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On 3 June 2022 Lyrita Records will release a new album of four-hand piano music of Elias Parish Alvars (1808-49), hailed by Berlioz as 'the Liszt of the Harp', alongside works by Jan Dussek and Nicholas-Charles Bochsa. Alvars made his reputation as a harpist, but he was also a virtuoso pianist - the legacy celebrated in this recording by Simon Callaghan and Clíodna Shanahan (SRCD.411).  
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On 3 June 2022, Nimbus Records releases a new album of Thomas de Hartmann's orchestral music: Symphonie-Poème No. 3, Piano Concerto and Scherzo fantastique, performed by the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine and pianist Elan Sicroff, conducted by Tian Hui Ng (NI.6429). Elan Sicroff has been the world's leading performer-advocate of de Hartmann's music for almost fourty years. A pupil of de Hartmann's widow, Olga, in the late 1970s, Sicroff has recorded many of his works, including the seven-volume Thomas de Hartmann Project, which he initiated in 2006. This now includes a large amout of de Hartmann's orchestral, chamber and piano works, and songs.   More details and links will be announced here.
CRD Records releases Consolations, reflective music for violin and piano by Handel, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Massenet, Rachmaninov and others, featuring a new transcription of Liszt's Consolations, performed by Maya Magub and Hsin-I Huang, on 3 June 2022. This is Maya Magub's third album with CRD.
Click above to pre-onder Consolations on iTunes
The album completes Liszt's six Consolations with new transcriptions by Maya Magub to complement the famous 'Lento Placido' arranged by Nathan Milstein. With extraordinary key and mood contrasts, each piece now sits within the whole, as Liszt intended. Milstein’s transcription, in the middle of the set, is now framed as in Liszt's original, to greater emotional impact. These works move from profound simplicity to virtuosic turbulence and wistful charm. Complementing the set of 'Consolations', Magub and Huang bring together other well-known reflective musical gems to offer consolation of some form. Many of their choices were inspired by audience favourites from performances for UK-based charity Everyone Matters, which funds life-enriching concerts in care homes and hospices. When combined, the emotional weight of these pieces is even greater. The performers, too, drew great consolation from their programme and the ability to communicate with an audience despite the creative restrictions of pandemic lockdowns. Magub and Huang recorded the album separately in lockdown, with much creative dialogue and experimentation between them. New possibilities afforded by the necessity of recording separately encouraged musical freedom and risk-taking, as well as the opportunity to create the immediacy of a small, intimate concert through close microphone placement. Out of this process emerges a true collaboration and an album which Magub and Huang hope will bring consolation to many people.
ALBUM DETAILS
Schumann, Abendlied, Op. 85 No. 12 Massenet, Méditation: Thaïs Rachmaninov, Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 Liszt Consolations No.1-6, S.172/R.12 J.S. Bach (arr. Gounod), Ave Maria Kreisler Liebesleid Rimsky-Korsakov (arr. Kreisler), Chant Hindou: Sadko Paradis (arr. Duskhin), Sicilienne Handel, Largo: Xerxes Mendelssohn, On Wings of Song, Op. 34 No. 2 Mendelssohn, Song without Words, Op. 19 No. 1 Schumann, Träumerei, Op. 15 No. 7 Chopin, Raindrop Prelude, Op. 28 No. 15 CRD.2540
Press Inquiries
UK and rest of the world except North America: Ulysses Arts, London North America: Classical Music Communications, New York City
EPK and private Soundcloud link are available for press use.
Previous Press for Maya Magub's Recordings with CRD Records Telemann, Fantasies for Solo Violin 'Impressive feats of technical bravado. ... A disc of hugely communicative violin playing', International Record Review 'It makes listening to this performance a really joyous experience', Caroline Gill, Gramophone 'With Magub's endless inventiveness driving each movement, they shine here for what they really are: free-standing, varied concentrations of beautiful melody and sonority', BBC Music Magazine 'Demonstrates technical assurance, elegance and well-considered use of vibrato, extempore ornamentation, rubato and other expressive devices.' Early Music Today 'These polished, stylish performances bring Telemann’s music to life in an unforced, natural way.' The Strad Michael Haydn and Mozart, Six Duos for Violin and Viola (with Judith Busbridge) 'Their accounts of Mozart’s works combine energy, insight, warmth and affection; they are characterised by a lively reciprocity ... CRD’s recorded sound, presentation and production are exemplary.' The Strad 'Spirited and compelling music-making to savor', Michael Jameson, International Record Review Liszt, Consolations No. 5 - pre-released single on 22 April 2022
Consolations on Apple Music Playlists
Lyrita Records releases the first recording ofCecil Armstrong Gibbs' complete songs on 4 March 2022 (SRCD.2400). This four-album set is performed by tenor Nathan Vale, soprano Charlotte de Rothschild and pianist Adrian Farmer. A one-volume compilation from the full set offers an introduction to Gibbs' wonderful collection of songs (SRCD.404).
