Legendary composer for stage and screen John Williams has admired the United States Marine Band, the "President's Own," since childhood - and in recent decades, the maestro and ensemble's mutual admiration has deepened amidst a series of collaborations marking the group's major anniversaries. The culmination of this twenty-year relationship was Williams' return to conduct the band's 225th anniversary gala concert in July 2023, along with the release of this 2026 album, John Williams and 'The President's Own,' Vol. 3. Completing a trilogy of albums issued by Naxos of America, this live recording brings the outstanding virtuosity, good cheer, and moving musicianship of that 2023 Kennedy Center concert to the world.

Mezzo-soprano Ester Pavlu has chosen four of the two dozen individual songs and song cycles that the world-famous Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) wrote during his lifetime. Ester Pavlu's magnificent voice as well as her and her convincing stage presence make her one of the most promising mezzo-sopranos of the current generation, who wins the admiration of audience and critics both on domestic stages and abroad. Charles Spencer is one of the most sought-after piano accompanists worldwide who regularly collaborates with many of the world's most renowned singers.

Ever since playing Hugleiding (Meditation) by composer Karolina Eiriksdottir for the first time back in 2006, this Icelandic solo violin music project has been melting in my veins. In 2013, John Speight wrote his Soliloquy (track 7 and 8) at my request. Two more recent commissions are on the album, both from composers who play the violin: Fragile Stillness by Lilja Maria asmundsdottir and Aria by Maria Huld Markan. Iceland has a long tradition of violin playing and according to folklore every farmer in certain valleys up north was a fiddler. Ea Fantasia (track 4), my own composition, is inspired by the opening track Alia Fantasia by Nicola Matteis Jr. He was the London-born son of the Italian composer Nicola Matteis, who wrote Ayers and Grounds. Nicola Junior was a violinist like his father and lived in Vienna, where he composed numerous ballets for the imperial opera. His bariolage (arpeggios over four strings) remind me of the opening of Fratres by Arvo Part and Bach's Chaconne-key works in the violin repertoire-both of which have been a great inspiration to me. In Fragile Stillness (track 2), Lilja Maria asmundsdottir experiments with textures. Or as she puts it: "The piece is inspired by a weather condition called froststillur. It is characterized by an intense calmness where there is no wind and a crisp, frozen atmosphere. Karolina wrote Meditation (track 3) in 1996 for violinist Hlif Sigurjonsdottir, who premiered the piece in June 1997. Meditation is in one movement, built on ideas which change and develop, and the composer describes it as "variations without a theme. Aria (track 5) by Maria Huld Markan was written for me in 2023. Her solo piece is written under the influence of Maria Callas and her romanticism and lontano as she sings Puccini. Maria is reflecting on the concept of the genius, and motifs are flowing from all the fountains contemplating the romantic violin repertoire. On his Adagio (track 6), composer Tryggvi Baldvinsson writes: "This small Adagio can be seen as a short play in which three distinct characters appear. Each has it's own traits, it's own personality. The encounter between these characters is bound to have a profound and lasting impact on them. As for the actual course of events, I leave that entirely to the listener's imagination. The piece was composed for Rut Ingolfsdottir, who premiered it in 1997. John Speight is an English-Icelandic singer and composer I got to know through working with the Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra, playing and recording his works. He wrote Soliloquy (track 7 and 8) in 2012 and it is the only piece on the album in two movements. The first movement is slow and thoughtful, while the second is crazy and furious. Tranquility (track 10) by Sveinn Ludvik Bjornsson is possibly the shortest piece I have ever played. The story of it is longer than the piece itself-and too good to omit. Sveinn Ludvik, who is visually impaired, was renting a studio in an old banana storage in Brautarholt, Reykjavik. To enter his studio he had to walk through the studio of artist Helgi Valgeirsson. Above the door there was a painting by Helgi which inspired Sveinn Ludvik deeply; he had the sense it was very somber in it's mood-a naked woman with her back turned. Moved by the scene he wrote Tranquility. Later, when discussing the piece with Helgi and admiring the tragic impact of the naked woman in the picture, Sveinn was shocked to discover that the painting, in fact, was of bananas and oranges. Veronique Vaka Jacques, a Canadian-Icelandic composer and trained classical cellist, grounds her work in the geology and topography of Iceland. In Ofdune (track 9), a map of North Iceland serves as groundwork, with the geographical details of a descending river abstractly translated into the work's time progression, using the river's path through hills and valleys as a loose blueprint. This concept of descent is echoed in the title, Ofdune, which is derived from the Old English meaning "downwards" or "off the hill". Jon Nordal's Hvert orstutt spor (Each Tiny Step, track 11) is from the play Silfurtunglid by Icelandic Nobel Prize-winning author Halldor Laxness. This is a famous Icelandic song, here in my gospel music influenced arrangement for solo violin. I tried to stay true to the beautiful and simple melody and the text of the poem filled with nostalgic longing. - Una Sveinbjarnardottir Recorded in Reykholtskirkja West Iceland January 24. - 25. 2025 Una Sveinbjarnardottir, Violin Ragnheidur Jonsdottir, Tonmeister Dan Shores, Recording, Editing, Mixing, & Mastering Engineer Eva Schram, Photography Una Sveinbjarnardottir, Liner Notes

