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Jon Wirtz:

Beautiful Illusion

Embark on a musical odyssey where each track unfolds like a chapter in the book of Life itself. Beautiful Illusion, the latest release from pianist Jon Wirtz, is a visionary concept album that intertwines mesmerizing melodies with a unique combination of lush orchestration, tasteful synths, intimate piano, and sprinklings of poignant wisdom from teachers that include 60s icon Ram Dass. From the tender beginnings of inception to the profound culmination of Death, each track illuminates the dream-like nature of existence, echoing the profound teachings that inspire us to embrace every moment. As an imaginative concept record that guides listeners through the surreal tapestry of life, Wirtz's Beautiful Illusion offers a soul-stirring experience that resonates long after the final note. 

Michael Tilson Thomas:

GRACE, the music of

In celebration of his 80th birthday, PENTATONE will honor Michael Tilson Thomas’ lifetime of contributions as a composer by releasing a deluxe collection of CDs and digital recordings of his compositions. This four-disc set spans more than five decades of his compositional career and features 18 works, from premiere recordings to remastered archival recordings available for the first time.

The collection also includes an extensive booklet containing composer’s notes, original essays, and a timeline of archival photos chronicling MTT’s life as a pianist, conductor, composer, recording artist, and teacher.

All net proceeds from GRACE: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas will be donated to brain cancer research at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center.

There are two key times in an artist’s life. The first is inventing yourself.
The second, the harder part, is going the distance.
How do you sustain the vision, make it grow, and share it? To be an artist means to have the courage for rebirth and growth. It’s never ending.    Michael Tilson Thomas

Roger Eno:

the skies - rarities

Released to universal acclaim in October 2023, the skies, they shift like chords, Roger Eno’s second solo album for Deutsche Grammophon, contained twelve shimmering musical portraits that traced an evocative and thought-provoking path through sound and silence. Fresh from a series of live performances which included sold-out shows at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and National Sawdust in New York, the British composer and musician now presents a new eight-track mini-album, the skies: rarities. This collection consists of reinterpretations and unreleased highlights from the skies… recording session, together with Eno’s popular 2023 World Piano Day track “Through the Blue (Piano Version)” and the former Amazon Original track “Above and Below”. Out digitally and on 12-inch vinyl on 27 September 2024, the skies: rarities also features Scoring Berlin and the singers of Vocalconsort Berlin. 

Inspired in part by the open skies and landscapes of East Anglia and the threat posed to the region’s biodiversity in our modern world, the music of the skies, they shift like chords has an elegiac feel. The same nostalgic yet vibrant tone flows through Roger Eno’s new Rarities mini-album – listen, for example, to the gentle, ethereal sound of solo piano tracks such as “Changing Light” and “Into Silence”. 

Luna Pearl Woolf:

Jacqueline - Libretto by Royce Vavrek

Award-winning composer Luna Pearl Woolf has long used her evocative voice to advocate for social and political change. Her work has been praised as “brilliant ... profoundly moving” (Opera Going Toronto) for its “psychological nuances and emotional depth” (NY Times). Her dramatic works are championed by major opera houses and international performing artists.

Woolf’s opera Jacqueline, about legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, commissioned and premiered by Tapestry Opera, was hailed as an “extraordinary piece, one that deserves an unquestioned place in the 21st-century canon” (The Globe and Mail). Its 2020 premiere garnered five nominations and a win in Toronto’s prestigious Dora Awards.

Woolf mentors new opera creators in her work with Montreal’s Musique 3 Femmes, and teaches about the intersection of text and music at institutions such as the National Theater School of Canada and McGill University. She is co-founder of Oxingale Productions, a ground-breaking record label and music publisher supporting new music by lyrical and innovative contemporary composers. A dual Canadian-American citizen, Woolf was born Western Massachusetts and lives in Montréal, Quebec.

Royce Vavrek is an Alberta-born librettist and lyricist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker) and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His opera Angel’s Bone with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Among his many collaborations include operas with Missy Mazzoli (Song from the Uproar, Breaking the Waves, Proving Up, The Listeners), David T. Little (Dog Days, Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera, JFK), Mikael Karlsson (Melancholia), Paola Prestini (Silent Light, The Old Man and the Sea), and Ricky Ian Gordon (27, The House Without a Christmas Tree). Royce holds a BFA in Filmmaking and Creative Writing from Concordia University and an MFA in Musical Theater Writing from NYU. He is an alum of American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program. 

