RTF Classical releases Paris 1913: L'Offrande lyique - music by Auric, Boulanger, Caplet, Chaminade, Debussy, Durey, Fauré, Grovlez, Hahn, Milhaud, Ravel, Ropartz, Saint-Saëns and Satie, in partnership with Nimbus Alliance, on 7 February 2025 (NI 6455).

The world première recording of Louis Durey’s L’Offrande lyrique Op. 4, six songs set to texts by Rabindranath Tagore (recipient of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature) in French translation by André Gide, is a highlight of this collection. Inspired by the atonality of Arnold Schoenberg’s The Book of Hanging Gardens, and often credited as the first piece of free twelve-note technique in French music, L’Offrande lyrique navigates a harmonic language which can hold clarity and vivid colour in Lumière ! ma lumière !, or blur into dark heavy clouded gesture in Les nuages s’entassent, effectively supporting Tagore’s language. At times, the words seem to muse over seemingly unconnected piano motifs, before meeting - sometimes harmonically, sometimes not - sometimes walking the same path, other times meandering separately again. For Paris 1913 to include a world première recording of such important music, written over a century ago, is thrilling, and places Durey firmly alongside his contemporaries in the cafés and salons of pre-war Paris. Far from being overshadowed by the better-known composers in this anthology, these songs stand as a testament to the strength of French melodies of the era. © Andrew Matthews-Owen & Claire Booth
 
Claire Booth
British soprano Claire Booth is renowned for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform, with a versatility that encompasses repertoire spanning from Monteverdi and Handel, through Rossini, Berg and Strauss, to a fearless commitment to the music of the present day... A champion of lesser performed vocal repertoire, Booth has released a series of vocal retrospectives of Grainger, Grieg, Mussorgsky and Schoenberg. Her discovery of Durey’s ‘L’Offrande Lyrique’ fits squarely into this narrative, and she is extremely happy to partner with long-time friend and collaborator Andrew Matthews-Owen for this inaugural recording of Durey’s work. © www.claire-booth.com
 
Andrew Matthews-Owen
Welsh-born pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he received numerous prizes and has been elected an honorary Associate. He now enjoys a busy career partnering some of the most successful classical singers of our time, on the concert platform, on acclaimed commercial records, on broadcasts and as a vocal coach. Andrew has partnered singers including Patricia Bardon, Susan Bickley, Claire Booth, Susan Bullock and many more.

RFT Classical is a record label owned by the Richard Thomas Foundation, aiming to bring interesting and occasionally challenging pieces of contemporary music to new audiences. Our first recording of songs with Claire Booth and Andrew Matthews-Owen (and Susan Bickley) was Songs and Vexations (2019) including songs by Debussy, Fauré, Satie and Jonathon Dove, which went on to win the ALLMUSIC.COM “2019 Vocal Recording of the Year”.

Press kit and listening link available for reviewers and radio producers from Ulysses Arts.

Lyrita Records releases British 'Cello Works Volume Three with music by William Hurlstone, Felix Swinstead, Doreen Carwithen and Frank Bridge, with Lionel Handy, 'cello and Jennifer Walsh, piano, on 7 February 2025 (SRCD 441).

William Hurlstone’s Cello Sonata in D major (1899) was written for the noted cellist and composer May Mukle. In his review of the score, Havergal Brian opined that Hurlstone’s sonata ‘shows ripe and mature musicianship... The Adagio Lamentoso is unusual in its sustained eloquence... the slow movement and the lovely final Rondo standing out in a rare and attractive work’.

The manuscript of Felix Swinstead’s Cello Sonata was discovered by the pianist Clive Williamson, while he was clearing the house of Vivian Langrish and his wife Ruth Harte, Swinstead's friends. It is possible that this F major Sonata might have been written just before the composer’s death and never performed in public. According to Lionel Handy, Ruth was ‘a second study cellist and Swinstead may have thought a run-through, if not a performance, might be possible, but there is no record of any performance nor date of composition as yet’.

Doreen Carwithen’s 'Cello Sonatina (1944) draws upon the stringed instrument’s sonorous, lyrical qualities. The often-striking piano material is crucial to the unfolding narrative, rather than offering mere accompaniment and creates a genuine dialogue between the two protagonists.

