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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.
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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
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TIDAL STREAMING LINKS DEEZER YOUTUBE Links to download and stream on HDtracks and other service providers will be published here.
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
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'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 'Sensitive, committed performances by the Brno Philharmonic under the meticulous guidance of Mikel Toms'. Michael Quinn, LIMELIGHT
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:
Double bass soloist Valentina Ciardelli's latest recording - of Bottesini's Grande Allegro di Concerto alla Mendelssohn, accompanied by pianist Alvaro Siculiana, releases on 17 December 2021. This EP celebrates the bi-centenary of the birth of Luigi Bottesini, the 'Paganini of the double bass' and one of its greatest performers of all time.
The Grande Allegro di Concerto (inspired by the first movement of Mendelssohn's E Minor Violin Concerto) is a pinacle of Romantic double bass music - blinding virtuosity blending riveting drama and plaintive melodies. This new recording by Valentina Ciardelli and Alvaro Siculiana is made after the original manuscripts and latest Urtext edition edited by Stephen Street. 
Click above to download from iTunes or stream on Apple Music.
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.'
NIKITA LUKINOV DEBUT RECORDING RELEASE - DEBUSSY LA CATHÉDRALE ENGLOUTIE ON FRIDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 202120/9/2021 
Russian-born pianist Nikita Lukinov releases Debussy's La Cathédrale engloutie (Préludes Book One), his debut recording, with Ulysses Arts on 24 September 2021. Nikita comments about his recording: 'I have chosen for my debut recording Debussy's impressionistic canvas of a monumental underwater cathedral, revealing a magical story about how it rises above the water and sinks back into a mysterious underwater world with dignity. The amazing Fazioli piano helped me to evoke the stone coldness of the music's imagination and sound palette.' 
Click above to download on iTunes with digital booklet in English and Spanish, or stream on Apple Music
'The thought has always amazed me: my teacher's teacher was a pupil of a Chopin pupil! George Mathias - Chopin's student - taught Isidor Phillip, who in turn was Phyllis Sellick's teacher in Paris. My connection with Chopin's music is deep: his unique emotional span and his exceptional way of writing for the piano is unavoidable for us pianists. I could live my life playing and teaching his music: in reality, that is what I have done up to now - with the exception of the rest of the repertoire that you can listen to on my other recordings or concerts, of course.
The works I have had the privilege of recording for this Ulysses Arts Chopin album include the Piano Sonata Op. 58 No. 3 in B Minor of 1844, composed during a period that was particularly dramatic in Chopin's life. It included the death of his friend Jan Matusysnsky of tuberculosis, tension in his relationship and eventual separation from George Sand, and the moral and physical decline of his own health. The pieces on this album represent great challenges in the pianist’s repertoire: all of them are great intellectual and emotional journeys, and the result of a long process of distillation. I would like to thank the unconditional support given to me by Nelly and Bertrand Soux from Caracas, to fulfi l the dream of any pianist respect the performance and recording of these masterpieces by Frederic Chopin.' 
