TFOV Founder - Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck writes.....RE-INVENTIONS takes talent and a lot of courage to take world-renowned and treasured classical pieces by the masters and rework them into your vision. After hearing this album, I think you will agree that Robin should put the crown on her head because she proves why she is piano music royalty. The 2 LP set is a beautiful translucent smokey marble with three sides of music. The sound for instrumental piano is exceptional. I would think most instrumental music is well suited for the vinyl format. Of course, when you have an equally exceptional musician such as Robin Spielberg performing, the sound is that much more beautiful and defined. Robin Spielberg has poured her heart and soul into this music, which becomes apparent quite readily. Track after track you have the opportunity to revisit classic compositions and the old blended with the new reborn into several variations. The color, ambiance, and heavenly beauty of this music is brilliantly performed. I can guarantee if you appreciate piano solo music, you will fall in love with RE-INVENTIONS. I know it did not take me long! READ THE FULL Final on Vinyl REVIEW

THE Violin Channel writes......The United States Marine Band commissioned American composer Peter Boyer for special fanfare at Biden/Harris Inauguration, to be performed at the U.S. Capitol on January 20th, 2021. Boyer's new work, "Fanfare for Tomorrow," will be performed as part of the one hour prelude music of the inauguration, conducted by Colonel Jason K. Fettig., the Marine Band's Director. The piece was originally for solo French horn, was commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra. Boyer significantly expanded and developed it for a full concert band for this inaugural commission. The United States Marine Band, the "The President's Own," is America's oldest continuously active musical organization. It is said that debuted in 1801 for Thomas Jefferson's inauguration. "I had just over a week to compose and orchestrate the piece," Boyer said. "Col. Jason Fettig had cautioned me about writing too high for the brass, due to the very cold conditions in which the piece would be performed outdoors. I had just a few hours to create and deliver this lower key version of the piece to the Marine Band. Happily, It seems to have worked out well!" READ THE FULL Violin Channel ARTICLE

Hollywood Soapbox - John Soltes writes......Arturo O'Farrill, who heads The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, has always brought the real world into his musical compositions, and that's especially true of his latest release, Four Questions, featuring well-known academic Dr. Cornel West. The album was met with acclaim in 2020 and received a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album. The title of the album is pulled from the original composition featuring West on the album. The 16-minute piece pairs the academic's voice with the measured musical musings of the orchestra. Surrounding this central tune are other songs that speak to the versatility of O'Farrill's creative output, including "Baby Jack," "Jazz Twins," "Clump, Unclump" and the "A Still, Small Voice" series. "What happened was I had been very interested in Dr. West's speaking for many, many years," O'Farrill said in a recent phone interview. "You can't help but be aware of Dr. West, and periodically he would come to a show. And I'd see him in the audience." READ THE FULL Hollywood Soapbox ARTICLE

NPR: Tiny Desk's Bob Boilen writes......Every January, I attend globalFEST at a New York City nightclub and see some of the most fantastic music I'll experience all year. Now, given the pandemic's challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST moved the 2021 edition from the nightclub to your screen of choice and shared the festival with the world. We called it Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. We presented 16 artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo. Recording from her apartment in Brooklyn, award-winning Argentine vocalist and songwriter Sofia Rei provides a concert that blends South American folk traditions with experimental pop and electronic music. That mix of tradition and modernity extends to her surroundings, which features traditional iconography, robotic 'saints,' exuberant plants and looping pedals. This performance took place during the opening night of our 2021 festival. --globalFEST SET LIST
"Un Mismo Cielo" (The Same Sky)
"Negro Sobre Blanco" (Black On White)
"Escarabajo Digital" (Digital Beetle) MUSICIANS
Sofia Rei: vocals, charango, electronics
JC Maillard: guitar, bass, programming, background vocals
Leo Genovese: keys
Jorge Glem: cuatro
Ana Carmela Rodriguez Contramaestre: background vocals, percussion SEE THE NPR PAGE