Samara Joy:

Portrait

“I’m still speechless,” says Samara Joy, reflecting on her 2023 Grammy win for Best New Artist. When the Bronx-raised jazz vocalist, 24, tries to place herself back in that historic moment today, she feels nothing but gratitude.

At the same time, Joy understood then that she couldn’t let the award define her. She still had a lifetime of music to explore, a tight-knit crew of extraordinary collaborators to guide, and a passion for songwriting to nurture. So Joy did what any committed, eternally curious jazz musician would do: She hit the road. For her and her band, a seemingly endless run of sold-out tour dates became a nightly opportunity to reach new creative heights. “I just got back to work, doing what, in essence, got me the Grammy in the first place,” she says. 

Joy’s new Verve Records release, Portrait, is the proper follow-up to Linger Awhile, her 2022 breakthrough LP, and it represents the next phase in her continuing artistic evolution — unbound by expectations. 

Portrait documents the immersive, seemingly telepathic rapport she’s developed with her touring band, which includes musicians she learned the jazz craft alongside while earning her undergraduate degree; in fact, it wasn’t until college that Joy began to pursue jazz singing. On the strength of that cozy dynamic — on the road, "I'm among friends, which explains personal chemistry that translates to our live performances,” Joy says. The vocalist offers an album that both honors jazz heritage while staking out bold, singular territory. Whatever a rote, singer-with-sidemen record is, Portrait is not.  

Taka Nawashiro:

Lifescape

Taka Nawashiro is an up-and-coming guitarist based in New York after graduating from The New School University and is currently active in Japan. The album was recorded in New York with two different bands, and then overdubbed in Tokyo with Tomoaki Baba, Kurena Ishikawa and others.

Each song has its own color, and the dramatic finish of the album evokes a variety of stories when listened to in its entirety, just like Pat Metheny Group's albums. The album title means the hope that through the album you will feel that everyone is living their own life stories.

VOCES8:

Nightfall

Grammy-nominated ensemble VOCES8 is pleased to announce the release of its new album, 'Nightfall,' on Decca Classics today ! This album introduces a collection of reflective and transcendent music inspired by the night. It features a mix of choral classics and contemporary arrangements, including new choral versions of popular works by Ludovico Einaudi, Sigur Rós, Koji Kondo, and Max Richter.

This exquisite collection of songs, celebrating a diverse range of composers from the worlds of film, game, alternative, and contemporary classical music, showcases VOCES8’s unique style and versatility. The recording also features world premiere works from British composer and 2024 Classic FM Rising Star Lucy Walker, as well as US composer and regular collaborator, Taylor Scott Davis, known for 'dreamy vocal lines'.

‘Nightfall’ opens and closes with contemplative psalm settings by South Korean composer Jaeil Jung, known for his work on Squid Game and Parasite.

The album follows the success of VOCES8’s previous collaborative album ‘Home’ with GRAMMY-winning composer Eric Whitacre and their own GRAMMY nomination in the Best Choral Performance category for their 2022 Decca Classics/Decca Gold recording of Christopher Tin's ‘The Lost Birds’ featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Acclaimed around the world for their skill, subtlety, panache and impressive range of musical styles, recent performances include European venues such as Wigmore Hall and Vienna Konzerthaus, three tours to the US and a return tour to Australia, including the Sydney Opera House.

The 2023 Grammy-nominated British vocal ensemble VOCES8 is proud to inspire people through music and share the joy of singing. Touring globally, the group performs an extensive repertory both in its a cappella concerts and in collaborations with leading musicians, orchestras and conductors. Versatility and a celebration of diverse musical expression are central to the ensemble’s performance and education ethos which is shared both online and in person. VOCES8 is passionate about music education and is the flagship ensemble of the VOCES8 Foundation which actively promotes ‘Music Education For All’, reaching up to 40,000 people annually.

VOCES8 has performed at many notable venues since its inception in 2005 including Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin Philharmonie, Cité de la Musique Paris, Vienna Konzerthaus, Tokyo Opera City, NCPA Beijing, Sydney Opera House, Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall, Victoria Concert Hall Singapore, Palacio de Bellas Artes Mexico City amongst many others. This season they perform over 100 concerts in the UK, across Europe, the USA, Australia and Asia. They have collaborated in concert and in the recording studio with musicians including Paul Simon, Jacob Collier, Eric Whitacre, Ola Gjeilo, Christopher Tin, Olafur Arnalds, Rachel Podger, Jack Liebeck, Bomsori Kim, Jonathan Dove, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and others.