The playing of Venezuelan pianist Clara Rodriguez stands out for the sheer beauty of her tone
production, high expressiveness and considerable digital clarity combined with stylistic acumen. She has built an enviable international reputation for her innovative programme planning, juxtaposing standard repertoire with works by South American composers and has premièred over thirty works. At sixteen she took part in a competition judged by Michael Gough Matthews and Barbara Boissard, directors of The Royal College of Music: she was awarded the Teresa Carreño Scholarship which enabled her to study there with Phyllis Sellick, graduating from the Performers’ Course and Postgraduate course. The recipient of many prizes and awards such as the Scarlatti Prize, Mozart Prize and Percy Buck Award, she was also a finalist in the Chappell Prize. With the Royal College of Music orchestras and the Repertoire Philharmonic Orchestra she performed concertos by Mozart, de Falla, Ravel and Gershwin. In Caracas, at seventeen, she made her debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.595 with the Simón Bolívar Orchestra conducted by José Antonio Abreu. Pianist Guiomar Narváez (Venezuela) was Clara Rodriguez’s first piano teacher in Caracas. She has also received tuition from Paul Badura-Skoda (Austria), Niel Immelman (U.K.), Irina Zaritskaya (Russia) and Regina Smendzianka (Poland). Clara Rodriguez’s career as a solo pianist has taken her to perform in Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, India, Italy, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, the USA, and Venezuela. In London, she is a popular performer who regularly plays in recitals and as soloist with orchestra, including at the Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. James’s Piccadilly, St John’s Smith Square, Leighton House and Bolívar Hall. In Venezuela she regularly plays concertos with the Simón Bolivar Orchestra, the Filarmónica Nacional and the Orquesta Municipal de Caracas. As an invitee for the Grandes Virtuosos del Piano, she played Reynaldo Hahn’s Piano Concerto; other participants included Paul Badura- Skoda and Chick Corea. Clara Rodriguez has played concerts with British clarinettist Michael Collins, The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and with Stephen Bryant, concertmaster of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Clara Rodriguez is often interviewed by the BBC; her recordings feature regularly on BBC radio and networks worldwide. She has founded and directed three music festivals; has devised words and music programmes and is also a piano music editor. As a teacher she is a professor at the junior department of The Royal College of Music. As an artist in The Dominic Seligman Agency, Clara Rodriguez has played a series of recitals at Arundells, home of former British Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath. In 2015 Clara Rodriguez was awarded the “Classical Music Act” LUKAS Prize. She has been made an honorary member of the Chelsea Arts Club and named “Woman of the Year” by the main newspapers and magazines of Venezuela. Clara Rodriguez’s catalogue of six recording with Nimbus Alliance Records include the Piano Music of Teresa Carreño, Ernesto Lecuona, Moisés Moleiro, Federico Ruiz plus the albums ‘Venezuela’ and ‘Americas Without Frontiers’. Many composers have written music especially for her, including Federico Ruiz’s Piano Concerto No.2, which she has played in Caracas and London.
'El período en que fueron compuestas las obras de éste CD fue dramático en la vida de Chopin; la pérdida de su amigo Jan Matusysnky por tuberculosis, la tensión y eventual ruptura de su relación con George Sand así como el declive moral que su propia enfermedad le proporcionaba. Hoy se consideran éstas obras como la cima del repertorio pianístico y aunque Chopin exploró a lo largo de su vida las posibilidades técnicas y expresivas del piano, centrando su genio creativo en ese sólo instrumento, es imposible pensar que sus otras composiciones, inclusive las tempranas, son menos importantes. Creó así un riquísimo universo de incomparable diversidad de sonidos y emociones a través de toda su creación. ¿Por qué grabar Chopin? porque sin ninguna duda, Chopin es el alma del piano y ha sabido meterse en el alma de los pianístas con sus infi nitas difi cultades pero de reultados de elevadísima factura verdaderamente artística. Con mi mas grande agradecidecimiento a Nelly y Bertrand Soux por haberme brindado el apoyo y el estímulo para que llevase a cabo éste trabajo.' 