Frank Bridge’s two-movement Cello Sonata was begun in 1913, but not completed until 1917. Bridge always looked fondly upon the Cello Sonata, which has proved to be one of the composer’s most popular chamber works and remains the most regularly played of all his substantial pieces for two players.
 
Lionel Handy
 
“Lionel Handy was principal cellist at the Academy of St Martin for ten years with whom he recorded and toured extensively throughout USA and Europe... As a soloist he has played as guest principal cellist with many of the UK’s leading orchestras including the Philharmonia, LSO, RLPO, LPO, ECO and Halle.”  © Royal Academy of Music
 
Jennifer Walsh
 
“Jennifer Walsh is a collaborative pianist and duo coach who performs across the UK and internationally.  She has given recitals at venues including Wigmore Hall, Sala Verdi Milano, Oslo Opera Housel and Xinghai Conservatory, China.” © Jennifer Walsh, 2023

Press kit and private listening link for reviewers and radio presenters available from Ulysses Arts.

Lyrita Records releases a double album of Gavin Higgins, The Fairie Bride,  with Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Roderick Williams, The Three Choirs Festival Chorus and BBC National Orchestra Orchestra of Wales conducted by Martyn Brabbins, and Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourishes for solo horn, with soloist Ben Goldscheider, and the BBCNOW conducted by Jaime Martin, on 7 February 2025 (SRCD 440).

Gavin Higgins’ music is bursting with authenticity. Everything he writes speaks in some way of where he comes from, of the land, of the community, of the family which formed him. He grew up in a working-class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with its own dialect, a liminal place where Welsh songs and stories as well as English are in the air. It’s a place where brass band music is the chief legacy of the coalmines, the last of which closed a decade before Gavin was born and where the forest, with its sounds, its colours and its stories was a constant presence. Gavin has spoken evocatively - and perhaps romantically - about the music of the forest which surrounded him: sounds of foxes and deer mingled with brass bands, church choirs and occasional illegal raves. Nature and music, he says, are powerfully linked in his mind. © Gillian Moore
 
Horn Concerto
“… the pieces on this disc which feature the French horn -Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourish- mark the first time that he has highlighted his own instrument in the solo slot. As ever, it was a personal connection which sparked the idea of the Horn Concerto - an approach from the horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, made in the full knowledge that this would reunite Gavin with his younger self. The Horn Concerto connects to the past in other ways. It’s written in E-flat, the key of famous Horn Concertos by Mozart and Strauss. It also amplifies and expands the sound of the solo horn by giving it a prominent relationship with the quartet of horns in the orchestra, calling to mind Robert Schumann’s blazing Konzertstuck from the middle of the 19th century and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Hamburg Concerto, written at the turn of the 21st.”

The Faerie Bride
Gavin looks west ward from the Forest of Dean to a Welsh tale from the Red Book of Hergest, an important mediaeval manuscript of Welsh history, poetry and stories. The legend of The Lady of the Lake tells of a water spirit who emerges from Llyn y Fan Fach in the Brecon Beacons and marries an earthly man, having insisted on a clear prenup agreement: if he strikes her three times (she uses the curious and ambiguous phrase ‘heart’s blow’ which suggests mental rather than physical cruelty) she will go back into the lake and take everything she has brought to the marriage with her. Tales of watery spirits who take human form to lure men to doom are abundant in European culture… but, Gavin says, ‘The Welsh myths are empowering, with strong female characters who set their own agenda. There is no coercion, theft, or kidnap but rather misunderstandings and cultural differences.’

Press kit for reviewers and radio presenters available from Ulysses Arts.

Lyrita releases its Chamber Music of William Busch album on 3 January 2025, with members of the Piatti Quartet, Simon Callaghan and Ashok Klouda (SRCD 439).

Three Pieces for Violin and Piano were written as individual works: as such, they can be presented separately or, if given collectively as a suite, played in any order. Busch wrote his Passacaglia for violin and viola in 1939: the score takes the form of a decisive, four-bar theme followed by thirty variants upon it. These mini variations range widely in character, from trenchant and forceful to airy and smooth.