With "Kiss of Fire," Spark present their newest project and once again make a powerful statement of musical boundary-breaking. The ensemble is known for it's distinctive and varied programs that move beyond traditional genre limits and continuously redefine classical music. For Kiss of Fire, Spark has collaborated with the W�rttembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn. This encounter gives the characteristic sound a new tonal dimension and expands the ensemble's spectrum with an additional orchestral color. A special highlight of the album is the world premiere recording of the commissioned work by Dutch composer Chiel Meijering.

Just Friends is a 1998 jazz album by French pianist Martial Solal, featuring bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian. The trio is highly regarded for it's blend of high-energy, straight-ahead swing and avant-garde improvisational complexity. The album features a mix of jazz standards and original compositions by Solal. Critics have noted the trio's remarkable technical facility, harmonic imagination, and ability to navigate both aggressive, complex avant-garde passages and traditional swing.

JP Soars has spent over two decades building his reputation the way roots music was meant to be built: onstage, night after night, delivering a high-energy, blend of roots music that moves effortlessly through blues, rock & roll, Latin grooves, country, and gypsy jazz-never confined by genre, always guided by feel. That musical vision comes fully into focus on Gypsy Blue Revue, a collaborative project with acclaimed violinist, vocalist, and songwriter Anne Harris (Keb Mo & Taj Mahal, Otis Taylor, Cracker): a blend of songwriting styles and instrumental chops, set to a backdrop of Southern soul, roadhouse blues and rock, and eclectic folk music, recorded "all in one room, playing together. We just wanted it to sound like we do live."

Here is Dizzy Gillespie's complete 1961 Monterey Jazz Festival performance, introduced by Diz as 'A Musical Safari'. This remarkable set reflects the quintet's working repertoire of the period, including a foray into bossa nova and features the superb Leo Wright and Argentinian pianist Lalo Schifrin. The first Monterey Jazz Festival was staged in 1958 and, since then, Jimmy Lyons and musical director John Lewis have traditionally gathered each September under the California sky many of the great names in jazz, along with several thousand enthusiastic listeners.

Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra present a gripping new recording of Samuel Barber's Vanessa, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American opera of love, longing, and illusion. In Barber's atmospheric, emotionally charged score, echoes of Verdi, Puccini, and Hitchcock-era Hollywood intertwine with a distinctly modern American voice. This performance brings together an exceptional cast, including Nicole Heaston, J'Nai Bridges, Matthew Polenzani, Susan Graham, and Thomas Hampson, who illuminate Gian Carlo Menotti's haunting tale of desire across generations. Recorded live in concert, this release captures Vanessa's sweeping romanticism and psychological depth with vivid orchestral color and extraordinary vocal artistry. A landmark addition to the contemporary operatic discography, it reveals why Vanessa remains one of the 20th century's most compelling operas.

Includes vesper(s) by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Ensemble: Le Concert spirituel. Conductor: Hervé Niquet.

Following his recent acclaimed recordings of Haydn and Beethoven Sonatas, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet turns from the Classical to the Romantic era, and the works of Schumann. The programme is built around the Grand Sonata (no.3). This impressive, large-scale work was originally composed in 1834, later revised in 1853 and eventually premiered (6 years after the composer's death) by Schumann's young prot�g� Johannes Brahms. Jean-Efflam first discovered the work though a recording by Vladimir Horovitz in the 1980s, and got to play it to and discuss the work with Horowitz in Paris in 1985. Like Horovitz before him, Jean-Efflam combines elements from both the original and revised versions of the work on this recording. Bavouzet has chosen to couple this with another early work - the "Faschinsschwank aus Wein" - and then the much later work the "Drei Fantasiest�cke". He closes with the "Gesange der Fr�he" which were among the last compositions that Schumann wrote before his attempted suicide and incarceration in February 1854. As always with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's albums, the booklet features an insightful personal note by the performer.

