Coup Fatal (Fatal Blow) is an original encounter between Baroque and Congolese music. Organized around Fabrizio Cassol (musical director), Serge Kakudji (countertenor) and Rodriguez Vangama (conductor/guitarist), they have been elaborating for several years a ‘Baroque recital’ the likes of which have never been heard. Live, the show is staged and choreographed by Alain Platel, who leads the company of 13 musicians into a universe where songs, traditional African instruments and dances are one. In this new exploration of the repertoire, Baroque ‘hits’ unite with folk music.

Since 1992, the year Aka Moon was formed, a series of albums has marked the history of the legendary jazz trio, which this set of twenty albums now gives you a chance to relive. To discover or rediscover this unique music is a very special experience, an inexhaustible source of inspiration. The twentieth album in the box is a previously unreleased recording: Light Ship Trio. (Outhere)

Mozart’s Requiem is one of the most iconic works in the history of western music. After exploring its labyrinth of secrets in several years of research, Fabrizio Cassol wanted to reframe the mournful ritual of the Requiem to express other emotions as well – such as joyfulness – transcended by music and dancing. He confided his wish to Alain Platel, who was immediately fired by the idea. The choice of musicians was key: the ensemble is made up of six singers, three likembes, accordion, guitar, bass, euphonium and percussion. The basic narrative and formal scheme of the original Requiem is retained: recognizable fragments from it are quoted in almost all the sections. Joy and intense exultation, the power of the ‘groove’ and profound incantations all meet and intermingle with polyphony from many different sources. Five African languages intertwine with the ancient Latin text, and invocations to the ancestors ring out, creating a unique journey towards the hereafter – a journey open to the reality of the world today.

Aka Balkan Moon and AlefBa are two projects, the core of which is the Aka Moon jazz trio. • The Aka Balkan Moon project draws its inspiration from the Balkan gypsy tradition. • With assistance from a pair of fellow musicians, the trio went in search of musical fellow travelers, finding four virtuoso Bulgarian musicians. • The result is a unique contemporary jazz and traditional folk music blend. • The AlefBa project brought together 12 artists, half from Europe, half from Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, to create what could be called a Musical and Poetic Suite in Arabic Languages.

The intrepid experimental jazz trio Aka Moon has represented an approach to jazz that has seen them collaborate with a multitude of artists from different backgrounds in their richly filled career. Their new collection ‘The Scarlatti Book’ is devoted to the music of Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti. (Outhere)

Very appropriately, Valentina Nafornita devotes half of her debut album released on Outhere to the composer who makes the highest vocal demands, with his incomparable dramatic complexity and inspired musical invention. Ever since she sang her first Papagena as a new ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera in the autumn of 2011, she has repeatedly enjoyed enormous success performing Mozart’s great female roles, which are so challenging in their diversity. The charismatic Moldovan soprano impresses with an astonishingly wide palette of expression and emotion. The second part of the CD is devoted to the Slavonic repertory. With her rich, bronze timbre, she is ideally suited to the tragic depth of expression of Dvorák’s ‘Song to the Moon’, with which she made her breakthrough at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and to Tchaikovsky, whose Iolanta she sang at the Opéra de Paris in May 2019. The recording ends with a song dedicated to Valentina by the Moldovan composer Eugen Doga, recounting the life story of this singer who has been known as ‘The Nightingale’ in her homeland since she was five years old.

Robert Schumann's romantic universe invites us to approach it through five pieces of chamber music in step with the composer's mood: by turns fanciful, testy, or jovial, it can also be meditative, tender, or melancholic. A beautiful union of the viola and the clarinet.

MINIMAL marks the Percussions de Strasbourg's first foray into the world of minimalist music. Faithful to their legendary history, yet open to other sonic horizons, the ensemble asserts a plural identity, nourished by a sensitive dialogue between heritage, aesthetic diversity, and creative freedom. This recording, centered on Steve Reich's famous Mallet Quartet, brings together works such as Avant, pendant, et pourtant by Camille Pepin, where formal rigor and emotion intertwine, and Sunday by Shelley Washington, imbued with a gentle melancholy. Nik Bartsch adds his rhythmic textures and "ritual groove". Conceived by Minh-T�m Nguyen and shaped by the inspired ear of Vincent Peirani, MINIMAL reflects an openness to jazz, pop, and classical influences. It marks a turning point: a record conceived before the stage, envisioned as a living manifesto of contemporary creation.

The present release is a wonderful concert by Mohammad Rezâ Shadjariân, master of Persian classical singing, both composer and performer at the same time: inspired improvisation, poems chosen with great taste, subtle instrumental accompaniment. Traditional Iranian music is a message, a call from the artist's inmost consciousness, which is tightly linked to his age-old history and culture. Poetry is regarded so highly by Iranians that music is often accompanied by sung poems (by Ferdowsi, Mowlavi, Saadi, Hâfez, Bâbâ Taher, Khayam etc.). The technique of Persian singing is very complex, and while it is of great subtlety, it demands great physical force and support –The singer improvises ornaments and vocalizations in a form of singing, free and arhythmic, the beauty of which depends on his sensitivity, mood, and enthusiasm and depth of the performance.