A Memory for 'Cello and Piano was written for Elizabeth Poston. Busch subtly conveys the idea of a reminiscence suggested by the title with simple, lightly sketched ideas presented with an air of hazy nostalgia. Eventually, the feeling of distance and reserve created in the opening portion of the work is replaced by a more troubled mood. The music ends in sorrow with a heartfelt, steeply descending sequence for unaccompanied cello followed by the merest hint of the opening material.

The Quartet for Piano and Strings is the most substantial of William Busch’s chamber pieces. Although the composer’s lyrical gifts are much in evidence, the four movements are also rigorously concise. Considerable dramatic rewards are gained from the creative tension between the music’s unforced expressivity and the formal rigour with which Busch’s powerful themes are worked out.

The Suite for 'Cello and Piano is among Busch’s most searching and variegated instrumental works. In a postwar assessment of the score, The Times’ critic noted that its four pieces ‘reveal a sensitive and interesting mind’.

Elegy for 'Cello and Piano exploits fully the stringed instrument’s lyrical qualities and capacity for rich, autumnal colours. The work begins with an extended soliloquy for unaccompanied cello and the cellist continues to preside over the entire opening section, which features only a couple of brief interjections from the piano.  © Paul Conway

'The performances here are excellent. The members of the Piatti Quartet, violinist Michael Trainor, violist Zahra Benyounes and cellist Jessie Ann Richardson are joined by pianist Simon Callaghan and 'cellist Ashok Klouda. ... The recording in the Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys has been well judged and the notes, as mentioned, are in the best of hands – Paul Conway’s. Busch is a composer with a gift for expressive intensity.'
Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International, 25 November 2024

'This is wonderful and original music, superbly performed.'
Gary Higginson, British Music Society, 26 November 2024

'Aquest disc és per a nosaltres una revelació. La música serena de William Busch, interpretada impecablement pel Piatti Quartet, ens duu a un desenllaç emocionant i desafiant.'
Marçal Borotau, Sonograma, 29 December 2024

'William Busch (1901-45) whose Three Pieces for Violin and Piano (1943-44) and Passacaglia for Violin and Viola (1939) are among the gems of little-known English music. ... Confirming his reputation as an interpreter of 20th-century English music, pianist Simon Callaghan gives an impressive projection of Busch’s music. ... Full marks, too, for members of the Piatti Quartet: Michael Trainor, violin; Zahra Benyounes, viola; and Jessie Ann Richardson, cello — all beautifully recorded in the famously rich acoustic of the Wyastone Leys Concert Hall.'
Stuart Millson, Quarterly Review, 4 January 2025

'I have been most impressed by the music and performances here, and I live in hope that this composer enjoys the recognition that he truly deserves. ... Also to be commended are the accompanying notes and the excellent sound recording. I highly recommend this disc.'
Geoff Pearce, Classical Music Daily, 5 January 2025

'... die Symbiose aus ausdrucksvoll gezeigter spielerischer Linie und plastischer Ausarbeitung der Strukturen.'
'... the symbiosis of expressive, playful line and vivid elaboration of the structures is successful.'
Pizzicato, 9 January 2025

EPK and listening link for reviewers and radio programmers available from Ulysses Arts Ltd.

William Busch (1901-45)  'developed a passion for music and took piano lessons at an early age, though he harboured no ambitions of a professional career as a pianist until his teenage years.' (Paul Conway). During many years he studied music with France Woodmansee and A. W. Lilienthal, piano with Leonid Kreutzer and Benno Moiseiwitsch, harmony with Hugo Leichtentritt, and composition with leading British composers Alan Bush, John Ireland and Bernard van Dieren.

'As the 1930s progressed, Busch began to focus increasingly on composition and soon forged his own personal creative language. This decade saw the first of his many songs, a widely acclaimed Piano Concerto, and on 1 June 1935, his marriage to Sheila, with whom he had two children, Nicholas and Julia. His life was cruelly cut short when he died of an internal haemorrhage at Woolacombe, Devonshire on 30 January 1945, robbing British music of one of its most promising and versatile talents.' Paul Conway

NImbus Alliance releases Bach-Centricity: Concertos, Trios & Sonatas arranged for two harpsichords, with David Ponsford and David Hill, on 3 January 2025 (NI 6454).