In 1995 Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan began the monumental task of recording J.S. Bach’s extant church cantatas – an adventure that was brought to a close 18 years later. But Bach also composed a number of cantatas for secular occasions of which some twenty works have survived intact. Released on individual discs between 2004 and 2018, Masaaki Suzuki’s recordings of these works have now been gathered in a box set, available as a limited edition. The secular cantatas were written (both the texts and the music) for special events in the family, social, academic or political calendar – a wedding, a birthday celebration, an academic ceremony or a tribute to a prince. Although they were normally only performed once in their original form, Bach was keen to reuse material from them, if the opportunity arose. The best-known examples of using secular arias and choruses with new sacred texts are found in the Christmas Oratorio, for which Bach drew extensively on three festive cantatas written for the Prince-Elector of Saxony and his family. Included in the release is a 156-page booklet with an introduction by Bach specialist Dr Klaus Hofmann (in English, German and French) and the texts of the cantatas with English translations. ----- Excerpts of reviews from previously released volumes included in this set: Bach: Secular Cantatas, Vol. 10 - Cantatas of Contentment: We celebrate here, as always, many of Suzuki’s finest qualities of expressive lucidity, unforced coherence, and the quiet nobility of one serving the music as the most natural of reflexes. – Gramophone Bach: Secular Cantatas, Vol. 8 - Celebratory Cantatas: Schleicht, spielende Wellen (‘Flow, playful waves and murmur’) follows the dramma per musica template of allegory – this time with four competing rivers yearning for the primacy of the monarch’s affections. However ludicrous, Bach constructs a very significant work which Suzuki treats as an undertaking of serious critical engagement. After 22 years of intensive Bach recording, Suzuki and his forces just seem to get better. – Gramophone Bach Secular Cantatas, Vol. 5 - Birthday Cantatas: Lithe choral singing, balletic rhythms, and a detailed yet transparent sound. Joanne Lunn is agile and fleet as the goddess of War…Robin Blaze is lyrical as the goddess Pallas…Makoto Sakurada's lucid tenor is particularly effective in the rhetorical and declamatory recitatives, while bass Dominik Wörner paints the words to vivid effect. – BBC Music Magazine

Disc 5 of this set is a bonus disc titled "Serebrier on Stokowski." Reviews of the original recordings which make up this set. "Stokowski's Bach transcriptions have received a great deal of attention on disc lately, but this is one of the very few recordings that has the genuine flavor that Stoki himself brought to them. The obvious first question is: How do these versions compare to the "originals"? Can they be as good? The answer, quite simply, is "Yes, they can." Serebrier doesn't try to duplicate every gesture that Stokowski made. That would be impossible in any case, given the wide range of tempos and other variations among his own numerous recordings of these pieces...Aside from Bach, Serebrier includes Stokowski's own Two Ancient Liturgical Melodies, a sexy conflation of Veni Creator Spiritus and Veni Emmanuel, as well as the Handel and Purcell items. Dido's Lament sounds particularly dark and tragic in this performance. It's clear that the Bournemouth Symphony is having a great time reproducing these ultra-rich, Golden Age sonorities. The engineering supports the interpretations particularly well, giving the strings the necessary sheen and allowing the climaxes to expand hugely. This new release is an unqualified triumph." -- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com “José Serebrier brings to his recordings of Stokowski transcriptions the same voluptuous orchestral sheen that the old wizard himself managed on his own numerous recordings of this repertoire. However, Serebrier also has the advantage of superb modern sonics to back him up, making these productions eloquent tributes to a beloved friend and mentor, as well as perfectly valid and compelling interpretations in their own right.” -- David Hurwitz, Classics Online "It would be hard to imagine a more sumptuous disc. Stokowski, in these 'symphonic syntheses,' enhances Wagner's already opulent orchestration with shrewdly added instrumental lines and with the vocal parts usually given to the strings. Then at times he thins the orchestration down for more transparent textures. José Serebrier conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in thrilling performances, passionate in a genuinely Stokowskian manner and treated to orchestral sound of demonstration quality." -- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone "José Serebrier deploys an imaginative mix of the great man himself with other early masters. Outstanding items among the latter include Palestrina's Adoramus Te, Byrd's Pavane and Galliard, and a really yummy (but never too droopy) Boccherini Minuet. Stokowski was not really a brilliant orchestrator in terms of timbral variety, but he was a very characteristic one. Key to any successful new recording of his arrangements is string sonority, that special, luminous sheen, especially in soft passages. Serebrier understands this, as others who worked with Stokowski do not." -- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com "Further icing on the cake: the two lovely Tchaikovsky transcriptions (the Humoresque will be familiar to knowledgeable listeners from its use in Stravinsky's The Fairy's Kiss), and Stokowski's own Traditional Slavic Christmas Music, a setting where once again Serebrier shows himself able to conjure a truly authentic "Stokowski sound". Mind you, these aren't mere imitations. Serebrier's flexible approach to tempo and willingness to inject a jolt of extra electricity make something quite special out of the climaxes in A Night on Bare Mountain, and it's very clear that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is having as much fun playing this music as you will have listening to it. The engineering stands among the best from this source as well. Spectacular, sensational, skirting the boundaries of "good taste"--this is the real deal." -- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com