To all those who took the time to vote for your favorite video, shared our post, sent in a sample video, judged the entrants, and, of course, answered our question in a 60-sec video, for 'How I Fell in Love With Jazz Video Contest,' Savage Ticket will be announcing the winner On December 30th. Savage Ticket could not have had a contest without our amazing panel of judges, really. Right now, they are curled up with hot cocoa (probably) and are avidly watching our entrant describe their love of Jazz (definitely). While our judges stack the videos against each other, we'll be patiently waiting. Until then. Savage Ticket has made a $50,000 donation to musicians in need through the Jazz Foundation of America COVID 19 emergency fund.     SEE THE PAGE

 

Has there ever been a year during which new albums were as vital to our survival as they were in 2020? CBC Music picks Canada best classical albums of the year, from solo piano to opera and everything in between With concert halls shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the arrival of new music - along with quarantine videos and live streams - was the closest we got this year to the thrill of live performance. And while records will never replace the concert experience, we're grateful to Canada's classical musicians for the profusion of new music they continue to release for our enjoyment. Of the scores of new classical albums that came out in 2020, here are the 20 that stood out to us. If you've got money to spend this holiday season, click on the album titles for information on how to purchase and download them. Canada's classical musicians need your support more than ever. Matt Haimovitz, Mari Kodama, Mon ami, mon amour (Pentatone) While cellist Matt Haimovitz has been enjoying acclaim for his recent Grammy nomination for best classical compendium for Luna Pearl Woolf: Fire and Flood, we're here to rave about his all-French recital album with pianist Mari Kodama that came out in early November. Debussy's sonata, which can often seem like a bunch of disjointed episodes, is in their hands a coherent whole. Miniatures by Lili and Nadia Boulanger as well as the obligatory transcription of Gabriel Fauré's "Après un rêve" show off Haimovitz's creamy tone. He and Kodama seem to revel in the ever-shifting moods of Poulenc's sonata, enjoying the humour and lively repartee, but also taking time to luxuriate in the lyricism. SEE THE FULL CBC ARTICLE

 

Recognized as the first artist to win a Grammy Award for music written for a video game, composer Christopher Tin released his new album 'To Shiver the Sky' last summer. It marks Tin's major label debut after signing to Decca Gold.  To Shiver the Sky, is "an oratorio about the history of flight, and mankind's quest to conquer the heavens," explains Tin. The ambitious 11-track album will also mirror that story with the parallel evolution of Western classical music. Tin ultimately settled on eleven historical figures which are "our greatest astronomers, inventors, visionaries and pilots," he details. Each of whom serve as the basis for a composition, adding up to a kaleidoscopic epic that crosses centuries, continents, and perspectives.  The history of aviation is full of outlandish tales and colorful figures. PRX: The World's April Peavy discusses the project with the Califormia based composer.  LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT

 

Budapest Concert is the second complete show to be issued from Keith Jarrett's 2016 European tour, recorded two weeks earlier than the widely-acclaimed concert released as Munich 2016. The new double album documents the pianist's solo performance at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest. Jarrett, whose family roots reach back to Hungary, viewed the concert as akin to a homecoming – also with regard to his lifelong affection for Bartók, as he explained to the audience - and the context inspired much creative improvisation.  Keith Jarrett - Budapest Concert makes Echoes November 2020 Top 25. SEE THE CHART

 

'some kind of peace' is the stunning new album from the ground-breaking composer and producer Ólafur Arnalds, available now on Mercury KX. The record features a brand new track 'The Bottom Line' ft. Josin, alongside a beautiful video featuring the work of Japanese flower artist Azuma Makoto out today, and 'Loom', Arnalds' collaboration with Bonobo. Also out now is 'finding some kind of peace', a very special behind the scenes film about the new album. Ólafur has been confirmed as the closing act for Iceland Airwaves' virtual festival, ‘Live from Reykjavík', on November 13th, where he will perform mostly new material played live for the very first time. Ólafur's music will also play a major role in the forthcoming Netflix documentary on Shawn Mendes, 'In Wonder', which is set to be released on November 23rd. Ólafur has also recently surpassed a staggering 1 billion streams, an incredible milestone for the Icelandic multi-instrumentalist. Olafur Arnalds - some kind of peace makes Echoes November 2020 Top 25.   SEE THE CHART

 

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions. People of many countries have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet" and the "best selling poet" in the United States. Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God. Rumi encouraged listening to music and twirling, or doing the sacred dance. The dance represents a mystical journey in which the seeker symbolically turnstowards the truth, grows through love, and finds the truth. The seeker then returns from this journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without regard to beliefs, races, classes and nations. It was from these ideas that the practice of whirling Dervishes developed.  Rumi's poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and today Rumi's poems can be heard in churches, synagogues, Zen monasteries, as well as in the downtown New York art/performance/music scene. Recordings of Rumi poems have made it to the USA's Billboard's Top 20 list. A selection of his love poems have been performed by artists such as Madonna, Goldie Hawn, Philip Glass and Demi Moore. Shunia - Breeze At Dawn makes Echoes November 2020 Top 25. SEE THE CHART

 

Pianist Hélène Grimaud has created a "dialogue" of sorts between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Ukrainian-born contemporary composer Valentin Silvestrov in her latest album "The Messenger."  The recording presents three works by Mozart, all in chronological order and in minor keys.  Grimaud sees his use of the minor as suggestive of "confrontations with fate or destiny".  Written in memory of his late wife, Larissa Bondarenko, Silvestrov's The Messenger – 1996 "establishes a connection between the world that once existed and the present day."  It offers "both a response to and an echo of Mozart's music – this idea of acknowledging and paying tribute to what has gone before is central to his art as a composer." I hope you enjoy the discussion with Hélène and Classical Music Host@VPM Music - Mike Goldberg about this project and her approach to the works that are included. LISTEN