All the concertos, trios and sonatas on this recording are in some way associated with J. S. Bach, being composed, arranged, transcribed or copied by the composer. All are in the BWV catalogue; most have positive links with Bach’s first important appointment as Court Organist and Chamber Musician at the Ducal Court in Weimar (1708-1714).

The value of such arrangements is that they allow a wider perception into a composer’s compositional processes, and which have the potential for presenting new insights and different characteristics to particular pieces of music, which might not be evident in the originals. Hence these arrangements extend a practice that was normal in the early eighteenth century, and in this recording, they are played on instruments with which Bach would have been entirely familiar. What revelations they reveal! © David Ponsford

‘The Two Davids’, as they have sometime been called, began playing together in 2020 when they recorded Bach’s Six Organ Trio Sonatas (NI 6403) on two harpsichords. This recording elicited the following review in Choir & Organ: ‘The recording conveys a compelling sense of dialogue and sociability between two virtuoso musicians, equally at one with the material, and the alternation between instruments makes great sense of Bach’s antiphony and repeats.’ Since then they have played at the St Albans and Cambridge Festivals, as well as for music societies in various parts of the country, including The Athenaeum Club in London. © David Ponsford

Retour aux sources: France Musique, 29 January 2025

Maureen Buja, Interlude: 9 February 2025

David Ponsford is an organist, harpsichordist, musicologist and conductor, and an authority on keyboard music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries… David has an extensive discography, having recorded all four parts of J. S. Bach’s Clavierübung, the complete series of Bach violin sonatas with Jacqueline Ross, ‘Parthenia’ (1612), and the complete Handel recorder sonatas with Alan Davis… In March 2024 he was awarded The Medal of the Royal College of Organists, its highest honour, ‘in recognition of distinguished achievement in organ performance and scholarship’.

Renowned for his fine musicianship, David Hill is widely respected as an organist, conductor and educator. He has held positions as Organist of Westminster Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral and St John’s College, Cambridge. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists when he was 17 whilst studying at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester… He has given recitals since he was 10 years old and continues to do so. Away from the organ world, David operates a busy life as a freelance musician… as Musical Director of The Bach Choir, London, Music Director of the Leeds Philharmonic Society, Associate Guest Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and from 2013-24 he was Professor and Principal Conductor of Schola Cantorum, Yale University… He has made a number of discs as an organist, and a recent recording from Peterborough Cathedral was nominated as Critic’s Choice in the American Record Guide in 2021.

EPK and listening link available for reviewers and radio programmers from Ulysses Arts.

Ulysses Arts releases Piano Phase Project's album Sound Meditation, with works for piano duo by Debussy, Ravel and Čiurlionis, performed by Monika Lozinskienė and Anna Szałucka, on 18 April 2025 (UA250010).

Anna Szałucka's and Monika Lozinskienė's first creative music installations, Summertime and Piano Phase, were showcased in Lithuania at Vilnius's MO Museum in 2021 and 2022. Monika's and Anna's varied individual experiences contribute to the Duo's projects, providing a dynamic energy and interpretational uniqueness. Monika is a co-founder of the international piano festival Kaunas Piano Fest, a producer of the openARTed podcast, and the curator of the online international platform PianoBuffs. Anna, in addition to creating electronic music, is a chamber music lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music and has released solo and chamber music albums with labels such as October House Records, Naxos, and LINN.

In 2022, the Duo became artists of London's City Music Foundation, performing in venues such as St. Martin in the Fields, Wiltshire Music Centre, Sienko Gallery, and at the Bloomsbury Festival. They have also performed at the CLASSICAL:NEXT conference in Hanover and during Kaunas 2022 European Capital of Culture. In 2024, they toured Scotland as laureates of the Tunnel Trust Award.