Clara Rodríguez se ha ganado una reputación internacional envidiable por su innovadora planificación de programas de concierto en donde, yuxtapone el repertorio clásico europeo y norteamericano con obras de compositores sudamericanos. La BBC la ha descrito como “La campeona de la música venezolana en el mundo” y se le considera constantemente como Embajadora de la música de Latinoamérica. Sus interpretaciones destacan por su expresividad, sensibilidad, entusiasmo, visión y por mostrar una considerable claridad digital y perspicacia estilística. A los dieciséis años estaba en su séptimo año de estudios de piano con la Profesora Guiomar Narváez en el Conservatorio Juan José Landaeta de Caracas cuando participó en un concurso nacional cuyo jurado estaba conformado por los directores del Royal College of Music de Londres, Michael Gough Matthews y Barbara Boissard quienes le otorgaron la “Beca Teresa Carreño” del CONAC la cual le permitió viajar a Londres para estudiar en el Royal College of Music con la pianista Phyllis Sellick graduándose del Curso de Intérpretes y un Postgrado. Mientras estuvo en el RCM, recibió numerosos premios y reconocimientos tales como el Premio Scarlatti, el Premio Mozart y el Premio Percy Buck, como finalista en el Premio Chappell; Otras distinciones en concursos desembocaron en invitaciones a ser solista con orquestas del Royal College Of Music en los que interpretó a Mozart, de Falla, Ravel y Gershwin. Clara Rodríguez también ha estudiado con Niel Immelman (Reino Unido) Paul Badura-Skoda (Austria) e Irina Zaritskaya (Russia). En Caracas, a los diecisiete años debutó interpretando el Concierto para piano K595 No 27 de Mozart con la Orquesta Simón Bolívar bajo la batuta de José Antonio Abreu; desde entonces, la carrera de Clara Rodríguez como pianista solista la ha llevado a realizar giras por Bélgica, Dinamarca, Egipto, Finlandia, Francia, India, Italia, España, Siria, Túnez, Estados Unidos y Venezuela. En Londres, es una artista muy apreciada que toca con gran éxito en el Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, Leighton House, Bolívar Hall, St. James’s Piccadilly St. John’s Smith Square. Clara Rodriguez toca asiduamente conciertos con la Orquesta Simón Bolívar, la Filarmónica nacional y la orquesta Municipal de Caracas.Como invitada al Festival de Grandes Pianistas de Caracas, tocó el Concierto en Mi mayor de Reynaldo Hahn; Chick Corea y Paul Badura-Skoda también participaron en dicho festival. Clara Rodríguez se ha presentado junto a la Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment y el clarinetista Michael Collins, quien también la ha dirigido en Conciertos de Mozart. Clara Rodríguez ha también tocado conciertos junto a el violinista Stephen Bryant, primer violín de la Orquesta de la BBC. Clara Rodríguez ha tocado una serie de diez recitales en la casa del ex-primer ministro británico, Sir Edward Heath, en Salisbury. Ha sido galardonada con el premio LUKAS del Reino Unido como “Artista Clásico del año” en el 2015. También ha sido nombrada miembro honorario del Chelsea Arts Club de Londres. La obra de Clara Rodríguez con relación a la música venezolana se extiende al estreno internacional de un número considerable de composiciones de contemporáneos, incluyendo el Segundo Concierto para Piano y Orquesta de Federico Ruiz -dedicado a Clara- así como la grabación de cientos de piezas en CDs así como su publicación y edición en varias casas importantes del Reino Unido. Sus grabaciones comerciales en sellos como ASV, Meridian y Universal han recibido un gran reconocimiento de la crítica y son escuchados en las estaciones de radio que van de la BBC, toda Europa y América. Actualmente trabaja con Nimbus Records en cuyo catálogo se encuentran seis de sus álbumes cuyos títulos comprenden la música para piano de Teresa Carreño, Ernesto Lecuona, Moisés Moleiro, Federico Ruiz, el álbum “Venezuela” que contiene una colección de danzas de 18 compositores y su más reciente CD “Americas Without Frontiers” el cual presenta música de países como Haití, Cuba, Colombia, Estados Unidos, Venezuela, Argentina y Brasil. Otros CDs grandemente apreciados por el público y la crítica incluyen “El Cuarteto con Clara Rodríguez” y “Chopin, late Works”. Clara Rodríguez es profesora del Departamento Juvenil del Royal College of Music.