Antony Smith of the Nimbus Group, which manages Lyrita, comments: 'In recording this project, the consistent quality of Gibbs' songs surpassed all our expectations. Alongside his most famous songs, for example settings of poems by his friend Walter de La Mare, are wonderful discoveries – for example To Anise, The Cherry Tree, On Duncton Hill, The Tiger-Lily, Midnight, Slow Horses Slow, The Exile and Take Heed Young Heart. These will be concert winners when programmed by singers, with a direct clarity of expression and supreme sensitivity to text.'
NIMBUS MUSIC PUBLISHING: GIBBS SONGS
Complementing the release of SRCD.2400 and SRCD.404, Nimbus Music Publishing has released three volumes of Armstrong Gibbs' songs, featured in the albums, in high quality saddle-stitched editions: NMP1144: Four Songs for Tenor Voice: Willows Leaves: Three Songs After the Chinese Manner (John Irvine) and The Doctor’s Song from ‘Henry Brocken’ (Walter de la Mare) NMP1145: Four Songs for Soprano Voice: Two Pastorals (H.T. Wade-Gery), Jane Eyre’s Song and Lorelei’s Songs drom ‘Henry Brocken’ (Walter de la Mare) NMP1146: Two Songs: The Old House (Grey Hayward Kirkus) and The Rainy Day (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
NIMBUS RECORDS AND ULYSSES ARTS ANNOUCE PRESS AND COMMUNICATIONS PARTNERSHIP FROM MARCH 20224/3/2022
Ulysses Arts will provide electronic press kits for Nimbus and Lyrita recordings, alongside press releases on our website. ABLAZE RECORDS RELEASES ORCHESTRAL MASTERS VOL. 8 AND TREMOR, WITH ROBERT NAIRN, IN MARCH 202224/2/2022 US-based contemporary classical label Ablaze Records releases Orchestral Masters Vol. 8 on 11 March 2022 with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robert Kružík, and Tremor, featuring double bass soloist Robert Nairn, on 18 March 2022, in partnership with Ulysses Arts.
Ulysses Arts releases German composerJohannes Schlecht's album Ich spiele noch on Friday 4 March 2022, with Landeskapelle Eisenach (now Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach) conducted by Wolfgang Wappler and Tetsuro Ban, soprano Susann Möbius-Huss and 'cellist Grita Bühler.
Click above to download on iTunes or stream on Apple Music
Johannes Schlecht comments:
'At some point, many years ago, I had my first contact with poet Rose Ausländer during a night drive. On the radio. I heard her talk about herself andher exciting, fulfilling life, I heard her read from her poems. Her voice sounded cheerful and lovable, friendly and comforting, modest and humble, amazed and hopeful, curious and lively. This voice came from a woman who had been bed-ridden for years, sick, in a Jewish old people’s home in Düsseldorf. I was impressed and touched by the clarity and simplicity of her language and above all, the brevity in which she said the important, essential and necessary. For a long time I had the idea of composing poems by Rose Ausländer, of tracking down the melody of her language and poetry. For me that means composing by listening to the melody of the language and bringing it to life musically. In this sense, as a composer, I see myself as a creator and mediator. I put my personal, subjective view of poetry up for discussion: I try to provide a comment that brings the word, at best read or spoken, sung to another level of experience and feeling. Understanding the word, initially an ostensibly intellectual means of communication, becomes unimportant. It took me years to tackle Rose Ausländer’s poems. In between, to name just two important works, were the composition of ten songs based on poems by Paul Celan. For this cycle I received the last Hanns-Eisler Composition Prize from GDR Radio in 1989. Paul Celan, just like Rose Ausländer, comes from that melting-pot and centre of Eastern Jewish intellectual life - Cernowitz. I have developed a great affinity for this way of thinking and feeling. And in between there was also the composition of the small volume “DIR”, which was composed and drawn by Heinrich Vogeler, fourteen very soft, tender, sad-melancholy love poems for voice, cello and viola.'
