Jouni Kaipainen first came to notice in the early 1990s with the premieres of his First Symphony, two-piano concerto Ladders to Fire and the clarinet concerto Carpe diem!. His musical style, while recognisably built on late-20th-century aesthetics, is advanced but not aggressive, postmodern tonal with much that is jovial and pleasingly lyrical. This new disc makes a good introduction to his sound world.

Three examples of Leonard Bernstein’s vocal art can be heard in this recording. His Symphony No. 3 ‘Kaddish’ shuns traditional symphonic ideas in favor of an eclectic theatrical and oratorio-like form with a prominent rôle for speaker. For this recording Marin Alsop has returned to the work’s original narrative text, heard before the 1977 revision. The Lark – heard in a concert version with added narration – derives from Lillian Hellman’s adaptation of L’Alouette on the life of Joan of Arc, and it was this music that Bernstein reworked into his Missa Brevis many years later. Marin Alsop is a Bernstein protégé, and has written fondly and extensively about studying with him. He mentored her when he was conductor of the New York Philharmonic and few conductors today understand his music better. This disc presents Bernstein the vocal composer performed inlargely original editions by one of his best contemporary interpreters. The speaker in Kaddish is the great actress Claire Bloom.

The paths of the soloist can often be lonely, especially for one of the most outstanding instrumental soloists like Felix Klieser. All the greater is the joy when closer artistic and human connections are formed through many years of playing together. Felix Klieser's concerts with the Prague based Zemlinsky Quartet are therefore his favourite of the year, because after countless performances together, the five have long since bonded more than a purely musical community. “I have played a lot with the Zemlinsky Quartet and we really wanted to record a programme together. ”What could be better suited for this than Mozart and Haydn? With arrangements of Haydn's horn concertos, Mozart's horn quintet and four Mozart arias, Felix Klieser and the Zemlinsky Quartet present a varied and rousing programme.

WildKat Paris is thrilled to promote this new album which will be released on March 18th on NoMadMusic. Stay tuned for their concert in Paris at Athénée on February 14th!

Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 by Apple Records. Named after Abbey Road, London, the location of EMI Studios, the cover features the group walking across the street's zebra crossing, an image that became one of the most famous and imitated in popular music. The album's initially mixed reviews were contrasted by its immediate commercial success, topping record charts in the UK and US. The single "Something" / "Come Together" was released in October and topped the US charts.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed his most renowned organ works — the Toccatas, the Fantasia in G minor and the Passacaglia in C minor — in Weimar, in the stylus fantasticus so beloved of his Northern German masters Buxtehude and Reinken. Bach here follows in his predecessors’ footsteps in all of these large-scale works: the freely inventive writing in the preludes is linked to the rigour of the fugal construction and so brings them to a majestic conclusion.

Auréolé d'une Victoire de la musique classique en 2003, le ténor franco-mexicain Rolando Villazón, né à Mexico en 1972, connaît la consécration internationale au festival de Salzbourg en 2007 dans La Traviata avec Anna Netrebko. Ce début de carrière fulgurant est interrompu par des problèmes de santé durant les deux saisons suivantes. Rolando Villazón fait un retour en fanfare à l'automne 2010 avec un opus consacré au répertoire populaire mexicain, ¡México!. En 2013, il célèbre par deux fois son compositeur fétiche Giuseppe Verdi à travers le Verdi de Deutsche Grammophon et les enregistrements plus anciens de Sings Verdi pour Virgin Classics. Partenaire régulier du chef d'orchestre Antonio Pappano, il chante sous sa direction dans une nouvelle production de Werther et un récital d'airs de concert de Mozart parus en 2012 et 2014. Parallèlement, Rolando Villazón poursuit sa collaboration avec Yannick Nézet-Séguin dans le cycle Mozart-Da Ponte (Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni, L'enlèvement au sérail). En 2015, le récital Treasures of Bel Canto dévoile des mélodies plus ou moins connues de Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti et Rossini, tandis que Duets (2017) le voit donner la réplique à la basse russe Ildar Abdrazakov.

Conductor Robert Trevino's fourth album release on Ondine is focused on the late works of composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016), one of Finland's most celebrated composers after Sibelius and known worldwide for his Neo-Romantic, even mystic compositions. Together with violinist Simone Lamsma and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra the artists are presenting four final orchestral works by the celebrated composer. Two of the works are world premiere recordings. In his late period, Rautavaara received several communications from the world's leading violinists requesting him to write works for them. He was able to oblige them, creating several extensive works featuring solo violin. Fantasia (2015) for violin and orchestra is a work of soft Neo-Romantic harmonies and soaring melodic lines. In 2014, Rautavaara was asked to write a new Violin Concerto.

For more than two centuries, the Paris Conservatoire has maintained a glorious cello tradition, which since 2003 has been upheld by Marc Coppey. As a tribute to the spirit of his predecessors, he now presents three of the most famous nineteenth century cello concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns, Édouard Lalo and Léon Boëllmann, all united on one album.

Artefactron is a new progressive rock band from Mexico, and the album reviewed here is in fact their debut effort, though one might suspect after the first listen that these are some seasoned veterans from the 70s or 80s; in fact they have only been together for a few short years…

“Every Choice is an Act of Courage” is a mantra embedded in Afiune by his father, Jorge. From a young age the lesson applied to the smallest daily actions, but as Afiune approaches the release of his sophomore album, it clearly influences how he reconciles the relationship between creativity and what is normally expected of a jazz guitarist.

Antwerp, city of harpsichords Antwerp, around the middle of the 17th century. Music issues from an imposing house on the Meir. Inside the house, paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, Brueghel, Vermeer and Tintoretto hang everywhere. A small but international group seated close to the fireplace is listening to a concert arranged especially for them. Francisca Duarte (1619-1678), who lives in the house, plays one of the many Ruckers-Couchet harpsichords and virginals owned by the Duarte family. She has chosen the music carefully: there are works from old collections of manuscripts compiled for and by the Duarte family, including music by John Bull and arrangements of dances and songs, as well as new repertoire by harpsichord virtuosos such as Jacques Champion de Chambonnières and Johann Jakob Froberger who have shared their recent compositions with the family. One of the guests, Béatrix de Cusance, noted in a letter ‘Dear Francisca lets us hear unusual and extraordinary things. She plays a thousand times better from day to day’. Francisca’s father Gaspar, and her sister Leonora frequently perform with her; he is a lutenist and she is a singer. Heavenly music continues to resound in Antwerp until well after midnight.

Slowik, ter Linden, and Junghänel bring a fresh quality of robustness to the music and cleave together, even breathing as one, in a remarkable display of ensemble playing. They show an enviable mastery of gesture and phrase in performances of breadth and cohesion.

On the CD “Light Shall Shine” organist Anders Eidsten Dahl performs three works of Herman Vogt on the magnificent Carsten Lund organ in Bragernes Church. The release is the result of a collaboration over more than ten years between the performer and the composer. The music spans a wide palette in its tonal language, everything from simple and naivist music to complex polyphony.