Piano Phase Project creates original piano arrangements, composes new music, and collaborates with filmmakers, visual artists, jazz musicians, and electronic music producers. Among their notable projects are Sound Meditation, an artistic movie filmed in the forests of Western Canada, which fuses classical and electronic music with visual arts, and also their new arrangement of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring for piano four-hands, percussion and dance.

This album is financed partly by the Vilnius Municipality Culture Fund, Lithuanian Council for Culture and The City Music Foundation.

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Pre-release singles

Ulysses Arts releases Stephen Horne's soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 silent film The Manxman, orchestrated and conducted by Ben Palmer wth the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone and soloists Louise Hayter, oboe, and Jeff Moore, violin, on 10 January 2025 (UA240130). The Manxman will be screened live at the 2025 San Francisco Silent Film Festival on 11 January at Grace Cathedral.

Silent London, 1 Oct 2024

Ron Schepper, Textura, February 2025
'An illuminating portrait of this most talented artist.'

One of the world's leading silent film performers, Stephen Horne is a house musician at London’s British Film Institute Southbank. Principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes simultaneously. He regularly plays internationally and his accompaniments have met with acclaim at numerous film festivals across Europe, North America and Asia.

Stephen has recorded music for many restorations of classic and rediscovered silent films. In 2011 and 2012, he was commissioned to compose scores for the London Film Festival galas of The First Born and The Manxman. In 2012 his accompaniment for Rotaie won first prize at the Bonn Sommerkino Festival and he was subsequently invited to repeat the performance at that year’s Beethovenfest. For ten consecutive years, from 2014 to 2024, he has won in one or more categories in Silent London’s end-of-year poll.

In 2021 he recorded Silent Sirens, an album of solo piano pieces based on several of his silent film scores. It was released by Ulysses Arts and has performed well across digital platforms. In 2022, his orchestral score for Stella Dallas, commissioned by MoMA, was premiered at the pre-opening night of the Venice Film Festival.

In 2022, with the help of conductor-orchestrator Ben Palmer, Stephen completed two fully orchestrated scores for films that he had previous scored for small ensemble. Stella Dallas, commissioned by MoMA, was premièred at the Venice Film Festival and The Manxman formed the closing gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone in Italy.

The Manxman: Pre-Release Singles

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

The Richard Thomas Foundation with Nimbus Alliance released Joseph Phibbs String Quartets album on 1 November 2024 (NI 6452), with the Piatti Quartet.

“Having studied the cello as a child, I have always felt a special affinity with string music. My introduction at the age of 14 to the music of Britten was through his first string quartet, the opening of which still fills me with awe, and his works - especially those for strings - have remained a lifelong inspiration. I am delighted therefore that this recording of my String Quartets Nos. 2-4 has been released, made possible by the generous support of the Richard Thomas Foundation. I have been fortunate to work closely with the Piatti Quartet over a number of years. It was they who commissioned my String Quartet No. 1 (2014), a piece they have performed extensively and recorded (Champs Hill Records 2018). Their enthusiasm encouraged me to continue exploring the genre, and - a decade later – it has been both a privilege and a huge pleasure to have another opportunity to write for them (String Quartet No.4).

Much of my music is inspired by light and landscapes (as well as cityscapes): these two elements drawn from places in the past that have been especially important to me, including Ithaca (NY) and New York City. When considering which images would best sum up the overall feel of the album, light-both natural and artificial - as seen within a landscape, seemed the most fitting choice. The vibrant colours of Casting Nets (2024) by my niece, the artist Rose Jones (reproduced on the rear inside cover of this booklet) provides a perfect contrast to the reflective Whistler image on the front cover, both works presenting light and water in completely different ways.” © Joseph Phibbs

'The Fourth Quartet ... mixes turbulent restlessness with a more predominant songful element. The composer’s touchstone here, a querulous beauty, has a remote enchantment about it. A dance of the heavenly spirits casts a sideways glance at Hovhaness in his more recessed moments.' Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International, 14 October 2024

'Pierre Boulez thought the string quartet was dead. I beg to differ'.
Joseph Phibbs Profile: Gramophone Magazine, 1 November 2024

‘One of the most rewarding musical relationships’ - Joseph Phibbs’s string quartets recorded by the Piatti Quartet - Interview:  The Strad, 1 November 2024