The New York Times, Jon Pareles writes.... With 16 bands over four nights, the festival expanded its reach at a time when live music with audiences is in short supply. Minyo Crusaders set an old Japanese song, from a tradition called minyo, to a Nigerian Afrobeat groove. DakhaBrakha, from Ukraine, roved from Eastern European drones and yipping vocals to something like girl-group rock. Aditya Prakash, from Los Angeles, sang a joyful Hindu devotional over upbeat jazz from his ensemble, sharing its melody with a trombone. Rachele Andrioli, from southern Italy, sang a fierce tarantella accompanying herself with a tambourine and electronic loops of a jaw harp and her voice. Hit La Rosa, from Peru, topped the clip-clop beat of cumbia with surreal lyrics, surf-reverbed guitar solos and psychedelic swoops and echoes. They were all part of the 18th annual Globalfest, the world-music showcase that moved online this year as a partnership with NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concerts series, which will preserve the performances online. Previous Globalfests were one-night live showcases in New York City for a dozen bands on club stages. But for this pandemic year, musicians recorded themselves performing live at home: living rooms, studios, a record-company office, a backyard barbecue. Angélique Kidjo, the singer from Benin who appeared at the first Globalfest, played virtual host in eye-popping outfits; musicians made sure to have at least one globe on camera. The sets were short, just two or three songs each. But Globalfest's potential audience has been hugely multiplied. While necessity forced Globalfest online, networking has long been built into its music. Many musicians who cherish local and traditional styles have decided that the way to ensure their survival is through adaptation and hybridization, retaining the essence while modernizing the delivery system. For musicians, fusion is also fun: a chance to learn new skills, a way to discover creative connections. There are commonalities in the ways voices can croon or bite or break, in mechanisms like repetition or call-and-response, in wanting people to dance. Modernization doesn't have to mean homogenization. There were traditionalists at Globalfest. Dedicated Men of Zion, a multigenerational band of family members, sang hard-driving gospel standards like "Can't Turn Me Around," rasping and soaring into falsetto, from a backyard in North Carolina with a smoking barbecue grill. Edwin Perez led a 10-piece band - mostly Cuban musicians - updating a New York style that flourished in the 1970s and 1980s: salsa dura, propulsive and danceable with jabbing horns, insistent percussion and socially conscious lyrics. (One song was "No Puedo Respirar" - "I Can't Breathe.") But tradition often came with a twist. Nora Brown adeptly played and sang Appalachian banjo songs from Kentucky, passed down through personal contact with elder generations, even though she's a 15-year-old from Brooklyn, where she performed in a tunnel under Crown Heights with a train rumbling overhead. Rokia Traoré, from Mali, has an extensive catalog of her own songs, but her set reached back to a tradition of epic song: centuries-old historical praise of generals who built the West African Mande empire - "Tiramakan" and "Fakoly." She sang over mesmerizing vamps, plucked and plinked on ngoni (lute) and balafon (xylophone), progressing from delicacy to vehemence, from gently melodic phrases to rapid-fire declamation, putting her virtuosity in service to the lore she conveyed. Musicians securely grounded in their own cultures also felt free to experiment with others. Martha Redbone - born in Kentucky with Cherokee, Choctaw and African-American ancestors - punctuated bluesy, compassionate soul songs with Native American rattles and percussive syllables. Elisapie sang in her Native American language, Inuktitut, as she led her Canadian rock band in volatile songs that built from folky picking to full-scale stomps. Emel, a Tunisian singer influenced by the protest music of Joan Baez, sang two songs from a living room in Paris. They were introspective, brooding, keening crescendos: "Holm" ("A Dream"), which envisioned a "bitter reality that destroys everything we build," and, in English, "Everywhere We Looked Was Burning." Labess, a Canadian band led by an Algerian singer, had musicians performing remotely from France and Colombia; its set roved from Arabic-flavored songs to, for its finale, "La Vida Es Un Carnaval," a kind of flamenco-samba-chanson amalgam with French lyrics and a button-accordion solo. Natu Camara, a singer from Guinea now based in New York, gave her West African pop a tinge of American funk as she offered determinedly uplifting messages. And Sofia Rei, an Argentine singer now based in New York, conjured a wildly eclectic, near hallucinatory international mix from her living room with her band: Andean, Asian, jazz, funk, electronics. True to Globalfest's boundary-scrambling mission, she sang about living under "Un Mismo Cielo": "The Same Sky."

New Classical Tracks, Julie Amacher writes....Ofra Harnoy returns to the stage with her new album - On The Rock (Analekta) "We came here for a vacation, and it was within days that we decided to start looking for a house here and we found the perfect house, which is on a lake. I can look out and see eagles flying across the lake. Every day the weather's so different that it's like watching an ever-changing painting." That beautiful scene in the province of Newfoundland is what inspired Ofra Harnoy's 44th recording, On the Rock. It's her second recording with her husband, multi-instrumentalist and arranger, Mike Herriott. "Well, 'The Rock' is kind of a slang or nickname for the province of Newfoundland. My husband and I actually moved here about two years ago and we came up with a list of music that we thought could be beautifully arranged to suit the cello. "Our hope with the album was to be true and respectful to the Newfoundland tradition but also share my love of this music through the voice of the cello. So, the music had to be suitable for that. I think we came up with a beautiful collection of songs that really tell a story. I think it's a universal story for any seaside or oceanside community. It has the love, the longing, the ballad, the pub culture, and the fun." READ THE Q&A AND LISTEN

BroadwayWorld writes......On Thursday, January 28, 2021, Education Through Music-Los Angeles (ETM-LA) will host a virtual 15th Year Celebration Benefit at 5:00PM PST. All are invited to join supporters from the music, film, business, and education communities in honoring Academy Award-Winning Composer/Songwriter Alan Menken (Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast,The Little Mermaid), Booker White/BTW Productions (Supervisor of Music Prep., Dir. of Music Library - Walt Disney Pictures & Television; Board Chairman, ETM-LA), and Manuel Castañeda (Music Educator & Director - Centennial High School, Compton Unified School District). The one-hour virtual celebration will feature exclusive performances and appearances by Alan Menken, Broadway Tony-Nominated Actress Jodi Benson (Disney Legend - Voice of Ariel, The Little Mermaid; Toy Story 2 & 3), Actress Karen David (Galavant, Once Upon a Time, Legacies, Fear the Walking Dead, Mira Royal Detective), Celebrated Artist Anthony Evans (Beauty and The Beast, Two-Time Billboard #1 Gospel Artist), Academy Award-Winning Composer Michael Giacchino (Disney-Pixar's UP, The Incredibles; Advisory Board Member, ETM-LA), and ETM-LA students. READ THE FULL BroadwayWorld ARTICLE