Album Details
Ich spiele noch: Sieben Stücke für Singstimme, Flüte, Oboe, Fagott, Violoncello und Streichorchester nach Texten von Rose Ausländer Susann Möbius–Huss – Sopran; Landeskapelle Eisenach, Leitung: Wolfgang Wappler Streichquartett Nr. 1 i. nicht zu schnell ii. sehr langsam iii. unglücklicher Walzer mit glücklichem Ausgang iv. schnell, ausgelassen Divertimento Streichquartett der Landeskapelle Eisenach: Simona Balan, Violine; Silvia Peter, Violine; Gheorghe Balan, Viola; Roxana Mereutza, Violoncello Kommen und Gehen – Orchestermusik für Sophia i. Sehr ruhig ii. Ruhige Viertel iii. Sehr ruhig Landeskapelle Eisenach, Leitung: Tetsuro Ban Kommentare zu einem Thema von Max Reger – für Violoncello allein i. sehr frei, so langsam wie m glich ii. gehend iii. sehr ruhig, sempre col legno schnell, hüpfend iv. sehr langsam v. gehend vi. Thema, Largo Grita Bühler, Violoncello
SPOTIFY
TIDAL STREAMING LINKS DEEZER YOUTUBE Links to download and stream on HDtracks and other service providers will be published here. 
Stream on Apple Music or download with booklet from iTunes - click above
CRD Records are delighted to announce the release of Resurrexi! Easter in Vienna with Mozart and the Haydn Brothers on 1 April 2022. Recorded with the The Choir of Keble College Oxford and Instruments of Time & Truth, the album is conducted by Paul Brough. Resurrexi! is CRD’s third album with Keble, following Ceremonial Oxford (2017) and Ave Rex Angelorum (2020).
Resurrexi!, recorded in 2021 in the Victorian splendour of Keble College Chapel, celebrates Easter in music – a full mass sequence based around Mozart’s Spaurmesse K. 258, interspersed with plainchant and a treasury of Viennese classical sacred music by Joseph and Michael Haydn. The result offers an imaginary recreation of an opulent service that might have been heard at Vienna’s Stephansdom, or at the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg’s court. Ressurexi!’s soloists are Emily Dickens, soprano, Rebekah Jones, mezzo-soprano, Philippe Durrant, tenor and Graham Kirk, baritone and cantor.
‘Resurrexi! is an enticing opportunity to hear some rarely played music in eager and engaging performances. ... An immensely enjoyable recording.' David Threasher, Gramophone Magazine 'So sweetly done that you’re immediately tempted to hit the replay button.' Graham Rickson: The Arts Desk - April 2022
SINGLE PRE-RELEASE FROM RESURREXI
MOZART, REGINA COELI
Composer Douglas Knehans comments: 'Cloud Ossuary began as a setting of my daughter Katarina Knehans' riveting and poignant poem Bones and All. When I first read her poem, I was seized with an immediate desire to set it to music. So, almost as immediately I got to work on it. As work progressed, I became more and more pleased with the piece—until it was finished. Once completed I had some difficulty reconciling the feelings of satisfaction with the setting with my concomitant feelings that it was incomplete. After much reflection, I came to realize that Bones and All was actually the final movement of a larger work, hence creating the two preceding movements: Breathe Clouded and The Ossein Cage. Breathe Clouded is an inverted and compressed version of Bones and All and The Ossein Cage follows the same harmonic architecture as both of the outer movements. Thus, Cloud Ossuary sits as three different guises of the same harmonic material and structural approach, though with dramatically different surfaces.' Preceding Cloud Ossuary is Knehans' hauntingly evocative single-movement Mist Waves for solo violin and strings - a 'loose chaconne based on veiled repetition of its initial eight bars' - performed by Pavel Wallinger, leader of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra.
VIEW SCORES
CLOUD OSSUARY MIST WAVES (violin and strings version) MIST WAVES (violin and piano version)
APPLE MUSIC
SPOTIFY
'Cloud Ossuary is a striking and fascinating work, full of gorgeous textures and colours,
yet throughout it is clear that Knehans brings a strong structural underpinning to the beauty, making for a satisfying symphonic work.’ PLANET HUGILL
'Eloquent and original'.