Roy Hargrove:

CRISOL GRANDE-TERRE

In early 1998, fresh off their GRAMMY win for Best Latin Jazz Performance for their debut album Habana, Roy Hargrove and his incandescent group of musicians headed back into the studio to capture lightning in a bottle. Until now that recording, Grande-Terre, has never been heard.

Showcasing Hargrove’s red-hot playing, his superlative writing and the band’s powerful singular sound, Roy Hargrove’s Crisol: Grand-Terre (Verve Records) will be released worldwide on October 18th, two days after what would have been Roy’s 55th birthday. The first track, from the never-before heard recording sessions, “Priorities."

Roy Hargrove was widely praised for his compositions and abilities on the trumpet and flugelhorn and The New York Times called him “…the most impactful trumpeter of his generation.” Grand-Terre succinctly exhibits this talent alongside his “Crisol” or melting pot of long-time collaborators. This all-star group of Cuban, American and Guadeloupian musicians was the foundation to Hargrove’s unparalleled approach to jazz and the mélange of musical genres that appear on the record.  

This unique blending of jazz, afro-Cuban rhythms, soul, bop, and funk influenced a generation of jazz, hip hop and neo-soul musicians. From Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper to D’Angelo, Erykah Badu and Questlove, all these artists—who are now household names—have been shaped by Roy Hargrove’s music and what he cooked up in the studio. 

Roy Hargrove’s Crisol: Grand-Terre will be available globally across all formats (LP, CD, Digital) on October 18th.

Various:

Lili Boulanger - Fragments

What happens when some of the most creative talents of the electronic music scene are invited to reimagine classical works by a composer from the past? With this question in mind Deutsche Grammophon started Fragments in 2022 with tracks by Erik Satie. Two years later, Fragments now releases the second episode and lets thirteen innovative and versatile artists work with Lili Boulanger’s most intriguing tracks. Starting in February 2024 with the first eSingle and releasing the full album in September 2024.

Following the enormously positive response on the debut episode, Fragments now again focuses on a wide spread of musical directions and perspectives. With Lili Boulanger, the project chose a young female composer, that was heavily influenced by her youth in times of war and political instability, as well as living the typical life of a young person existing in an atmosphere of dreams, hope and lightness.

Charlie Parker:

Bird in Kansas City

On modern jazz pioneer Charlie Parker’s heavenly birthday: August 29, 2024, Verve Records announced Bird in Kansas City, an album featuring a new set of rare recordings dating from between 1941-1951, to be released globally on October 25, 2024 on vinyl, CD, and digitally. Much of this collection has never been heard before and some recordings have never even been known to exist — Bird in Kansas City chronicles Charlie Parker’s evolution from a blossoming soloist with the Jay McShann Band into a brilliant improviser who changed the genre forever.

To celebrate the announcement of Bird in Kansas City, the first track, “Cherokee,” 

Chuck Haddix — scholar and author of Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker, who also produced and wrote liner notes for this album — says, “‘Ray Noble’s ‘Cherokee’ was one of Bird's favorite songs. Whenever he showed up late for a gig, he would make a grand entrance through the front door playing ‘Cherokee.’ Taken at a bright tempo, Charlie takes wing with a melodic solo that deftly navigates the song’s challenging chord changes.”

In addition to two unreleased 78s with the McShann band, Bird in Kansas City offers two sets of private recordings — at the home of Parker’s friend Phil Baxter and at Vic Damon’s studio— made with local musicians and a very relaxed-sounding Parker who has the room to stretch out and show us the shape of jazz that was to come in his wake.

Central to these recordings is Parker’s relationship to his hometown of Kansas City, a place he never lived again once he left in 1941 but remained deeply important to him; his mixed emotions owed to the city’s history of racial segregation and to his strong ties to his family and friends there. Though he never returned permanently, he frequently came home during breaks in his travels, and it is during those times that these recordings were made.

Marie Awadis:

Etudes Melodiques

Marie Awadis opened the 26 January 2024 Berlin - Säälchen, Yellow Lounge event with a performance of five of the 12 tracks on her forthcoming Deutsche Grammophon debut album, Études Mélodiques. This inspired composer and conservatory-trained pianist has long followed her own path, refusing to compromise, and simply allowing her music, which bridges the classical and contemporary worlds, to speak for her.

