Valery Gavrilin was one of the most colorful and significant Russian composers of the second half of the 20th century. He was only 25 when he composed 'The Russian Notebook,' a 'poem of love and death' crafted in a new musical language that doesn't employ folk melodies but does use folkloric texts, and with a virtuosic vocal part. These stylized tunes are combined with rich melodies to form a haunting cycle heard here in a 2018 orchestration. The ten numbers from the ballet 'Anyuta' are lively, melodious and touchingly beautiful. Yuri Serov has toured across over 35 countries and has recorded more than 70 albums for record labels across the world. Serov is chief conductor of the Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Mussorgsky Youth Symphony Orchestra, and is the author of many articles and essays on music.

2020 is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, and this album presents three works that reshape the composer's awe-inspiring music for the 21st century. The Sonata for Orchestra considers how the Violin Sonata No. 7 would sound had it been written for orchestra, while A Fidelio Symphony transforms vocal lines into symphonic textures to take us through the entire arc of the composer's sole opera. Based on the famous Ode to Joy of Beethoven's final symphony, BEETHOVEN9 Symphonic Remix uses loops, grooves and musical transformations to create a contemporary tribute to Beethoven's universal message. This release contains world premiere recordings of three works that reimagine the music of Beethoven in differing and special ways: a brand-new 'symphony' in the style of Beethoven based on the Seventh Violin Sonata, an orchestral suite that captures the spirit of Fidelio, and Gabriel Prokofiev's unique take on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony featuring styles from minimalism to impressionism via Hip-Hop, African, Funk, Baroque and many others to create an eclectic but striking remix of some of the most famous movements in all music. Conductor Yaniv Segal is a versatile polymath who has appeared on stages as a violinist, actor, singer, composer, and conductor dedicated to bringing classical music of all types to a broad and mainstream audience, and has been spotlighted by Esquire Magazine as a rising star that is 'redefining classical music.'

The jazz pianist Wolfgang Mitschke appeared in Jazz magazines for the first time with Jazz masters such as Albert Mangelsdorff, Charlie Mariano, and Don Friedmann and became known to a wider audience with his Fusion Jazz record "Night Over Berlin," published by SKIP-Records. A stylistically similar album with the title "Midnight Moods" was also released by SKIP in the summer of 2008. On these albums, Wolfgang Mitschke already understood to organically employ the technical possibilities "single-handedly" with perfectly sampled sounds of the piano, e-piano, bass, rhythm guitar, strings, and the drum in such a way to produce a full sound impression.

Schubert's String Trio was modeled after the example of Beethoven, and it's transparent textures, Classical structure and fine interplay are capped by a charming Rondo finale. Composed over a decade later, during the period of his final illness, the String Quintet is wholly different in character. Scored for two violins, viola and two cellos, it is one of the most compelling and moving works in the chamber music canon, and stands as the summation of Schubert's writing for chamber forces. Praised by The Strad magazine and The New York Times, internationally renowned cellist Amit Peled is acclaimed as one of the most exciting and virtuosic instrumentalists on the concert stage today. Peled has released over a dozen recordings on several labels including Naxos. The Aviv Quartet made their Naxos debut in 2003, presenting Hoffmeister's Op. 14 String Quartets (8. 555952). It was followed by Schulhoff's String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 on 8. 570965, which received positive feedback from ClassicsToday. Com: 'This music, rhythmically charged and alternately folk-inflected and harmonically contemporary, is absolutely wonderful, and it's very well played... The group is also quite sensitive to Schulhoff's use of tone-color'.

Of all Berlioz's Shakespeare-inspired works, Romeo et Juliette is unquestionably his masterpiece. It is also cast in an innovative new form, a kind of 'super-symphony' that incorporates elements of symphony, opera and oratorio. Berlioz composed no singing roles for the central characters, but allowed others to comment or narrate, giving latitude to incarnate the lovers in a musical language of extraordinary delicacy and passion. The vivid 'Ball Scene' and 'Romeo at the Capulet tomb' are intensely dramatic but the heart of the work is the 'Love Scene,' a long symphonic poem which Richard Wagner called 'the melody of the 19th century.'

Alfonso Romero Asenjo's distinguished career has resulted in numerous awards and distinctions, highlighting an unmistakable and very particular musical language whose appetite for spirituality and selective use of the avant-garde is now an established aspect of the so-called 'Generacion del 51.' The String Symphony has a cinematic restlessness that conjures hauntingly unsettling images, while the Cello Concerto pits the luminous and extended melodic phrases of the soloist against dense darkness from the orchestra. The Concerto for Two Violins is in part a tribute to J.S. Bach's work in the same setting, endowing Baroque resources with a mysterious and attractive modernity.

After the violence and destruction of the First World, a new musical aesthetic developed in Paris. Following the publication of Jean Cocteau’s famous pamphlet Le Coq et l’Arlequin, Impressionist influences were denigrated and instead simplicity in expression was promoted. This album of flute music charts this new ‘Harlequin’ direction, from old school adherent Pierre de Breville to foreign musicians such as Tansman and Anthell who flocked to the city. Foremost among the exponents are members of the famous Groupe des Six whose innovations challenged and changed French wind music forever. Thies Roorda studied at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague with Paul Verhey and in the United States with the renowned Geoffrey Gilbert. After a long career with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, he now dedicates himself to specific periods of the flute repertoire that are of particular interest to him.

