Swedish Grammis Award-Winning orchestra Västerås Sinfonietta is back with another highly interesting composer portrait. This time it's one of Sweden's highest ranked composers, Anders Nilsson (born 1954) who is in focus. The more than 76 minutes of world premiere recordings include Nilsson's Piano Concerto with distinguished pianist Martin Sturfält as soloist, the orchestral suite "Zarah", and, not least, the very lyrical Symphony No. 4. As a bonus, the album ends with a return of Sturfält in Anders Nilsson's piano solo piece "Chaconne", a tribute to Franz Liszt. "Zarah" and Symphony No. 4 are conducted by Finnish rising-star Eva Ollikainen, and the Piano Concerto by renowned Hungarian conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy. Swedish pianist Martin Sturfält enjoys an international career as a concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and recording artist. His performs a large repertoire ranging from the baroque through to the present day, but increasingly it is his passion for the music of his native country that is earning him recognition internationally as well as in Sweden. His CD of the Adolf Wiklund Piano Concertos on the Hyperion label was named the second best release of the year in Sweden and also won an Outstanding Award in International Record Review, and he has previously recorded a critically acclaimed disc of Stenhammar's solo music for the same label.

Classical Music

Simon Crawford-Philiips, the principal conductor of the Swedish award-winning orchestra V�ster�s Sinfonietta, now presents an album on the theme "Reformation". The main work is, naturally, Felix Mendelssohn's 5th Symphony. It's succeeded by works that somehow have been transformed over the years, such as the 2nd movement of Robert Schumann's violin concerto (with a coda by Benjamin Britten), and Debussy's "Danse" in Maurice Ravel's orchestration. Simon Crawford-Phillips has established an extraordinarily varied career as soloist, chamber musician and most recently as a conductor. He has made recent conducting debuts with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Musica Vitae, Dala Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble and English Chamber Orchestra and assisted Daniel Harding at the Verbier Festival. In August 2016 he conducted the premi�re of Britta Bystr�m's Violin Concerto at the Baltic Sea Festival with Musica Vitae and Malin Broman and two weeks later was invited by V�ster�s Sinfonietta to open their season as conductor and soloist. As a result he was appointed chief conductor and artistic adviser of V�ster�s Sinfonietta from 2017.

This new release features world premiere recordings of piano pieces by two of Sweden's most interesting composers, twice Grammis Award-nominated Ylva Skog and Grammis Award-winning Andrea Tarrodi, performed by Grammis Award-winning pianist Ann-Sofi Klingberg. Contributions also include works by pianist Mats Widlund in two pieces for piano four hands. This is contemporary and accessible music at it's best! In her composing, Ylva Skog (born 1963) intuitively blends and fuses musical styles, drawing inspiration from an eclectic range of sources including fine art and literature. It has been said that Ylva Skog stand with one leg in the tradition of Igor Stravinsky and B�la Bart�k, and the other in jazz, rock and Latin American music. She works with a wide variety of formats, including electroacoustic music and choir. Andrea Tarrodi, born in 1981, is a Swedish composer based in Stockholm. She started playing the piano at the age of 8, and became interested in composition shortly thereafter. Tarrodi studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Conservatorio di Musica di Perugia, Italy, and the College of Music in Pite� with, among other teachers, Jan Sandstr�m, P�r Lindgren, Fabio Cifariello-Ciardi, Jesper Nordin and Marie Samuelsson. She completed her master�s degree in composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in 2009.

The singer Peter Majanen took a detour from budding pop stardom to become a scientist and an entrepreneur. After taking a master class with singer Gino Vannelli, best known in the U.S. for his string of late 1970-1980's hits, Vanelli was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce Majenen's belated debut that marries romance with lush arrangements of songs both familiar and new.

Classical Music

After successes as "Neglected Works for Piano" and "Amanda & Julius", Bengt Forsberg, one of Sweden's most outstanding pianists, now presents a new solo album. "Swedish Miniatures" is a journey through beautiful, neglected Swedish piano pieces from late 19th century until today by both male and female composers. Lovingly performed, as usual, by Bengt Forsberg. On top of this, all tracks except one are world premiere recordings. Bengt Forsberg studied at the Gothenburg School of Music and Musicology, where he first majored in organ, receiving his soloist's diploma as pianist in 1978. He went on to continue his training with Peter Feuchtwanger in London and Herman D. Koppel in Copenhagen. Much of Forsberg's renown is focused on his work as a chamber musician, both in Sweden and abroad. Bengt Forsberg also appears as a soloist with orchestra, and has performed with all the major Swedish symphony orchestras, as well as a number of international ones. His repertoire is exceptionally wide and he has become particularly renowned for playing unknown music by well-known composers as well as for exploring lesser-known and unjustly neglected composers, such as Medtner, Korngold, Alkan, Chabrier and Percy Grainger. He is also the music director of a well-regarded chamber music series in Stockholm. Bengt Forsberg has been a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music since 1997.