Album Details:
Piano Sonata Op. 58 No. 3 Mazurka Op. 63 No. 2 Barcarolle Op. 60 Nocturne Op. 62 No. 1 Mazurka Op. 24 No. 4 Ballade Op. 52 No. 4 Polonaise-Fantaisie Op. 61
Producer: Simon Weir; Engineer: Morgan Roberts
Digital release artwork and booklet design: Hannah Whale - Fruition Creative Concepts ALEXANDER TCHOBANOV RELEASES PIANO MUSIC BY SCRIABIN AND RACHMANINOV ON 16 APRIL AND 21 MAY 202115/4/2021
Click above to download or pre-order on iTunes
Ulysses Arts releases recordings by Bulgarian pianist Alexander Tchobanov on 16 April (Scriabin Études) and 21 May (Rachmaninov, Sonata No. 2 - third movement).
OTHER STREAMING LINKS 'Tchobanov's colors and voicing were superb, creating that ineffable aura of Russian sadness we love so much. There is a major virtuoso there'. The New York Concert Review Carnegie Weill Recital Hall solo debut recital 
Alexander Tchobanov performs as a concert pianist, chamber musician, and music pedagogue. Originally from Plovdiv in Bulgaria, he was a top prize winner and finalist in the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, The American Prize, Sixth Odin International Competition, Kings Peak International Competition and Los Angeles Spotlight Competition.
Alexander's concerts have been broadcast live on radio stations across the United States including WGBH Boston, NPR, and WXEL South Florida. He has also made numerous recordings for Bulgarian National TV and Radio. Concert venues include New York's Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, WMP Hall, Paul Hall at the Julliard School, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Los Angeles, Jordan Hall Boston, Harriet Himmel Theatre (West Palm Beach), Kaisersaal and Auesperg Palace (Vienna), Schloss Halbturn Palace, Balabanov House in Bulgaria, Madinat Theatre Dubai and Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. He has received critical acclaim in newspapers including the Yakima Herald, Palm Beach Post, Trud, Gulf News and Al-Bayan. Alexander Tchobanov completed his Masters Degree at Rutgers University, where he was awarded an assistantship with Susan Starr. In addition, he won a Fellowship at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, studying with Jerome Lowenthal (Juilliard School). He was also a guest artist at the CME Vienna Concerto Fest, Steinway Piano Festival and North American Contemporary Music Festival. Alexander was a recipient of scholarships by the Leni FeBland Foundation in California. Alexander's mentors include Lars Vogt, Robert Levin, Midori, André de Groote, Min Kwon, John Perry and members of the Takacs Quartet. He has earned full-scholarships from the Conservatory of Music at Lynn University, where he trained with Roberta Rust, and the Idyllwild Arts Academy. He has taught at Rutgers University, Lynn University, and Brighton College. In 2012, he joined the faculty of Seasons Music Festival Academy (Yakima, USA), giving masterclasses, solo concerts and chamber music collaborations. Currently, Alexander is Head of Keyboard Studies at The British School-Al Khubairat in Abu Dhabi, where his students have been finalists and winners of numerous national and international competitions.
RICHARD CRAIG - TELEMANN FANTASIAS FOR SOLO FLUTE - FIRST RELEASES ON 7 MAY AND 4 JUNE 202114/4/2021
Richard Craig launches the first two single of his complete Telemann Fantasias for Solo Flute on Ulysses Arts, with No. 11 in G Major on 7 May and No. 9 in E Major on 4 June 2021.
Telemann's inspiration for Fantasia No. 11 came from a 1739 visit to Pszczyna in Poland where he heard fiddlers and bagpipers: 'One would hardly believe the inventiveness with which they improvise when the dancers pause for breath'. Richard Craig writes: 'I imagined a similar scene and relished the challenge of recreating the vivacity of folk musicians and dancers in the twists and turns of my ornamentation.'
