussian world and folk music cultures. To the bitter irony and anger of the third movement the last movement, a mystical Adagio, seems to respond with ineffable tenderness. Often regarded as the composer’s monumental – both in terms of scale and emotional scope – leave-taking of the world, the Ninth Symphony can also be understood as a requiem for his daughter who died a few years before, an acknowledgment of the transience of life, a memorial to Vienna, an evocation of fading Austrian and Bohemian landscapes, a homage to a vanishing European cultural world.

Rarely performed, the Piano Concerto of 20th-century Mexican composer Carlos Chavez receives an insightful, idiomatic, and compelling performance from Mexican-born pianist Jorge Federico Osorio, the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de México, and conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto. Surprising tempo changes and a whirlwind of styles make the work a thrill ride for performers and audiences alike!

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REVIEWS:

Make no mistake, Carlos Chávez’s Piano Concerto is a major work. Symphonic in length and very generous in content, it poses quite a challenge to the soloist, with hyperactive allegros surrounding an intimate and evocatively scored central Molto lento. Jorge Federico Osorio has no peer in this repertoire, at least on disc. He plays the work with unflagging energy and, where called for, sensitivity, and he’s very capably accompanied by Carlos Prieto and the Mexican National Symphony Orchestra. This is an important addition to the Chávez discography, and it’s very well engineered.

The couplings make an attractive series of encores. Both Chávez’s Meditación and Moncayo’s Muros Verdes are lovely, lyrical interludes, but Samuel Zyman’s Variations on an Original Theme is a major work more than a quarter-hour long. It’s not easy listening. The music is thorny and at times highly dissonant, but there’s also no question that the work has great integrity, a wide expressive range, and an impressive level of disciplined craftsmanship, nor is it particularly difficult to follow. Osorio, as in the concerto, plays all three solo works very well indeed, and as you’re not likely to find this repertoire so convincingly done anywhere else, this disc earns an enthusiastic recommendation.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
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The program includes a postlude of solo piano music by Chávez and two of his younger compatriots. The Chaváz piece is a lovely youthful composition, written when he was 19, and owes as much to the influence of Grieg as it does to any New World sources. José Pablo Moncayo, a student of Chávez, contributes a beautiful and rather impressionistic work. Finally, there is the variation set by Samuel Zyman, a contemporary Mexican composer. This dark, even bleak, work is certainly the most harmonically advanced music on the CD, but makes for a somewhat jarring break from the more mellifluous material represented by Chávez and Moncayo. But the reason to acquire this recording is for the brilliant Chávez concerto, which has not been recorded for years.


Peter Burwasser, FANFARE.

"I’m sure that Nielsen’s time is coming, and I’m looking forward to sharing this wonderful music with the audience." - Alan Gilbert 2011 = "Mr. Gilbert drew colorful, glittering and full-bodied playing from the musicians." - The New York Times, concert review of Nielsen's Symphony No. 3, June 2012 = “Music is life, and like it inextinguishable,” said the Danish composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931). With indomitable courage and infinite curiosity Nielsen developed into one of the 20th century’s greatest symphonists, after being raised in the Danish countryside as the son of a poor folk musician. With this new series of recordings, Nielsen crosses the Atlantic as the New York Philharmonic and their Music Director Alan Gilbert shed new light on the composer's uniquely Nordic symphonic sound. = ABOUT THE NIELSEN PROJECT = This is the first volume of the new recording series of Denmark's national composer Carl Nielsen's complete symphonies and concertos by The New York Philharmonic and their chief conductor Alan Gilbert. All works are recorded live during the New York Philharmonic's concert series in Avery Fisher Hall which has already impressed critics and audiences alike.