'[The Piatti Quartet] master these challenges with technical finesse and deepening verve in their performance..intensively explore and present the life-affirming and sometimes downright lively movements.. lyrical warmth and rich playing.'
Pizzicato, 5 November 2024

'Phibbs has an individual voice: compelling, expressive... Listening carefully to these performances, registering time and again, one realises not only just how powerful the music is, but also the superb nature of the performances. All four instrumentalists: Michael Trainor, Emily Holland, violins, Miguel Sabrinho, viola, Jessie Ann Richardson, cello - is expert in their own right, but they combine to make a whole greater than the sum of their four parts - surely the very definition of hot string quartet playing.' Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer, 8 November 2024

'Phibbs is a resourceful while often imaginative writer for string quartet, his music demonstrably in the lineage of 20th-century totems such as Bartók or Shostakovich (with a nod toward Britten), without being beholden to these or any other precedents. It helps when the Piatti Quartet ... sounds so well attuned to his idiom and has evidently prepared each one of these works with unfailing commitment.' Arcana, 28 November 2024

1. 'I really enjoyed these quartets and look forward to hearing more of Phibbs’s music... The Piatti Quartet repay the composer’s confidence in them with strong and committed performances, and the recording is excellent. Those who care for string quartets should explore these works.' Stephen Barber, MusicWeb International, 17 December 2024
   

'English whimsy unafraid of its passionate emotional core'.
Steph Power, BBC Music Magazine, 20 December 2024

'Presenting light and water',Maureen Buja, Interlude, January 2025

The Piatti Quartet are Michael Trainor (violin), Emily Holland (violin), Miguel Sobrinho (viola) and Jessie Ann Richardson (cello). Resident Quartet at Kings Place, London, the distinguished quartet are widely renowned for their ‘profound musicmaking’ (The Strad) and their ‘lyrical warmth’ (BBC Music Magazine). Following their prizewinning performances at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, they have performed all over the world and made international broadcasts from many countries. Contemporary music has been ever present in their repertoire and major commissions and dedications have stemmed from Mark-Anthony Turnage, Emily Howard, Charlotte Harding, and Joseph Phibbs whilst they have premiered a huge number of new works over the years.
 
“From that first moment we played Joe’s music we felt this was a voice that spoke to us, music that we instantly understood and connected with. He is the contemporary composer we have performed most often and audiences have always been enthralled by his music.”
The Piatti Quartet

Electronic press kit and listening link available for reviewers and radio producers from Ulysses Arts.
Album supported by The RIchard Thomas Foundation.

Nimbus Alliance releases Robert Blocker: Contemporary Character Pieces for PIano, with works by eight composers, on 1 November 2024 (NI 6453).

“The romantic character pieces of Schumann and Brahms have been my musical companions since childhood. In earlier years, I was immersed in their emotional content. The craft, especially the economy of scale and refinement of compositional technique, captured my attention as a college student…Throughout my career, I have championed new music created by fellow students and colleagues. Shortly after assuming the deanship of the Yale School of Music, it occurred to me that the expansive piano repertoire could be enriched further by contemporary character pieces. These would be in the tradition of the romantic era, each one being three to five minutes in length with an inherent emotional impulse...When asked to compose a contemporary character piece that I would perform and record, my faculty colleagues and friends were most gracious and responded affirmatively…My gratitude and admiration foreach of them is boundless not only for their personal encouragement but also for this significant contribution to the piano repertoire and our musical life.” © Robert Blocker
 
This release includes compositions from Ezra Laderman (Decade), David Lang (Winter Piano), Joseph Schwantner (Palindrome’s Dance), Warren Lee (Three Novelettes), Martin Bresnick (Extrana Devocion), Paul Reale (The Pooka’s Revenge), Aaron Jay Kernis (Toward The Setting Sun) and Christopher Theofanidis (Wake Up, Calleth The Voice).

“Robert Blocker began his study of the instrument at age five, presenting his first public recital two years later. Following baccalaureate studies at Furman University, Blocker earned master’s and doctoral degrees in piano performance at the University of North Texas under the tutelage of the eminent American pianist Richard Cass.”