STREAMING AND DOWNLOAD LINKS 
Fantasia No. 9 featured on Spotify Classical New Releases playlist
Richard writes about his work and career: 'In my various guises as a new music performer, collaborator, improviser/composer I have played alongside musicians such as Rohan de Saram, Roberto Fabbriciani, Barry Guy, Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies and new music groups ELISION, Musikfabrik, Klangforum Wien, and the RTÉ Orchestra. Closer to home, I have been a guest musician with most of the UK’s new music groups: Welsh ensemble Uproar, and London-based Riot Ensemble, Ensemble Octandre, Explore ensemble, and in Scotland the Hebrides Ensemble and Red Note. I was a founding member of the Spanish group SMASH and Manchester-based Distractfold Ensemble. Exploring solo performance has been and continues to be an important journey for me. It has led me to develop a distinctive approach to the flute; to re-invigorate older music, as well as exploring improvised and notated contemporary works. My own compositions are often a series of smaller works under a collective title: the first being Amp/Al for flute/s and feedback (2012-15) and the most recent being Hortulus Animae (2015 – 2019) for flute/s and fixed media. Composing and improvisation are linked to my interests in the visual arts and I also use video and photography in my work. Alongside my work as a performer, I am also a teacher. I give masterclasses and lead workshops and seminars in chamber music, ensemble performance and flute playing. I was a Visiting Fellow in Performance at theUniversity of Aberdeen 2010–12. In 2015 I was appointed as a lecturer and Head of Performance at Bangor University, Wales, a post I held until 2019; during this time I was also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield from 2014 to 2019. Outside of academia, I have been invited to teach on courses such as theEstalagem da Ponta do sol residency in Madeira, and also the Distat Terra Academy in Argentina. I received my PhD from Middlesex University in 2020. As a writer I have contributed to publications for Örat, and the Orpheus Institute. My solo discs INWARD (2011) and VALE (2017) were released on the Métier label: they document my work with composers Esaias Järnegard, Richard Barrett, John Croft, Malin Bång, Brice Pauset, Evan Johnson and Fabrice Fitch. Other recordings of note include the composer John Croft’s monograph disc Seirenes in 2019 (First Hand Records), and two discs with Another Timbre, performing the works of Jürg Frey and Magnus Granberg. I have recorded several albums and live broadcasts for the BBC, WDR Cologne, YLE Finland, Radio France, Radio Nacional de España, Swedish Radio, ARTE, Métier, Another Timbre, FHR, Icelandic RUV, as well as curated releases of repertoire, and my own compositions. In 2021, I will be releasing a re-interpretation of the Telemann Fantasias on the Ulysses Arts label, and composer Oliver Seale’s portrait disc with Scottish label, Delphian. I studied flute at the RSAMD (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) with Sheena Gordon and later with Richard Blake. After graduating with honours, I continued my studies at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg, France, with Mario Caroli with support from a Dewar Award and the Scottish International Educational Trust. As well as working with the full range of flutes from contra to piccolo, I play on two Rudall Carte wooden flutes from the early and mid-20th century, restored for me by Arthur Haswell. One of these instruments was originally commissioned by renowned Italian teacher and soloist Alberto Veggetti (1874 – 1948). I currently live in Edinburgh where I run my own flute studio.'
'To go directly to the matter in hand: the playing on this disc is sensational.'
Johan Svensson, Nutida Musik 'Pushing the instrument to its technical and expressive limits ... a tour de force.' Tim Ashley, The Guardian
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The birthdays of Brahms (1833-1897) and Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) fall on 7th May. The 127th day of the year also marks the night of the première of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in 1824, the foundation of the Council of Europe in 1948 – and the day of the recording session leading to this album, in Vienna, on a Bösendorfer Concert Grand 280VC with Armenian pianist and Bösendorfer Artist Nareh Arghamanyan in 2019. Nareh, acclaimed for her ‘sensual narrative tone’, ‘precise stylistic approach’ and ‘dazzling technique’, juxtaposes two vignettes of the Romantic piano repertoire: Brahms Opus 117 and Tchaikovsky’s Opus 37.