Alexander Moyzes, one of the leading Slovakian composers of his generation, created a nationally inspired style that also assimilated trends aligning his music with contemporaries such as Shostakovich. The Eleventh Symphony builds on the success of the Tenth, intensifying it's emotional impact and developing sophisticated cycles of transformation and variation. Simpler and more concise than preceding works, the Twelfth Symphony was Moyzes' final orchestral statement and his 'diary in music.' He said it 'also seeks to express my attitude to life... We have to take life as it is, with all it's digressions, demands, and haste.' The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra was established in 1929 as the first professional symphony orchestra in Slovakia. The orchestra is currently led by conductor Mario Kosik.

Even so great a composer as Beethoven wrote music that is now almost completely neglected and unperformed. This sequence brings together a portfolio of such works that focuses on his variations on popular operatic music of the time by Giovanni Paisiello, Peter Winter and Andre Gretry, and includes the witty and inventive variations on an arietta by Vincenzo Righini. The Piano Sonata in C major, WoO 51 was found among Beethoven's papers after his death and published in 1830. While it lacks a finale, it too offers a revealing look at an overlooked composition as do the two charming and unusual waltzes. A laureate of the 2016 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition, Larry Weng has been critically acclaimed by The new York Times. He also garnered critical praise for his 2015 New York debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall from the New York Concert Review, and from Harry Rolnick of ConcertoNet for his performance of Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso. He has played in major venues around the world as both a soloist and chamber musician. As of the 2017 season, Weng is a full-time member of the Icarus Quartet. Weng graduated from the highly selective joint degree programme between Columbia University and The Juilliard School under the tutelage of professors Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio. He continued his studies with professor Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music, earning his Doctor of Musical Arts in 2019.

With a portfolio of over 250 works, including major concertos and technical studies, Emile Sauret- hugely admired by Brahms, Liszt and Tchaikovsky- was one of the most distinguished figures of his time, a violinist with a stupendous technique and a profoundly analytical mind. With it's spellbinding effects and exceptional variation of form and dynamics, Volume 3 of his Etudes-Caprices, Op. 64 continues the exploration of this monumental work's fusion of virtuosity and expression. Nazrin Rashidova plays on Sauret's own 1685 Stradivari violin.

So greatly did Ignaz Lachner venerate Mozart that he arranged twelve of the 27 piano concertos for performance by small ensembles. Lachner, who had known Schubert in Vienna and had met Beethoven, was superbly equipped for these arrangements ensuring that the string quintet of soloists, with the double bass largely doubling the cello role, sounds thoroughly idiomatic. The three selected works represent the different sized orchestras Mozart employed, K. 246 being the most lightly scored, and K. 488 the most complex. The anonymous arrangement of excerpts from Die Zauberflote proves equally vital and attractive.

This new release is an album of eloquent contemporary music for children performed by Mr. E and Me and The Norwegian Radio Orchestra. The wonderful songs are written, arranged and sung by the highly accomplished duo Mr. E and Me, which consists of Martin Hagfors and Erik Johannessen. Martin, American born, is an artist, composer and lyricist in his own right and a popular collaborator for the likes of Ellen Andrea Wang, Bobby Bare, Big Bang, Motorpsycho etc. Erik is a Norwegian composer, arranger and trombone playing member of Jaga Jazzist, he is also known for his studio work with Susanne Sundfor and The Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. New Orchestral Hits 4 Kids also includes a guest appearance by the world music icon, Mari Boine on the hauntingly eerie, Long, Long and performances by The Norwegian Girls Choir. New Orchestral Hits 4 Kids aims to open ears to the wonderful sounds of the orchestra while introducing whimsical, imaginative songs about friendships, forests, wet socks, dancing, space, a robot, a birthday, and a beautiful narrative about a girl on the moon.

One of the pivotal and bloodiest battles of 16th-century Europe, the four-month siege of Malta by an Ottoman armada of some 200 ships, from which the local population led by the Knights of Malta emerged victorious, was an extraordinary episode of heroism overcoming overwhelming odds. Alexey Shor’s orchestral cycle Images from the Great Siege allows his signature lyrical expressiveness free rein in a suite of romanticized impressions – from an atmospheric Premonition of the Ottoman invasion, to the daring and climactic The Big Bluff and final jubilant Victory Celebration. Verdiana is a virtuosic showpiece that celebrates and transforms Verdi’s music into samba, bossa nova and tango styles.

Contemporary sacred choral music has been central to the repertoire of Vasari Singers throughout its existence, and to mark its 40th anniversary it has selected a sequence of anthems, mostly with star-based themes, the vast majority of which are by living composers. The rich variety to be heard reflects the choir’s commitment to the genre, whether in the ecstasy of Ēriks Ešenvalds, the serenity of Jonathan Dove, the shimmering harmonies of Eric Whitacre, or the ethereal beauties of Paul Mealor.

Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem was initially conceived as a 'cantata of grief' - it was the death of his mother and the desire to create a memorial to his friend Robert Schumann that makes this music so intensely personal. With it's radiant messages of humanity, consolation and comfort, the Requiem caused a sensation and made Brahms famous virtually overnight. The work is heard here with it's 'ad libitum' organ and contrabassoon reinstated, enormously intensifying the depth of tone colors and lower sonorities. For the conductor Ralf Otto flexibility, diversity and transparency of sound have always been essential for his work with orchestras and choirs. Otto believes that understanding the compositional structure of a piece of music is an indispensable prerequisite to achieving intensely emotional expression. The conductor's reputation is based on his gift for interpreting different musical styles, from the Renaissance to the music of today. Since the beginning of his career, he has been a strong advocate for the performance of early music according to historically informed performance practices. His numerous recordings and broadcasts are a testament to his artistic achievements.