Classical Music

Many people may not know that both Mozart and Beethoven also wrote fantastic ballet music. Here is a CD of the complete ballet music from Mozart's opera "Idomeneo" and Beethoven's full-length ballet "The Creatures of Prometheus." Only a handful of recordings exist of these unusual and demanding works. This is V��ster�s Sinfonietta's debut on dB Productions, led by British conductor Roy Goodman, recognized internationally today for his some 120 CD recordings.

The Swedish award-winning string orchestra, Musica Vitae, directed by violinist Malin Broman and accompanied by pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, is showcased here in a sparkling performance of Felix Mendelssohn's challenging Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra. The concerto is coupled with Felix's sister, Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn's, String Quartet, here for the first time recorded in an arrangement for string orchestra. As a bonus, Malin and Simon also perform four songs by Fanny, arranged for viola and piano. Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra is the ensemble that brings live music - indeed the music of life - to each and every individual member of the audience. The vast realm that is art music is handled with the utmost precision and elegance by it's 15 string players. The repertoire consists of baroque and romantic as well as modernist and contemporary music from a wide variety of genres. Musica Vitae appear on stages big and small in Sweden and abroad. Internationally, the orchestra has been warmly greeted in China, the United States, Greece, Switzerland, Germany and Spain to name but a few countries.

Swedish composer, Amanda Maier, and British composer, Ethel Smyth, met in the 1870s, when they both studied in Leipzig. Here are their string quartets from those years in world premiere recordings by The Maier Quartet! The outer movements of Maier's string quartet in A major were reconstructed in 2019 by composer B Tommy Andersson. Don't miss out on this unique album! The Maier Quartet was formed in 2018 and consists of musicians from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. They are named after Swedish composer Amanda Maier-R�ntgen (1853-94). Members of the Maier Quartet are Johannes L�rstad and Patrik Swedrup, violin; Arne Stenlund, viola; and Klas Gagge, cello.

With eight albums on dB Productions since 2005, guitarist M�rten Falk is one of the most recorded artists on this label. His solo albums have been internationally praised, not least by Classical Guitar Magazine. This time his wife, soprano Ingrid Falk, joins him, as well as �sa Karlberg and the Swedish Soloist Prize winner Per Gross (recorder) in 20th and 21st Century music by some of Sweden's most celebrated woman composers. They range from Sweden's grand old lady Carin Malml�f-Forssling (1916-2005) to young Andrea Tarrodi (born 1981), whose string quartets won Sweden's most prestigious music award in 2018, the Swedish Grammis Award ("Classical Album of the Year). Swedish guitarist M�rten Falk studied at the Conservatory of the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris under Alberto Ponce. He has toured across Europe, Asia, and North America, and collaborates with composers from all over the world.

Jazz singer Anna Lundqvist has previously released two celebrated discs on dB Productions with her quartet. On this third album the saxophonist Bjorn Almgren takes his place as a permanent member of the rechristened Anna Lundqvist Quintet who together serve up a delicious batch of new Lundqvist originals for your enjoyment.

Two of Sweden's finest, award-winning musicians are back: Cecilia Zilliacus, violin, and Bengt Forsberg, piano. This time you can enjoy their intimate and astonishing interplay on their new album, "Swedish Violin Treasures", with wonderful but neglected works by Swedish late-romantics Helena Munktell, Harald Fryklöf, Algot Haquinius and Ika Peyron. With one exception it's all world premiere recordings! Cecilia Zilliacus is one of Sweden’s most accomplished violinists, working across the Nordic countries and Europe. Her versatile repertoire of solo and chamber music works has led her to cooperate with a vast number of composers and orchestras. As a soloist, she has performed with most Swedish symphony orchestras as well as many Nordic and European orchestras, such as BBC Wales, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. Bengt Forsberg is a Swedish concert pianist most famous for his numerous collaborations with the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. He participated in her project to record songs written in the concentration camp of Terezín. Forsberg has a reputation as a champion of neglected music and composers. He is highly acclaimed as a recital accompanist and regularly plays alongside Mats Lidström and Nils-Erik Sparf.

Swedish contemporary composer Mats Larsson Gothe has established himself as a composer of opera, above all other genres. This album contains some of his most significant orchestral works, such as his great second symphony. Conductor Fredrik Burstedt conducts the Vasteras Sinfonietta and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra for this album.