The album version of one of the pieces performed live in Berlin – Étude No. 2: Breathless – comes out digitally today. “This étude is about duality,” explains Awadis. “It represents the constant change of feeling between joy and disappointment, hope and despair, the excitement of experiencing love and the doubt that it will be everlasting.” Études Mélodiques, meanwhile, is released on 6 September 2024. 

Awadis’s route to working with DG says much about her personal and artistic integrity. The label’s A&R department was originally interested in one of the tracks from her then unreleased 2020 album Una Corda Diaries, but this felt wrong to the composer: “I wanted to stay honest to myself and knew that it would be like taking one sibling out of a family.” DG accepted her decision and in 2021 chose a different piece, Alone, to include in their “Project XII” contemporary music series. When Awadis completed Études Mélodiques, she discussed it with DG and the album project took off.

Andrea Bocelli:

'Vivo Por Ella' featuring: Karol G

Introducing a new version of "Vivo Por Ella" by superstar tenor Andrea Bocelli, featuring global reggaetón sensation Karol G - one of the hottest Latin artists in the world with over 250 million followers online! 

Andrea Bocelli’s forthcoming album Duets brings together many of his most beloved collaborations alongside brand-new songs to mark his 30th anniversary year. This career-spanning 32-track collection includes duets with Ed Sheeran, Céline Dion, Sarah Brightman, Dua Lipa, Jennifer Lopez, Ariana Grande, and Luciano Pavarotti, alongside new superstar duets recorded especially for the album with Shania Twain, Chris Stapleton, Gwen Stefani, Marc Anthony, Karol G, Sofia Carson, Lauren Daigle, Elisa, Matteo Bocelli and Hans Zimmer.

Speaking about his collaboration with KAROL G, Andrea Bocelli says,

“This song holds a very special place in my heart, I’ve reimagined it with the beautiful voice of KAROL G to create a timeless celebration of love and music that will find new fans and resonate across generations.”

KAROL G also mentions, “I feel so honored to be part of this celebration, I discovered Andrea when I was teenager, I was super connected to his music, the power of his voice and his unique way of creating music. This song is a huge honor for me, it’s a song I’ve always loved, when I was invited to sing Vivo Por Ella it felt like coming home, it’s a song I really feel inside myself, it feels like it is going to be a special point in my career”.

"Vivo Por Ella" is Bocelli's #2 best-selling single of all time after (Time To Say Goodbye) and was a #1 hit in several markets - selling platinum in France and Belgium.

With nearly 90 million records sold worldwide and over 14 billion streams, Andrea Bocelli is one of the most successful classical artists of all time. He has one of the most recognizable voices in the entertainment industry and with his new album Duets, he continues to surprise and enchant his fans 30 years on. The breadth of collaborations throughout his career so far is testament not only to his remarkable voice, but also highlights his lasting influence and artistry.

Max Richter:

In A Landscape

Max Richter is one of the most influential and acclaimed composers of all time. His fusion of classical technique and electronic technology, heard across genre-defining solo albums and countless scores for film, dance, art and fashion, has won him legions of fans around the world and blazed a trail for a generation of musicians.

His ninth solo album – the first to be written and recorded at his serene new studio in rural Oxfordshire – is a fleeting self-portrait of a musician in constant motion. In A Landscape is a record about “reconciling polarities,” as Richter puts it, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living.

The 19-track album began life in summer 2022 as a natural counterweight to the urgent political tenor of his previous projects: Exiles, a ballet score about the refugee crisis, and Voices, constructed with a “negative orchestra” and hundreds of readings of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. Richter’s ongoing commissions, meanwhile, were similarly dramatic and conceptual, including a ballet adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s post-apocalyptic MADDADDAM, music for a Mark Rothko retrospective, and scores for Johan Renck’s sci-fi drama Spaceman and the Elisabeth Moss spy thriller The Veil.

The next project called for a recalibration. Shifting focus to Richter’s immediate surroundings, In A Landscape marks out a psychic space in which to meditate on the present while recognising a lifetime of artistic influence, from Bach and Purcell to the poetry of Keats, Wordsworth and Anne Carson. “It’s me having a look around, trying to examine where I'm at,” he suggests, “like a memoir of the present moment.”