GAPPLEGATE CLASSICAL-MODERN MUSIC REVIEW 'Atmospheric presence and strong waves of inner exploration: the perfect match of classical music in modern times.' Anthony Biasioli, BRNO DAILY
HEAR MIST WAVES LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY
11 MAY 2022- LEFRANK CONCERT HALL * 12 MAY 2022 - WEILL RECITAL HALL, CARNEGIE HALL, 8PM * * Note Pandemic re-scheduled changes of date from those in advertised links
Jazz pianist Jason Rebello and English vocal ensemble Opus Anglicanum join forces on their album Adorna, released on 28 January 2022 (UA210140) on Apple Music, Spotify, HDtracks, Deezer, Amazon Music, Qobuz, TIDAL, YouTube and all main digital services, and on CD. The track bearing the album's title name was pre-released as a single on 31 December 2021.
Jason Rebello and Opus Anglicanum started their professional career recording and performing in the late 1980s. Opus Anglicanum's world – which embraces a cappella Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian chant, folksong, music hall, contemporary classical vocal commissions and readings from literature and poetry, in fact almost everything but jazz - remained totally different from Jason's. Their home has remained great cathedrals, abbeys, stately homes, or tiny mediaeval parish churches. Then their director Roland Robertson booked Jason to compose major instrumental and choral work, and so came to understand the spiritual richness and artistic breadth of Jason's musicianship.
It was obviously immediately that Jason and Opus Anglicanum shared a common goal: to explore together a mysterious, austere and magical zone, following the ancient paths of ritual and procession, in modes ancient and modern, the piano illuminating and complementing the voices, and exploiting the space. Together, with barless scores of square mediaeval notes, and tracts of Latin, they began to experiment. This developed into a concert programme built on chants for the winter feast of Candlemas, first performed in Wells Cathedral. Standing around the nave, empty but for Jason at the Steinway, with five singers in fading January light, the content and setting 'clicked' perfectly. The result is 'Adorna', now enhanced by two original new compositions by Jason, and recorded in live performance.
LIVE PERFORMANCES
WELLS CATHEDRAL: SATURDAY 22 JANUARY 2022 ST MARTIN'S-IN-THE-FIELDS, LONDON: THURSDAY 3 FEBRUARY The St Martin's-in-the-Fields concert is followed by a Crypt Late jazz performance by Jason Rebello and His Trio - Troy Miller, drums and Orlando Le Fleming, bass. THAXTED FESTIVAL, ESSEX: 27 JUNE 2022, 7.30PM LISTEN TO ADORNA
PRESS
London Jazz News - interview London Jazz News - concert review Jazz Journal, April 2022 (Matthew Wright) Jazziz Magazine Classical Music Daily Jazzwise - April 2022 issue ADORNA - Pre-Release Single links:
London-based Neoteric Ensemble, comprising some of the UK's leading brass players and saxophonists, releases Mojito, by Rob Buckland, on Friday 31 December.
Click above to download Mojito on iTunes.
Mojito comes from Rob Buckland's Soundscapes. Composed originally as part of a set of ten saxophone duets, which Buckland plays with his students to work on a wide variety of musical styles, they are since been re-orchestrated for larger ensembles. He comments:
'When the opportunity came to arrange movements from Soundscapes for Neoteric's debut album, I jumped at the opportunity. I have written some new material, re-scored and re-voiced the music for this exciting new ensemble. This version now feels like the most appropriate and successful, merging brass and saxes in a sound world that brings these pieces to life in new and exciting ways.' Mojito is full of Latin-influenced rhythms, propelled by an oscillating riff in the saxes, building to a warm and uplifting ensemble section before the music slowly fades away - as if a small band of musicians had paraded past the listener on a warm summer’s night, their music gently echoing in the air as they disappear over the horizon.' Download here on iTunes and Qobuz.
Toby Street, trumpet
James Fountain, trumpet Sarah Field, saxophone and trumpet Rob Buckland, saxophone Richard Watkin, trombone Adrian Miotti, tuba 
Click above to download on iTunes with digital booklet or stream on Apple Music.