Above the music of the first of Brahms’ Intermezzi Op. 117 of 1892, he quotes the opening of Johann Gottfried Herder’s German setting of Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament; he described the third, in C-sharp Minor, which allegedly was inspired by Henry Longfellow’s Victor Galbraith, as ‘the lullaby of all my sorrows’. Clara Schumann, arguably their covert dedicatee, confided to her diary that these compositions are ‘a true source of enjoyment, everything, poetry, passion, rapture, intimacy, full of the most marvellous effects … in these pieces at least I feel musical life stir once again in my soul.’ Tchaikovsky was working on Swan Lake, when he accepted a commission in 1875 from Nikolay Bernard, publisher of music periodical Nouvellist to compose twelve miniatures, each describing a different month of the year. The Seasons have become Tchaikovsky’s best-known piano works – Troika (November) was a favourite encore of Rachmaninoff's.
Pianist Nareh Arghamanyan has received critical acclaim for her ‘sensual narrative tone’, ‘dazzling technique’, ‘charismatic stage presence’ and has been described as ‘a major talent’ (Harris Goldsmith, Musical America). Nareh has received more than twenty awards, including First Prize at the 2008 Concours Musical International de Montréal. Nareh’s concerto repertoire includes more than 30 works and she has performed with leading orchestras and in solo recitals in major concert venues across the world. Aged fifteen, Nareh became the youngest ever student at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, studying with Heinz Medjimorec and Avedis Kouyoumdjian, and with Arie Vardi at the Hannover Academy of Music. Only five degrees of separation: Nareh’s first teacher was Alexander Gurgenov at The Tchaikovsky Music School in Yerevan, Armenia. Gurgenov was a pupil of Alexander Edelmann, whose teacher Heinrich Neuhaus was taught by Felix Blumenfeld, who studied composition with Tchaikovsky. Nareh Arghamanyan’s discography includes a Rachmaninoff solo album with Pentatone, the Piano Concertos of Liszt, Prokofiev (No. 3) and the Khachaturian Piano Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Alain Altinoglu, and the first recording of Franz Danzi’s Piano Concerto with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and Howard Griffiths, released by Sony Classical. Nareh also enjoys transcribing orchestral and instrumental works for solo piano, including music by J.S. Bach, Khachaturian, Komitas, Piazolla, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, Tarrega and Tchaikovsky. Nareh is a passionate teacher, keen to pass on her musical heritage to younger generations. And she engages strongly in supporting benevolent causes and frequently performs for charitable projects including support for children with leukemia, assisting orphanages and disaster zone victims, for which she has raised more than 200,000 euros. Apple Music Playlists
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Irlandiani, featuring Baroque 'cellist Carina Drury with Nathaniel Mander (harpsichord), Poppy Walshaw ('cello continuo), Aileen Henry (harp) and Eimear McGeown (Irish flute), releases digitally on 23 April 2021, released by Penny Fiddle Records, distributed by Ulysses Arts.
Irandiani is a testament to the musical richness of 18th Century Ireland, and the connections between Baroque music and folk traditions, explored in works by Bocchi, Geminiani, Turlough O'Carolan, Burk Thomoth, and traditional melodies from the Neal 'Collection of the Music Celebrated Irish Tunes'.
Album Details Lorenzo Bocchi, Sonata IX in C major and Sonata X in D major Francesco Geminiani, Sonata Op. 5 No. 3 in C major and Sonata Op. 5 No. 6 in A minor Lorenzo Bocchi, Plea Rarkeh na Rourkough Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) , Carolan’s Concerto Traditional, arr. Neal: A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes (1724): Thomas Burke Limbrick’s Lamentation Ye Clarge’s Lamentation Turlough O’Carolan - Captain O’Kane Neal: A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes (1724) – Capten Magan Turlough O’Carolan – Sí Bheag, Sí Mhor Burk Thomoth (fl. 1739-1750) 12 Irish and 12 Scotch Airs with Variations – Slaunt Ri Plulib Burk Thomoth (fl. 1739-1750) 12 Irish and 12 Scotch Airs with Variations – The Major Turlough O’Carolan – Carolan’s Farewell to Music
Released by Penny Fiddle Records, with digital distribution by Ulysses Arts
Producer and recording engineer: Simon Fox-Gal Mastering engineer: John Croft UPC 5056495471370 |