In A Landscape is his first solo album recorded at Studio Richter Mahr, the minimalist, eco-conscious creative retreat designed and operated by Richter and his wife, visual artist Yulia Mahr. “The whole building is like an instrument,” he says. “There's an element of exploring the capabilities of the building, how all the spaces sound, all the textures, and trying to dicover the fingerprint it has.”

The creative process was deliberately minimal, with Richter writing notation by hand and restricting his palette to just a few colours: string quintet, grand piano, Hammond organ and MiniMoog, plus tape delays, vocoders and reverbs. “I’m always looking for ways to get to the essence of things, to get to the simplest version of everything.”

Erland Cooper:

Carve the Runes, Then Be Content With Silence

Scottish composer Erland Cooper – who merges music with evocative storytelling and conceptual art – will hear the mastertape he buried in the earth three years ago for the very first time. The only recording of his new work, ‘Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence’, was left underground to be nurtured and manipulated by the soil with all digital copies permanently deleted. This totally unique album is now set for release on 20th September (in line with Autumn Equinox on 22nd Sep) on Mercury KX. Also announced today is a full UK and European tour, including London’s Barbican and Orkney’s prestigious St Magnus Festival.

Hailed as “Nature’s Songwriter” (Guardian), in May 2021 Erland “planted” the sole recording of the work (on ¼ inch magnetic tape, with digital files permanently deleted), along with the sheet music, near his childhood home in Orkney. In an unprecedented move Erland’s record label, Mercury KX/Decca, agreed to release the album that, instead of going to be mixed, was going under the ground. The Times stated, “In an act that is either admirable or insane, Decca Records has signed Cooper for an album it will have to wait three years to hear.” A date for the public reveal, at the Barbican, was also announced as the tape lay, as yet unheard, in the soil – a release plan never before seen in the record industry.

Erland Cooper himself explains, “It’s a meditation on value, process, patience and art. Any alterations to the sound and music, produced by the earth, will be reincorporated into the pages of the final score for live performance, as orchestral articulations. Then, the work is complete.”

The work is a brand new composition for solo violin and string ensemble. Over three movements (Movement 1: Carve The Runes / Movement 2 : Then Be Content / Movement 3: With Silence), it celebrates George Mackay Brown on his centenary, written 100 years since the Orcadian poet’s birth.

On burying the tape, Erland left a cryptic trail for anyone to search and find it if they so wish, issuing a map, with extra clues released every equinox and solstice. The tape was found in September 2022, and (literally) unearthed by 
Orkney residents Victoria and Dan Rhodes. They had planned a whole holiday around the unusual quest, described in the Daily Telegraph as “a mystery that had been vexing music fans.”

Since then, the tape – carefully set in a wood and glass cabinet along with the sheet music and a violin (placed just above the tape to protect it from any overzealous shovels) – has been drying out whilst on display in independent record shops across the country. Gradually making its way down from Scotland, its final destination (before going back to the studio) was the Barbican, where it was exhibited at the arts centre in all its soil-ridden glory. Also in the cabinet is the carved rune stone which was placed on top of the earth to mark the spot, and can now be seen on the album cover.

Laila Biali:

'Rocky Mountain Lullaby' from Wintersongs

3 years in the making, the new album from multi-award-winning vocalist, pianist and composer Laila Biali offers a cinematic set of winter-themed original songs that feature JUNO-winner & GRAMMY-nominee Jane Bunnett, the Venuti String Quartet and chamber orchestra.

18 months after the release of her critically acclaimed and JUNO-nominated jazz standards album, Your Requests, Laila Biali is back with an entirely fresh and original offering, marking her 10th recording as a bandleader. Composed from a cabin surrounded by snow-capped mountains during a writing retreat in the heart of Canada’s Rocky Mountains, Wintersongs is Biali’s musical love letter to winter.

Biali comments, “Rob Mathes has been on my dream-list since I first heard his early work.. There was magic in his writing. He and (GRAMMY nominee) Drew Jurecka really brought grandeur and a spirit of play to Wintersongs through their string treatments.”

