Classical Music

With Mantra Revealed, the Marc Rossi group continues the work he began on Hidden Mandala: bearing the standard for pan-Indian jazz fusion into the present tense and beyond. The album’s rich panoply of colors and textures comes from the interplay of Rossi’s own distinctive compositions and the players’ absorbing improvisational skills. It’s become commonplace to refer to an album as a “journey” these days, but few navigate a path as wide-ranging, engaging and multi-hued as Mantra Revealed.

The Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album (1975) brings together two legends of modern music. Featuring just vocal and piano, without any additional musicians, the two artists selected the songs and worked out the arrangements for what was to become the first of two albums together. This new edition is released as part of the OJC Series.

Also available on standard DVD

To mark 100 years since the First World War, the Royal Shakespeare Company chose to set this uncommon but apt pairing of two of The Bard's comedies in the era of the Great War. The first of the two is situated in the relatively carefree period a few months before the outbreak of conflict in 1914; the second just after it's end four years later. Although the jury is still out on whether the play more commonly known as Much Ado About Nothing was alternatively titled Love's Labour's Won in Shakespeare's time, the coupling of plays is unquestionably fitting. The characters may be different, but the earlier comedy leaves a number of threads dangling (or labors seemingly lost) at it's conclusion, and it is much the same tensions - interpersonal, philosophical or political - that are shown to exist between other, analogous characters, and that are finally resolved, in the later play. The exquisite acting, ingeniously composed music and accomplished directing of these complementary productions by the company and staff of the RSC bring Shakespeare's comic masterpieces together to create a result both coherent and un-missable.

Classical Music

Classical Music