Following the success of Poppy Beddoe's pre-release of J.S. Bach's Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D minor, arranged for solo clarinet, which was selected for Spotify's New Classical Releases playlist, Ulysses Arts launches her debut album Soliloquy on 3 December 2021:
ALBUM DETAILS
Poppy Beddoe, clarinet Partita No. 2 in D minor BMV 1004: I. Allemande J.S. BACH arr. Beddoe O Eterne Deus HILDEGARD VON BINGEN arr. Beddoe Quatuor pour la fin du temps: III. Abîme des oiseaux OLIVIER MESSIAEN Partita No. 2 in D minor BMV 1004: III. Courante J.S. BACH arr. Beddoe Lied LUCIANO BERIO Partita No. 2 in D minor BMV 1004: V. Ciaconne J.S. BACH arr. Beddoe A June Cantilena MATTHEW TAYLOR Fantasy for Clarinet MALCOLM ARNOLD Three Etudes on Themes of Gershwin: i. I Got Rhythm ii. Summertime iii. It Ain’t Necessarily So PAUL HARVEY
Soliloquy on Apple Music Playlists
 Released on 8 October 2021
Ulysses Arts is delighted to be working with leading US-based contemporary classical music label Ablaze Records to manage digital distribution of its extensive catalogue of orchestral, choral and chamber music recordings. The partnership starts with a series of re-releases of Ablaze recordings on 24 September and 1 October 2021, then Othmar Schoeck's song cycle Das stille Leuchten, on 8 October, with mezzo-soprano Clara O'Brien and pianist James Douglass. James Ross, Ulysses Arts' director, comments: 'Ablaze Records is one of the world's most innovative classical label, whose catalogue is a treasury of contemporary composers' works. Ablaze's mission aligns strongly with our wish to present classical music as a living, evolving art-form and to support today's composers to create a new generation of great works for us to perform and hear. We are looking forward hugely to helping Ablaze to widen its digital reach to listeners on a huge range of digital platforms, and to help the composers it records to maximise their visibility worldwide.' Mist Waves by Douglas Knehans Pre-release from Cloud Ossuary album: 3 December 2021 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1gudwIIpTYs1JPcGjVu0ET Deezer: www.deezer.com/en/album/273169602 YouTube: youtu.be/JHqwuvaMy5s New Release: 7 January 2022: Douglas Knehans, Cloud Ossuary 24 September 2021 Releases
Released in October 2021
Released in November and December 2021
Millennial Masters
ELECTRONIC MASTERS
Ulysses Arts releases clarinettist Poppy Beddoe's solo version of J.S. Bach's great Chaconne in D Minor on 1 October 2021 on Apple Music/iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, Qobuz, HDtracks and all major digital service providers. This is a pre-release for Poppy's forthcoming solo album Solliloquy 0n 3 December 2021.
Poppy comments about her arrangement of Bach's music: 'This original clarinet transcription of Bach's Chaconne was born during the UK's first 2020 lockdown. Facing several months alone with no prospect of playing music with others, Poppy devised a collection of solo clarinet music which could be performed as a recital once live performance re-started. Inspiration came initially from playing daily to her parents over Zoom, especially when her father was ill. The Chaconne is the ultimate music of solitude and reflection, which traslates perfectly to the clarinet.' Solliloquy will intersperse music from J.S. Bach's Partita in D Minor, originally for solo violin, with works by Berio, Hildegard von Bingen, Messiaen, Malcolm Arnold and Gershwin. CARITAS CHAMBER CHOIR AND BENEDICT PREECE RELEASE CROSSING THE BAR - MUSIC FOR REFLECTION AND HOPE20/9/2021
Released on 19 November 2021:
Download on iTunes or stream on Apple Music - click above
Ulysses Arts released two singles from Crossing the Bar - Music for Reflection and Hope, performed by the Caritas Chamber Choir directed by Benedict Preece. The first single, O Nata Lux by Philip Stopford, releases on 1 October, followed by Crossing the Bar, by Benedict Preece, on 22 October, on Apple Music/iTunes, Spotify, Qobuz, HDtracks and all other major digital service providers. O Nata Lux is a world première recording from Philip Stopford, one of the most celebrated contemporary choral composers. It is conducted by Benedict Preece, who featured on Ulysses Arts' 2020 J.S. Bach horn and organ album with Anneke Scott. This calm but powerful work takes us from darkness to light, a theme of Advent, when this piece would normally be sung. It has musical elements that hark back to the familiar version of the same text by Thomas Tallis. Benedict Preece writes about his motet Crossing the Bar: 'Written in 2016 as a gift to Gothenburg's HagaMotettkör for collaboration with Caritas Chamber Choir, I chose to create deliberately simple hymnlike music to allow this most powerful poem to remain the listener's focus. The 'aw' section, sung by lower voices, is intended to represent the sea. The work builds to an almighty climax: “I hope to see my pilot face to face” before finishing with an echo of the “sea”, this time as a hum, which depicts crossing the bar from this life to what comes next.'
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