Electronic press kit and pre-release listening link available for reviewers and radio producers from Ulysses Arts Ltd.

Lyrita Records releases its Graham Hair Piano Music album on 1 November 2024, performed by Martin Jones (SRCD 436).

Composer Graham Hair writes: “I met pianist Martin Jones as a consequence of writing the Concert Study Wild Cherries and Honeycomb as a test-piece for the Scottish International Piano Competition, in 1998. Martin heard about this piece from the chairman of the competition jury, Bryce Morrison, and this eventually led to my writing more Concert Studies over the next fifteen years, as well as the other works on this album.

Twelve Transcendental Concert Studies on Themes from the Australian Poets, refers specifically to the post-Lisztian Tradition of virtuoso pianism (including such figures as Australian pianist Percy Grainger), which has always seemed to me a corecomponent of Martin Jones’s pianism. The titles are all drawn either from specific poems or from specific passages within those poems.

Two other commissions are also represented: Dances and Devilment and Sunlit Airs, commissioned by the Australian pianist Michael Harvey in 2000, and Under Aldebaran, commissioned much earlier, by the Sydney International Piano Competition, during the mid-1980s. All of the other works were written between 2008 to 2024.

Étude-variations: Under Aldebaran is also a Concert Study, based on the poem by Australian poet James McAuley, but is very different from the collection of the ‘Transcendental’ 12. It’s the only atonal piece in this album, and by far the most complicated in its detail, and was written many years earlier.

Rococo Fantasies is a set of 11 bagatelles. Each moves from one tone-centre to another: often via ‘chromatic mediant’ harmony (a major or minor third above or below the tone-centre). Book One contains 6 of them. They endeavour to create a variety of idiosyncratic rhetorical characters by swerving between multiple metrical, thematic and textural ideas rapidly in the course of a few measures in some of the pieces, but beavering away at just one or two (over rapidly modulating harmonic changes) in others.

Passacaglia on the chorale ‘Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist’ by J.S. Bach is based on a chorale melody derived from the famous plainsong hymn Veni Creator Spiritus. This is the ‘ground bass’ on which this Passacaglia is built. However, like many Passacaglias in the Canonic Repertoire, the theme often strays into the upper voices of the texture, and because of the relative length of the theme, it has something of the sense of a set of variations as much as of a Passacaglia.
 
…During recent times (2008-2024), I have completed more compositions than in all the previous periods put together, though in some cases that has meant completing projects started earlier: in a time characterised by the decay, and in many cases the collapse, of the institutions which have dominated political, social, economic and cultural life and practice during the three post-war generations (1950-2024). The subtitle of my forthcoming book, The Scottish Voices Reader, puts it thus: Cultivating the Classical Traditions in the Age of the War on Everything.”   © Graham Hair

'A revelation of 21st-century pianism, both in Hair’s writing and in Jones’ playing.'
Maureen Buja, Interlude, 23 December 2024

Martin Jones has been one of Britain’s most highly regarded solo pianists since first coming to international attention in 1968 when he received the Dame Myra Hess Award. The same year he made his London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and his New York debut at Carnegie Hall, and ever since has been in demand for recitals and concerto performances in Europe, Russia, Australia, Canada, North & South America. He has made over 90 recordings with Nimbus Records exploring music that is not often played including the complete works of 18 composers.

'Martin Jones is a skilled and sensitive artist with an imaginative response that is faultless.' Gramophone

Electronic press kit and listening link available from Ulysses Arts Ltd.

Ulysses Arts released Caritas Chamber Choir's album A New Spirit, with world premières by Sir James MacMillan, Henrik Dahlgren, Phillip Cooke and Andrew Smith, directed by Benedict Preece, on 18 October 2024 (UA240110).