Vivere String Quartet:

Prayer for Ukraine

Phenotypic Recordings proudly presents Prayer for Ukraine, a new release showcasing original compositions by three Ukrainian composers: Zoltan Almashi, Vasyl Barvinsky, and Hanna Havrylets. Expertly performed by the Vivere String Quartet, these pieces evoke the complex narratives of Ukraine’s past and present. This beautifully mastered and deeply felt album serves as a musical tribute to the resilience of the Ukrainian people amidst the hardships of war. The quartet members—Anna Bura and Dmytro Lysko (violins), Ustym Zhuk (viola) and Dmytro Nikolayev (cello)—deliver masterful performances that resonate with emotion and artistry.

Among the notable pieces on the recording is“Maria’s City,” an homage to Mariupol, composed by Zoltan Almashi from a bomb shelter in Kyiv during the Russian siege. Also featured are two works by Hanna Havrylets, who tragically died from lack of medical care at the onset of the invasion, and Vasyl Barvinsky's “String Quartet,” which resonates with folk melodies and rhythms, celebrating the indomitable Ukrainian spirit.

Prayer for Ukraine stands as a beacon of courage and is a testament to the strength of all Ukrainians. Through this music, one sees the fortitude of a nation, the unshakable commitment of its artists to the beauty of their culture, and the undying flame of hope for freedom. Phenotypic Recordings is honored to support these artists in sharing their message with the world, with all proceeds from the album dedicated to Revived Soldiers Ukraine, aiding in the medical rehabilitation of Ukrainian soldiers. For direct donations, visit www.rsukraine.org.

Avishai Cohen:

Ashes to Gold

The first moments of “Ashes to Gold” – the dramatic five-part suite which opens Avishai Cohen’s new album – feature the unfamiliar sound of the great Tel Aviv trumpeter playing flute, establishing a dreamlike, almost pastoral ambience soon to be torn apart. What follows is some of the most intense and concentrated music Cohen and his band of friends have recorded to date, mirroring the deep tensions of a troubled era.

Ashes to Gold: the title imagery is drawn from the old Japanese art of kintsugi, the ceramic repair work “where you take the old and the broken and try and put the pieces back together, to make something golden and beautiful from the fragments,” says Avishai Cohen.  “In a way I think that’s where we dwell. Our reality. And although this music can’t help but reflect the times, it also – in my wishful imagination - has some hope to it. At least, it is not only dark.”

Last autumn, Cohen had intended to take a month off in Israel to write the music for his new album, and to play the pieces at concerts en route to the recording session in the South of France.  The cataclysmic events of October 7, however, brought composing plans to an abrupt halt:

“I could not write anything. I couldn’t touch the trumpet. In the beginning of November, I told Yonathan [pianist Yonathan Avishai] that I was going to have to cancel the tour and the recording, but he said ‘No. We need to go and play music’. The way he said it was powerful. I knew he was right.”  

Most of the “Ashes to Gold” suite was ultimately drafted in the compressed time period of a week, “by this point in the full craziness of wartime. With rockets flying over my head, alarms and sirens going off, and so on.  Did all of this affect the music? How could it not?” Accordingly, the suite runs the gamut of emotions, from enraged to wary to profoundly melancholic, and draws forth moving performances in each of its expressive registers.  On tour, Cohen was still adding sections to the music and using sound-checks to rehearse them. “After a rehearsal in Romania, I knew I was missing a theme. I had the timbre and the sound of it in my mind but I still had to write it.  The local promoter found me a studio that had a small Casio in it, and I wrote the music on that.” This became Part III of the suite, where Avishai’s tenderly lyrical line floats above the grave meditation of double bass and piano.  

Fourth Wall Ensemble:

Samuel Siskind - Awake

Awake, debut album from 17-year-old composer Samuel Siskind. Conducted by Christopher Allen, features Fourth Wall Ensemble and GRAMMY® nominated baritone Johnathan McCullough

Fourth Wall Ensemble is thrilled to announce its exciting collaboration with new talent and ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award winner Samuel Siskind on his debut composing album Awake, set to be released by Tiger Turn on all streaming platforms beginning August 29, 2024.

LA-based Siskind is an in-demand young composer and high school senior who drew inspiration for his anthology of compositions and original text from time spent secluded in nature, away from the busy streets of the city.

An LA Philharmonic Composing Fellow, his work has been performed by members of the legendary orchestra. This summer he is 1 of 30 students selected by Juilliard Dean of Music and renowned composer, David Serkin Ludwig to participate in their Summer Composition Program, studying with the composers he grew up listening to including Eric Whitacre, John Corigliano, Reena Esmail, and Wynton Marsalis.

