It is difficult for us to put recording works into words. We are not authors, critics or musicologists. Actually, we want to let the works speak. For us, certain things can only be expressed through music and sound art. Our work began 35 years ago with the label JMT and has been continued and expanded for the past 25 years under the label Winter & Winter. Anniversaries invite us to venture a kind of retrospective: Looking back towards the future" (we were inspired by the motto of the X Documenta). But it's not us who direct, it's the artists. They make their selection, determine the order of the music pieces and present their own choice: "My Choice." Guy Klucevsek opens the programme, followed month by month this year by further choices from Jim Black, Uri Caine, the tango musician Andr�s Linetzky to Aar�n Zapico and his baroque orchestra Forma Antiqva." (Mariko Takahashi and Stefan Winter)

Uri Caine and Stefan Winter met for the first time in New York 30 years ago. A musical adventure begins, there is no goal, but a path. Two outstanding jazz albums are created on JMT, then Caine breaks through the boundaries between jazz, classical and new music like no other artist on Winter & Winter. New, exciting, groundbreaking things are emerging. Caine embodies sound, composition and improvisation merge, Bach and Monk meet as in a completely new duo drama and conduct a dialogue. Caine: “When Stefan Winter asked me to choose music from the past to put on an album, I hesitated. The selection of works is as difficult as if someone asked you which of your children is your favorite child." Caine made a completely surprising choice: worth hearing, enlightening, remarkable!

Once the West and Japan were not familiar with one another. But today, in the 21st century, the two worlds which are so very different can come a little closer to each other. We learn, wonder, and discover different cultures, lifestyles, nature, architecture, images and sounds. Fumio Yasuda’s music comes from modern Japan, which already opened up to the West in the 18th century. Yasuda studied classical music with a preference for Karl Amadeus Hartmann. From childhood he grew up with Western pop and jazz music, yet was still deeply rooted in the Japanese tradition. Time, space, and infinity play an important role in his music. In his scores there are no pause signs like in Western music, but signs of silence between lyrical, deeply poetic tones and chords that tell stories about Japanese landscapes, rain, forests, fog, longings and eternity. Yasuda works in a deep musical understanding with Joachim Badenhorst, Nobuyoshi Ino and Akimuse. His gentle piano sounds unite with the sounds of the clarinet, the plucked bass strings, and the tender voice of Akimuse.

Mason's work is the result of an intensive exchange with the musicians of ENSEMBLE RECHERCHE. He leaves the Well-Tempered Sound to let floating states arise and disappear. At the tonal center is the piano, with an enraptured mood that appears like a flicker above the sounds of the ensemble. Mason works four-dimensionally with space and time. Sounds move along their paths like meteors, fade away and dive into infinity. He composes sounds, noises and spaces in the course of time. At the end of the piece, the cello is left all alone, lost in an ecstatic semi-improvisation, while the other instruments wistfully penetrate into the distance.

The Brandenburg Concertos by Bach count among his most well-known works, composed before 1721. At that time when he did not know about his subsequent engagement as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. In this year, 1721, Bach fell in love with the young Anna Magdalena. All doors seemed to be open for the 36 year old Bach, who have had great plans. He was full of energy and has had a real zest for life. This release opens beautifully effervescent with the first Allegro from the VI. Concerto, followed by the Andante, which could be seen as an imagination and a homage to Vivaldi’s lagoon city Venice and after that sounds the almost excessive Presto of the IV. Concerto. The first part of this release ends with the celebratory closing Allegro, again from the VI. Concerto. The second half of the album starts with the brilliant compositions of the Allegro from the II. Concerto. The Adagio from the I. Concerto gives a miraculous rest. Then follows — between wild dance and sensual rapture – the Allegro from the III. Concerto.  Contemplative calm brings the Affetuoso from the V. Concerto, and the album ends with the vigorous Allegro from the same Concerto.Bach probably didn't expect that his life will end in Leipzig, however it was him granted not to find a career like George Friedrich Handel. The album breaks all previous limits. The selection is sassy, fun, extremely distinct and hopefully not too crazy. Also the recording procedure is unusual: no overdubs, no complex editing procedure, no use of a multi-microphone system.

REVIEWS:
Fanfare (1-2/00, p.200) - "...[Beschi's] accounts emphasize dance flavor and rhythm over expressivity....While Beschi is not at the technical level of a Yo-Yo Ma, the movements demanding virtuosity are played with ample brio and drive..."

"...This eerily alluring 30-minute work for soprano and orchestra was written for the remarkable Barbara Hannigan, who performed it stunningly..." -- The New York Times

Composed in 2012 and 2013, Let Me Tell You is a dramatic monologue voiced by a character who requires us to hear her. That character is not quite the Ophelia of Shakespeare's Hamlet; her entire text is made up from words Ophelia speaks in that play, but she uses these words in different ways, to express herself differently. Barbara Hannigan is known worldwide as a soprano of vital expressive force directed by exceptional technique. She brings the same high energy to her varied activities as a conductor as well as to her singing, including recent engagements with Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, and David Zinman.

As an organist, harpsichordist, fortepianist, and conductor, Lorenzo Ghielmi has been inspiring for decades with interpretations of music from the Renaissance to the Romantic era in historical performance practice. He is considered one of the world's most renowned specialists and interpreters of historical keyboard instruments such as Gottfried Silbermann's first fortepiano, a sound revolution that found J.S. Bach's "full approval" and sparked his enthusiasm. In 1983 Lorenzo Ghielmi was one of the founders of the legendary Italian baroque orchestra "Il Giardino Armonico;" as its organist/harpsichordist he traveled the world. He now focuses mainly on his work as a soloist and chamber musician. On My Choice Ghielmi presents outstanding masterpieces by composers from Bruhns and Fontana to Bach and his sons, from R. Schumann and Brahms to Hans Kotter and Arvo Pärt.

On the occasion of its 35th anniversary, WINTER & WINTER releases a series called "My Choice". Producers Mariko Takahashi and Stefan Winter ask core musicians to create a "director's cut" of their work. Each "My Choice" album holds surprises, makes you sit up and take notice, and offers a fascinating look at contemporary interpretations of key works from the world of composed and improvised music.

"When I listen to my own recordings, I sometimes cringe and other times I brace for impact and it’s...not that bad! The entire experience of listening to myself depends on my mood and mind-set at that moment, and I have yet to figure out when and where is best moment to do so [or if at all]. This is a selection of music from a decade of collaborating with producer Stefan Winter on myriad projects. I most always feel good about these tracks, no matter what mood or day it is, and so this is 'My Choice.'"

Back in the 90s, producer Stefan Winter got to know and appreciate drummer Jim Black as a JMT sideman of Tim Berne and Uri Caine. 20 years ago, the young drummer fulfills his dream of releasing his first leader album on the label that is also home to the recordings of Tim Berne, Uri Caine and Paul Motion. For the anniversary of WINTER & WINTER, Jim Black compiles his personal selection of the recordings of his group AlasNoAxis: Music for open ears, for explorers of the unusual and unconventional. The musicians of AlasNoAxis combine jazz elements, new wave and grunge to create their very own sound. Stefan Hentz writes: “...atmospheric songs in which the saxophone sings while bass, drums and Hilmar Jensson's peculiarly motionless guitar shred the familiar and pile up new energies with the fragility of dissolved harmonies, the power of their power chords or even with true feedback orgies.”