Best of Latin America, Vol. 2

Music from the Middle Eastern lute, the oud, has become especially popular in Australia through Joseph Tawadros and groups like Trio Joubran and Les Triaboliques. Ancient, mesmerizing Iraqi rhythms based on Arabian magams conjure images of bazaars and mosques. Backed by exotic percussion including the dombak (single-headed goblet drum), riqq, tar (tambourines) and khishba.

Colombian singer and Latin Billboard Music Award nominee Marta Gómez’s Cantigo is an album of original songs presented in the rich and multifaceted rhythms of South America. Ms. Gómez has developed an extensive career that has placed her as one of the most interesting singer songwriters on the world music scene, performing a repertoire of original compositions based on a vast amount of rhythms from Latin America. Marta mixes the joy of the Caribbean with the nostalgia of the Andes, adding jazz and pop elements and taking the authenticity of South American indigenous folk music into new realms

Founded in 1926, the London Jewish Male Choir enjoys a reputation for its performance of the broad spectrum of Jewish music- cantorial/liturgical, Yiddish, Ladino, Israeli and Chassidic- to a wide range of audiences. Throughout its more than 90 years, the LJMC has travelled extensively throughout the UK and has performed in London’s most prestigious concert halls. It has also taken part in national and international television and radio broadcasts for the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4. This collection captures a snapshot of the choir over its 90-plus years. In selecting the pieces, we have attempted to show the character and reflect the diverse nature of the LJMC’s repertoire, soloists, conductors, accompanists and musical styles. Cantors featured include Moshe Korn, Steven Leas, and Robert Brody. Accompanists include Shir and Jeremy Limb.

This album takes the listener on a musical journey through Morocco. From the Berber traditions of the Rif and Atlas Mountains, to deeply spiritual Sufi music and the improvised street music of Marrakech, Morocco is a land of musical riches. The tracks on this release have been curated from ARC music's vast catalog of world music, and include artists like Nour Eddine, Abdesselam Damoussi, Rachid Halihal, the Altaf Gnawa Group, and many others. Julia Beyer is responsible for compiling the works on this album, and Diz Heller, once again, presents stellar mastering.

Bellydance is one of the most popular dance styles in the world today, rooted equally in the beauty of both classical and folk styles. Integral to bellydance is the music that leads the body to motion. From Arabian music and bellydance master Hossam Ramzy comes a must-have disc of the most popular music for bellydance. Ramzy not only illumines the tradition through 2.5 hours of music, but also provides insight to the world of Arabian rhythm and dance, including exercises in interpretation, through a personally written guide.

Classical Music

In an intoxicating meeting of cultures, guitarist Ramon Goose and Senegalese singer-percussionist Modou Touré trace the ancestry of the blues – back before its birth to the dunes and deserts of western Africa. The West African Blues Project is a vibrant, exciting marriage of these two seemingly distinct but inescapably-linked musical traditions.

Classical Music

Hossam Ramzy captures a variety of styles and rhythms of Baladi. The pieces are especially meant to augment practicing the dance. Baladi Plus is a great follow-up to the album “Introduction to Egyptian Dance Rhythms”.

This CD features traditional music from Slovakia’s various regions, presented by one of its best traditional music and dance ensembles, the multiple award-winning Lipa (Lime tree). Founded in 1948, the group consists of people united by a common love of their national folk art. Part of their success comes from zealous attention to the authenticity of their costumes and their correct representation of regional customs, as well as the authenticity of their performances.

Classical Music

Shostakovich was no child prodigy - he began piano lessons at nine - but success as a composer came early when his First Symphony, written as a graduation piece, was acclaimed in Leningrad at the premiere in May 1926. That said, there is some fine chamber music in Shostakovich's student output. Much of the Two Pieces for String Octet Op. 11 actually predates the First Symphony Op. 10, remarkably assured for an eighteen year-old. The Two Pieces for String Quartet on the other hand did not surface at all until 1984! Dedicated to the J. Vuillaume Quartet they give us the suggestion of a Shostakovich quartet sound circa 1931 - seven years before the real thing. The original stimulus to compose a piano quintet came from musicians of the Beethoven Quartet who had asked him for something they could all play together. But Shostakovich must have relished the technical challenge of a medium which few twentieth century composers had been prepared to tackle because of it's peculiar problems of balance and texture. The composer himself gave the first performance with the Beethoven Quartet in Moscow on 23 November 1940. And, utterly non-ideological as it was and is, the music won him a Stalin Prize. Shostakovich was one of the most important and prolific writer of string quartets in the 20th century. His String Quartet No. 8 comes from an important period in his personal as well as his artistic life. Musically it comes from the same period as his widely acknowledged masterpiece, the Tenth Symphony. Dissident writers have claimed it represents the composer himself - a lost voice in a cruel world.