As a vocalist and featured soloist in the GRAMMY® Award-winning National Children’s Chorus, Samuel had the unique experience of singing in the Carnegie Hall premieres of his own compositions Soaring Dreams 2024 and The Forest 2019. The latter went on to be performed on a tour of Asia culminating in a live televised performance from the DMZ with youth artists from North and South Korea.

When pandemic lock downs went into effect, Samuel found solace in writing pieces which can now be heard on Awake.  Having just started high school during this time, he and his peers were coping with the mental health impacts of staying at home. “I found writing the piece during isolation an exhilarating escape,” said Siskind.

GRAMMY® nominated baritone Johnathan McCullough, who serves as director of the National Youth Opera Academy, first met Samuel when he was singing in the program’s Vail, Colorado production in 2022. McCullough, who received acclaim for his cinematic production of David T. Little’s Soldier Songs on the topic of mental health and the toll of war, was immediately struck by how frankly his compositions addressed mental health topics. 

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Florian Weber:

Imaginary Circle

Idiosyncratic, large-scale and in its fundamental disposition one of a kind, Florian Weber’s Imaginary Cycle, conceived for the unique instrumentation of brass ensemble and piano, is a hybrid of multiple musical languages that seamlessly blends the harmonious with the oblique. Here Weber presents a cycle in four parts, bookended by an opening and an epilogue, in which the German pianist is accompanied by a group of four euphoniums, a trombone quartet as well as flautist Anna-Lena Schnabel and Michel Godard on the seldomely used “serpent” brass instrument, together performing a work that blurs the line where improvisation ends and composition begins. As the ensemble elegantly journeys across Florian’s multiple-idioms-spanning oeuvre, symphonic passages mingle with intricate counterpoint, pastoral notions are contrasted with textures more contemporary, as each voice in the ensemble plays an independent part, adding to a whole.

Florian sheds light on how the project initially evolved in the liner notes: “At first Manfred Eicher and I mainly had imagery in mind. Pictorial, figurative landscapes as gateways for musical exploration. We described images and sounds to each other and discovered similarities between our thoughts in the process. As if describing a room to one other, resulting in a particular atmosphere where our two view-points overlap. And from the beginning, the entire project was developed together with him. It started out from a piano-centric approach. Manfred soon introduced the idea of having other instruments join in, but from afar. Lontano he said. I was immediately taken with that approach and we exchanged many ideas surrounding the concept. From early on he proposed adding a group of instruments that would cover a lower frequency range.”

Joining Weber for the realization of this intricately wrought endeavour is the French euphonium quartet Opus 333 on the one side and a hand-picked group of four trombone players on the other. Weber’s long-time musical accomplice Michel Godard, who plays serpent and tuba on the album, was a close advisor for the choice of euphonium players, bass trombonist Maxine Troglauer – a more recent but equally trusted acquaintance of Weber’s – helped find the right trombonists for this purpose. Adding to this instrumental foundation – aside from Florian on piano –, flutist Anna-Lena Schnabel and Michel Godard hover above and between the ensemble sections, building a connection between the piano and the brass, a bridge between ancient and contemporary forms of musical expression, and intersections, seamless, between the composed and the improvised worlds.

“Some of the pieces in the cycle start out from a completely improvised point and slowly build their way into a through-composed passage,” Florian notes. “Anna-Lena Schnabel is especially sensitive and skilled at reacting to the mood and overall conceptual arc of the music. She’s truly able to capture the compositional aspect in her improvisations. The same goes for Michel, whose communication with the other instruments is unique.”

Yuuko Shiokawa - Andras Schiff:

Brahms - Schumann

After tackling the sonatas for violin and piano of Bach, Busoni and Beethoven in 2017 – a “thoughtfully determined and subtly interconnected programme” according to Strad magazine –, the duo of Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff returns with striking renditions of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 2. When the violinist and pianist made their first joint appearance on the label with the 2000 recording of Schubert’s C major fantasy for violin and piano, Gramophone magazine was in awe with their performance, raving how “from the start, there's an air of magic,” and calling the renditions “interpretations of rare penetration and individuality: a must for the Schubert section in your collection.” Now turning their gaze to the Schubert-admirer Schumann and his contemporary Brahms, the duo offers a deeper look into core repertory of Romantic chamber music.

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