Blog Archives

Evermore & Evermore - Music by Eric Choate - Christmas EP from St Mary's San Francisco, releasing on 21 November 2025

19/9/2025

Ulysses Arts releases Christmas EP Evermore & Evermore, with music by Eric Choate, performed by the Choir of St Mary's Church San Francisco, on 21 November 2025.

Click above to pre-order now from iTunes with digiral booklet

These arrangements arose organically, first fashioned to supply instrumental parts for the annual Festival of Lessons and Carols at The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in San Francisco. Developed during several years, they acquired a character beyond their initial purpose, growing ever more expansive in scope.

Prologues, interludes, and codas offer intervals for reflection, enabling the listener to linger upon the mystery of these sacred texts and find repose within the stillness of the Advent and Christmas seasons.‌

Pre-order, download and streaming links will be published here.

Eric Choate on Apple Music

Electronic press kit for reviewers and radio producers available from Ulysses Arts.

0 Comments

Albion Records releases Mantegna: Hymnody and Beyond, on 7 November 2025

18/9/2025

0 Comments

Albion Records releases Mantegna: Hymnody and Beyond, on 7 November 2025, with London Mozart Players, Dulwich Choral Society and organist James Orford, conducted by William Vann (ALB067). The album features works by Vaughan Williams, Francis Jackson, Percy Whitlock, Henry Ley, Orlando Gibbons, William H. Harris, Helen Glatz, Malcolm Riley and a new commission from David Briggs.

Click above to download on iTunes with digital booklet or stream on Apple Music

Vaughan Williams wrote 18 original hymn tunes and adapted 37 others, mainly from folk songs. Some of the tunes have been treasured by one generation after another; others are associated with less popular hymns and no so well-known. His hymn tunes, at both extremes, have inspired other composers to write or arrange works based on them. This album explores those arrangements; some of the hymns are also sung as they were written, so that the tunes can become familiar.

The tune 'Mantegna' was written for a passion-tide hymn about Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The poem was called ‘The Agony in the Garden’, which is also the name given to Mantegna’s 1455-56 painting (the album’s cover picture). Clearly, Vaughan Williams knew the painting, and named his tune after the artist.

The organist Francis Jackson (1917-2022) was fascinated by the 'Mantegna' tune, and wrote a set of orchestral variations on it, called Homage to Vaughan Williams. This is the album's most substantial work. We commissioned another organist, David Briggs, to write an organ Carillon, based on another Vaughan Williams tune, 'White Gates'.

Other composers and arrangers represented include Percy Whitlock, William H Harris, Henry Ley, Helen Glatz and Malcolm Riley. We also celebrate, in his quatercentenary year, Orlando Gibbons who, in his turn, inspired Vaughan Williams.

Dulwich Choral Society was founded in 1944 and performs at least three concerts a year in Dulwich, including working with local schools and charities.

The London Mozart Players are the UK’s oldest, freshest and most adventurous chamber orchestra.

James Orford is a prize-winning organist and pianist based in London. He is the Organist at St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

William Vann is particularly renowned for his revival performances and recordings of lost and lesser-known works of vocal and choral music by British composers.

The recording was made at St Mildred, Addiscombe, Croydon in April 2025. The Producer was Andrew Walton and engineer Tim Burton, of K&A Productions.

Download or stream from PRESTO MUSIC

Electronic press kit for press reviewers and radio producers is available from Ulysses Arts.

0 Comments

Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata and Franck Violin Sonata with Sif Margrét Tulinius and Richard Simm released by Ulysses Arts on 28 November 2025

17/9/2025

0 Comments

Violinist Sif Margrét Tulinius and pianist Richard Simm's album of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata and Franck, Violin Sonata, is released by Ulysses Arts on 28 November 2025 (UA250090).

Click above to pre-order on iTunes with digital booklet or stream pre-release IGs on Apple Music

'On a new path'...