Ayako Hotta-Lister presents exquisite and enchanting Japanese Koto music by Yatsuhashi Kengyo (1614-1685), Michio Miyagi (1884-1956), Rentaro Taki (1879-1903) and Mitsuzaki Kengyo (Edo Era 17th-19th Century).

Originating from Afro-American rhythms of the Caribbean and Latin America, salsa has become one of the world's most popular dance forms. This 'sauce' is hot and spicy, a mixture of ingredients which gives it great versatility. Salsa is an ever-changing sound that adapts to, but also creates, new fashionable styles. Elements of jazz, funk, rap, as well as further Caribbean influences such as soca and merengue, have recently been included, forming a newly distinctive and further adaptively resilient salsa. This collection highlights salsa music in some of it's most popular forms.

Fiesta Filipina is an album of traditional music from the various regions of the Philippines features music that accompanies ritual and ceremonial dances of the mountain dwellers of Luzon and the remote hinterland of Mindanao played with hand-held gongs, bamboo flutes, clappers and drums.Spanish influenced music with small mandolins and guitars rubs shoulders with the music of Filipino Muslims and their markedly different musical traditions.

An elegant selection of Tango masterpieces, from Piazzolla to the fiery fiddles of Gypsy tango, from Argentinean Milongas and Waltzes to modern Finnish Tango - some of the world's finest!

This new release features a wide and varied collection of Klezmer music, gathered from across the Americas and Europe. These songs represent a kaleidoscope of styles and instrumentations, from ethnic to jazzy and everything in between. The music exudes a special kind of charm, and a kind of melancholic exuberance, at once happy and sad, a kind of feel that only Klezmer can bring. Featured ensembles on this release include The Burning Bush, who specialize in music of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions, London-based ensemble She’koyokh, Canadian trio From Both Ends of the Earth, and many more. This release was compiled by world music specialist Diz Heller.

• This 2 CD set from Arc Music contains a collection of Irish Music. • The 28 pieces range from the very traditional to today’s modern renditions, and they are presented by some of the finest exponents in the genre.

Golden Bough celebrates its 36th Anniversary as a Celtic Music trio this year. rooted in the traditional music of the seven Celtic nations (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, The Isle of Man, French Brittany and Spanish Galicia), Golden Bough has become a popular and in-demand group on both sides of the Atlantic. Since their formation in 1980, this trio of modern day minstrels has travelled great distances to numerous countries to bring their music to enthusiastic folk fans the world over. Bakcing themselves on an array of acoustic instruments - Celtic harp, guitar, octave-mandolin, mandolin, accordion, violin, penny-whistle and bodhran, they blend their voices in the pristine harmonies that have become a Golden Bough trademark. In the recording studio, as well as on stage, Golden Bough captures the essence and joy of traditional music. "The group has made a name for itself...Thus the two concerts on the weekend were sold out...They create, in a wonderful way, the connection between the old and the new world, not only musically, but also the spirit. Once in stride, they heated up the public and didn't get away without four encores." - Holsteinischer Courier, Germany

An exciting and vibrant cross-section of Brazilian classics presented in today's arrangements. Excellent new and modern versions of songs that most will recognize.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 10 CDS: DE

Music From Romania is the first release in a reissue series of recordings from the 1960s and 70s.

The great Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar can be heard as accompanist on recordings with John Forsell, and as soloist on a few piano rolls, but never as conductor. However, his successor, Tor Mann was recorded while rehearsing and performing the famous 2nd symphony, and the Serenade, works he himself experienced under the composer's baton as an orchestral cellist. Sixten Eckerberg succeeded Tor Mann, and together with the Gothenburg Symphony and pianist Hans Leygraf, he made the world premiere gramophone records of Stenhammar's important orchestral works. This release explores Stenhammer's heritage through these historical recordings.

This record is a panorama of contemporary Turkish music. As such it includes traditional music - folk and classical - and also new popular music, in which Western, Indian och North African influences are combined. The music group Sameyda consists of six eminent Turkish musicians, all residing in Sweden at the time of this recoding. The group was founded by singer Sevinc Uygur, who also leads the group. Uygur also picked out the repertoire for the group, a great part of which she copied from the Turkish Radio's Folk Music Orchestras, a kind of modern versions of folk songs with strong melodies and rhythms. Many of the lyrics are humoristic and light spirited, built up around rhymes and jingles, and with love as a general theme.