The Piano: A Journey from Hubris to Humility

Hildegard And Her Sisters, Katelyn Bouska, piano. After our first success with Women and War and Peace, Katelyn Bouska put a big smile on my face when she mentioned a second project she wanted to do with Yarlung Records. Kate can play any genre, and we discussed an album celebrating the great composer, mystic, poet, philosopher, scientist, rabble-rouser and visionary abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard is the first composer for whom we have a definite name in the European canon. She was born in 1098 and died in 1179 at 81 years of age. I was even more enthusiastic when we discussed that Kate and Yarlung would commission new music for the project in Hildegard's honor. To help place Hildegard in wider European history, she was born a mere 32 years after the Battle of Hastings, 47 years before the start of construction of Chartres Cathedral, and Henry IV was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire after inheriting Charlemagne's throne in Aachen. Kate wanted to return to Samueli Theater at Segerstrom Center for the Arts where we made our first recording together. Aaron Egigian was able to secure dates over Easter Weekend, March 29th, 30th and 31st, 2024, when the concert hall, Kate and our team were available. My fellow recording engineer Arian Jansen and I set up for the recording before Kate arrived, and while I do not believe in frequent divine intervention for such things, we asked Hildegard to "bless the more than 50 vacuum tubes" that we would need to be working perfectly for the recording. With or without Hildegard's intercession, all vacuum tubes worked beautifully for the duration without hiss, pop or crackle. Because Hildegard is best known for her vocal music, we decided to record this album as if Kate's piano were a full choir, stretching from far left to far right in the soundstage. Thanks to the superb acoustics in Samueli Theater, you may hear ambience and extreme high and low notes on Kate's keyboard expanding outside your speakers in your listening room. Unconventional as this may be for a solo piano recording, this was intentional such that the listener can experience more of the sound Kate enjoyed sitting at the piano, as if our ears are Kate's ears while she plays.

This Yarlung release features Gerard Schwarz conducting Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Maestro Schwarz’s celebrated tenures as music director of both the LA Chamber Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony included the making of over 100 recordings, many seeing re-release through Naxos. The Colburn Orchestra is the flagship ensemble of the Colburn Conservatory of Music, one of the nation’s leading conservatories for highly talented college-age students pursuing intensive instrumental performance training. “Without question, among the finest orchestras in the world.” – Gerard Schwarz

Cellist Antonio Lysy, known for his GRAMMY award-winning Yarlung CD Antonio Lysy at the Broad: Music from Argentina (YAR27517), joins Neal Stolberg conducting the UCLA Philharmonia in three major orchestral works by Viennese composer Eric Zeisl.

Classical Music

Swiss cellist Rosselet plays two different cellos in this recording. A modern cello, which he plays in the pieces by Berio, Ligeti and Dutilleux, made about 130 years ago by a student of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. For the Bach suites, he choses a Baroque era period instrument, with no peg, lighter sound post, gut strings and a Baroque bow.

Classical Music

Vanish is the engaging and highly innovative follow-up to Yarlung's original and equally compelling Smoke & Mirrors release, presenting a wide tapestry of rhythms and harmonics skillfully arrayed across a broad and deep soundstage. There's an immediacy, clarity, and transparency to this modern classical percussion recording that seemingly brings the performers to your living room.' -Jim Hannon, Publisher, the Absolute Sound, November 2013.

This time it's their first jazz entry that has golden warmth of a Blue Note from it's heyday as well as visceral instruments presence of a Contemporary Records. Recorded in Cammilleri concert hall using only a vintage tube stereo microphone, the sound of the CD is creamy like butter while the texture is so rich that you can easily discern which parts of the drum set the player hits and rubs. The big crescendo on 'For Andrew' is mind blowing!

Classical Music

Classical Music

“I spoke with pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane after Ryan's legendary performance of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto at Ambassador Hall in Pasadena. Jeffrey Kahane told me he was deeply moved by Ryan's playing, and wrote later ‘I was enormously impressed and genuinely touched by the depth of Ryan McCullough’s musicianship, the authenticity and sincerity of his musical voice and his burgeoning mastery of his chosen instrument.’ Whether Ryan remains a concert pianist or also becomes a conductor, I suspect this approach to his music will remain with him always. After the myriad galas, Ryan was invited to perform the opening night recital for the new Broad Stage concert hall in Santa Monica. He chose repertoire from this album for his concert program.” –Bob Attiyeh, producer

This release features Joanne Pearce Martin, who is the principal keyboardist of the LA Philharmonic and includes solo piano music by John Adams, Chopin, Mozart, Hofmann, Mendelssohn and Gernot Wolfgang. = "... music is as essential in life as the air we breathe. A life without music is unimaginable for me. Whether I'm dressed in evening clothes performing in a concert hall, or barefoot at home playing the piano for our dog, music is always the fabric of my life...."

Successful artists share their inner worlds with us, and whether we realize it consciously or unconsciously, their art enables US to experience deeper glimpses into our own daily lives... Great music emanates from this private psychic space within the composer, and inspires US to explore our own inner worlds, if we let it. Taking this journey with David S. Lefkowitz has enriched my inner world, as I hope it does yours." -Martin Perlich.

In 1965, when I was 12 years old, my mother bought me a recording of the Vivaldi 'Cello Concerto in E Minor and the Pieces en Concert by Couperin. I was especially excited by this LP because I was learning the Vivaldi concerto at the time. The artist on this recording was the great French 'cellist, Pierre Fournier, accompanied by Karl Munchinger and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. I still have this record, and I treasure it. One year later, I heard Fournier in person for the first time. He performed the Dvorak 'Cello Concerto with Zubin Mehta conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was an evening I'll never forget, and one that changed my life forever. I remember the sheer beauty of Fournier's sound, his profound respect for the music, and the depth of his musical expression. In 1973, I had the privilege of playing for him in Phoenix, Arizona, and was thrilled that he made it possible for me to study with him. I went to Geneva, Switzerland for master classes the following summer, and thus began a long and cherished relationship with this great artist. I worked on virtually all the standard repertoire with him, including the Martinu, Vivaldi, Couperin on this album. I dedicated my 2006 concert tour to Fournier in honor of his centennial. I chose works either written for him or closely associated with him. In addition to the recitals, we also performed the Martinu Concerto No. 1 with Paul Freeman and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. As I traveled around Europe and the United States doing these programs, I met so many musicians who remembered Fournier with the greatest of admiration. Over and over I heard colleagues say, "If I had to choose just one 'cellist to listen to, it would be Fournier." There is no greater tribute. - John Walz Notes by Roger Lebow: Bohuslav Martinu deserves his rightful place in our standard concert repertoire. On the strength of his six masterful symphonies alone (all works of his full maturity, and all readily available in multiple recordings on CD) we should embrace him as one of the leading composers of the Twentieth Century. His style is a distinctive, original amalgam of Czech nationalism, French Post-Impressionism, and the emancipated rhythmic vitality of Stravinsky. This music sounds fresh today, and we can immediately identify it as Martinu. The two pieces for 'cello on this album serve an excellent introduction to the composer's music. Martinu wrote prolifically for the instrument: three sonatas, two large concerti, two additional concerti with chamber forces, several other concertante works, and a gaggle of smaller pieces, many of them infrequently performed on these shores. In the first incarnation Martinu's first 'cello concerto, the composer scored the work as a concerto grosso with accompaniment of seven winds, piano and strings. He began this early version in Czechoslovakia and completed it in Paris in 1930. Gaspar Cassad�, to whom Martinu dedicated the work, played the premiere in 1931. In August of 1939 Martinu rewrote the piece for full orchestra, entrusting the first performance to Pierre Fournier.