The two Sonatas on this album were written more than 80 years apart and are two of the greatest contributions to the sonata repertoire for violin and piano. Soon before writing his great Kreutzer Sonata, Beethoven confided in his close associate and student Carl Czerny: 'I am not satisfied with the work I have done so far. From now on, I intend to embark on a new path.' The Kreutzer's artistic legacy includes Tolstoy's short story of the same name, which itself inspired Janáċek impassioned First String Quartet.

Franck's Violin Sonata is both a tribute to Beethoven but also itself a masterpiece applying the cyclic form inspired by Franz Liszt's great Piano Sonata, to create a new type of chamber music in which thematic transformation is integrated and explored like never before.

More details, pre-order, download and streaming links will be published here.

Electronic press kit for reviewers and radio producers available from Ulysses Arts.

0 Comments

ALBION RECORDS RELEASES 'I HAVE LIVED AND LOVED' ON 12 SEPTEMBER 2025

9/9/2025

0 Comments

Albion Records releases I have lived and loved - songs by Vaughan Williams, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, John Raynor and Percy Grainger, with mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge, tenor Alessandro Fisher and pianist Penelope Thwaites, on 12 September 2025.

John Francis from Albion Records writes: 'Plans for this album, devised by Penelope Thwaites, celebrates the depth and richness of folk music's influence on the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and his contemporary and friend, Percy Grainger. Vaughan Williams's great cycle, Songs of Travel, here sung for the first time by a woman, is a masterful evocation of this spirit. There is ample historical evidence for women singing and recording these songs, from Ada Crossley under Sir Henry Wood in 1910 to later singers such as Dame Janet Baker, but on record the Cycle has been a male preserve until now.

'Folk influence' is more than musical. Its roots are in the lives of individuals: an unconscious need to express happenings and the feelings thus provoked. Love and its never-ending complexities is the main impulse, expressed beautifully in the album's Vaughan Williams's operatic songs: love of people, of the natural world and endless connections between the two.

We are proud to present Penelope Thwaite's concept for this pioneering recording with Kathryn Rudge. Alessandro Fisher sings three songs from Vaughan Williams’s operas. We then hear two songs from Vaughan Williams’s former pupil, Peggy Glanville-Hicks (another Australian) and two from John Raynor – a composer for whom Vaughan Williams once sponsored a concert, but whose music has not been recorded until now. Percy Grainger contributes six songs and three duets to conclude the album. The contrasts within this group are remarkable: you will find pathos, humour, and in the final wordless duet, his love for his native Australia.'

Kathryn Rudge, Penelope Thwaites and Alessandro Fisher

Penelope Thwaites AM is known internationally as a concert pianist, composer, broadcaster, editor and festival curator. She has performed in 35 countries, including as soloist with leading orchestras including the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Concert Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic and many more throughout Europe, America and Australia. She is acknowledged as a leading exponenet of the music of Percy Grainger, and is editor of The New Percy Grainger Companion.

Kathryn Rudge studied at RNCM, has won numerous awards and was an ENO Harewood Artist, a YCAT artist and a BBC New Generation Artist. She has featured on many recordings including Parry’s Judith with the London Mozart Players (Chandos, 2020).

Alessandro Fisher won First Prize at the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and was a member of the BBC New Generation Artist Scheme between 2018 and 2021. This is his second recording for Albion Records; the first was ALBCD057 Portraits of a Mind, with William Vann, piano, and the Navarra String Quartet, comprising song cycles by Ian Venables and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The recording was made at Potton Hall, Suffolk, in July 2024. The Producer was Tim Burton and Engineer Deborah Spanton, both of K&A Productions.

Pre-release Singles

0 Comments

MUSIC CENTRE SLOVAKIA: DIGITAL RELEASE OF SLOVAK PIANO SONATINAS DOUBLE ALBUM ON 31 OCTOBER 2025

4/9/2025

0 Comments

Music Centre Slovakia releases Slovak Piano Sonatinas double album performed by Magdaléna Bajuszová, on 31 October 2025, in partnership with Ulysses Arts, on all digital services.