REVIEW:

As already suggested, Gilbert’s interpretations take no prisoners, and frankly that is just what Nielsen needs. The Allegro collerico opening of “The Four Temperaments” is really ferocious, the finale almost giddy. And yet, Gilbert’s tempos in the Andante pastorale of the “Espansiva”, or the Andante malincolico of the “Temperaments”, are also perfectly judged, sensitive, and expressive. The former, especially, reveals a combination of tranquility and flow unique in the work’s discography. The string playing is particularly beautiful here, and the Philharmonic’s woodwinds, solo oboe especially, do themselves proud in music that often relies on their artistry and character. Gilbert also very convincingly paces the tricky finale of the same work, with its hymn-like main theme that still has to sound “allegro”.

Dacapo, of course, already has an excellent Nielsen cycle—indeed, the reference edition—in its catalog, featuring Michael Schønwandt and the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (also available on Naxos). So the question must be whether or not this newcomer is distinctive enough to warrant the duplication, and the answer is a definite “yes”. Gilbert reveals a genuine affinity for the music, and Nielsen’s athleticism suits the orchestra very well indeed. If this series keeps up as it has begun, it’s going to be stupendous.

-- ClassicsToday.com

This album concludes The Brahms Trio’s five-volume survey of the piano trio in Russia with remarkable works by composers whose names have all but disappeared from the musical world’s collective memory. Vladimir Dyck, a student of Widor at the Paris Conservatoire, took French nationality in 1910 but his life came to a tragic end when he and his family were arrested in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz. His Piano Trio, Op. 25 contrasts Russian soulfulness with the lightness and deft scoring he brought to his film compositions. Constantin von Sternberg’s genial Op.104 reflects his career as a virtuoso pianist, while Sergey Youferov’s expansive and nostalgic Op.52 is a farewell to the Russian ‘Silver Age’, a world about to be destroyed by revolution.

Coronation – Music for Royal Occasions spans 500 years of royal music – for celebration, for prayer and for commemoration – varying in scale from private devotion to full state coronation. The collection, featuring Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Tippett and Britten, looks forward to the coronation of Charles III, and back to the ancient rituals of royal ceremonial. It also presents a new work, commissioned by the Genesis Foundation, from celebrated composer Cecilia McDowall commemorating the life of Queen Elizabeth II and celebrating her remarkable reign. Of course no such collection would be complete without examples from the four anthems Handel wrote for the coronation of George II at Westminster Abbey in 1727, of which Zadok the Priest has been performed at the coronation of every British monarch since. Much has changed since their first performance almost 300 years ago. Yet their dramatic impact and grandeur, underlined by mighty choral acclamations and regal trumpets and drums, remains supremely fit for the coronation of a new king.

The central thread linking all the works featured in this recording is their assimilation of various elements of Jewish music, whether directly stemming from Chassidic folk traditions, or relating to material directly associated with religious worship. Each composer responds to this music in different ways, attempting in varying degrees to integrate it within the structural conventions of a Western European musical mainstream. By doing so, the music projects a multitude of emotions and feelings.

“There is not enough music which highlights and celebrates the diverse background of composers and the fact that this album focuses on Jewish musical traditions makes it a hugely important progression in how the classical music industry is moving into a more culturally representative industry.” -- Jocelyn Lightfoot, Managing Director of the LCO

For their fourth release with BIS, the United Strings of Europe with their director Julian Azkoul present another innovative programme, dedicated this time to the night, a source of wonder and fascination, rich with metaphorical associations. The ensemble’s varied, tailor-made programme features counterpoint, aching dissonance and chromaticism from across a range of styles spanning nearly 500 years, from the Renaissance to the present day.

The album is built around two post-romantic masterpieces: Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen (here in an arrangement by Éric Mouret), a work composed during the final months of the Second World War that evokes destruction, mourning, nostalgia, but also hope for progress and transformation, and Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, which, in a nocturnal dialogue between a man and a woman, shows the power of love that can overcome the greatest challenges. These two major works are joined by arrangements for strings of vocal pieces by Maddelena Casulana, Carlo Gesualdo and Henry Purcell, as well as a new work by Daniel Kidane, Be Still, featuring percussionist Beibei Wang, a reflection on recent years marked by lockdowns during which everyday markers, such as meeting with friends and family, travelling or attending concerts vanished.