A NEW SPIRIT: ALBUM DETAILS

Phillip Cooke, Christus resurgens
 
Henrik Dahlgren, Three Latin Hymns:
Ave maris Stella
Ave Regina Caelorum
Ave Maria
 
Sir James MacMillian, If ye love me

Sir James MacMillan, For a thousand years

Phillip Cooke, Veni Sponsa Christi
 
Sir James MacMillan,  I will take you from the nations

Phillip Cooke, O Lord, save thy people
 
Sir James MacMillan, Be who God meant you to be
Sir James MacMillan, The Highgate Motet

Andrew Smith, Christi tractus in odore

Andrew Smith, Rex et martyr triumphalis
 
 Andrew Smith, Old Irish Blessing

Maureen Buja, Interlude, 2 Dec 2024

'Congratulations to Benedict Preece and his singers for producing such a nicely balanced anthology with exemplary notes, texts and presentation.'
Malcolm Riley, Gramophone, Dec 2024

Based in Kent, in south east England, Caritas Chamber Choir was founded in 2011 by music director Benedict Preece. Caritas is the Latin word for charity: as part of its concert schedule, the Choir raises funds for charities, good causes and churches. Performing to the highest level throughout the UK, the Choir has also performed in Belgium, France - including regularly at Lille Cathedral's summer music festival, The Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Caritas has a strong commitment to contemporary choral music: it performs and commissions music from many of the leading composers of our time, including Sir James MacMillan, Cecilia McDowall, Phillip Stopford, Phillip Cooke, Andrew Smith, Sarah Cattley, David Conte, Gabriel Jackson, Neil Wright, Eric Choate and Henrik Dahgren. Caritas is signed with UK-based record label Ulysses Arts.

Electronic press kit and pre-release listening link available for press reviewers and radio producers.

UA240110
Producer: Emily Baines
Recording Engineer: John Croft - Chiaro Audio
Artwork: Tony Garrett

Ulysses Arts releases De Lumine, an album of solo violin music from Iceland, performed by Sif Margrét Tulinius, on 8 November 2024.

All three works on De Lumine, by Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson, Hugi Guðmundsson and Viktor Orri Árnason, were commisioned by Sif Margrét in 2020 and premièred by her soon after in the concert series Bach and Modernity. The project comprised three concerts including these contemporary works alongside J.S. Bach's three 1720 Sonatas for Solo Violin. This created a musical conversation between composers 300 years apart.

The Icelandic composers span three generations, all well established in their fields. Their works reveal strikingly different characters: the only guideline for the commissions not to include any electronics – to retain a close connection to Bach's work, otherwise the composers had complete compositional freedom to explore the violin's endless musical and technical possibilities. De Lumine is the world première recording of these new works.

De Lumine's launch concert took place on Sunday 10 November at the Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik.

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Album Details

Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson (1952-): Partíta (26’) – 5 movements
Hugi Guðmundsson (1977-): Praesentia (16’)
Viktor Orri Árnason (1987-): Dark Gravity (19’) – 4 movements

'The works presented are strong and intriguing.'
Maureen Buja, 'New Music from Iceland': Interlude, 3 February 2025

'Its compositions and performances are thoroughly compelling. As a collection of contemporary works for violin, De Lumine ... strongly testifies to Tulinius's remarkable technical and interpretive abilities.' Ron Schepper, Textura, February 2025

Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson was born in 1952 in a small village in the Westfjords of Iceland. He studied piano from an early age and went to further his studies in composition and theory at the Brandeis University in Massachusetts. He studied one year at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Holland before finishing his Master’s degree from Cornell University in theory and compostion. His compositional span is vast and varied where he has written works for solo instruments, big symphonic works, songs and choir works, as well as music for theatre and films.

'The Partíta is not ”about” anything – notes, intervals, rhythms, phrases, the violin in the hands of the violinist – the sounds of the bow on the string and the magic happens – but no particular meaning or message! it is wonderfully liberating to write music ”about” nothing in particular – music which is itself and only about itself.' Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson

Hugi Guðmundsson was born in Reykjavik in 1977. He continued studies in Denmark and finshed his Master’s degree in composition from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen and a second Master’s degree in electronic and computer music from the Sonology Institute in The Hague, The Netherlands. Hugi’s music ranges from solo works to orchestral pieces. He has been awarded many prices for his works both in Iceland and internationally.

'The title Praesentia depicts the opposite of absentia, so it might be understood to describe presence. The piece is in a rondo form of some sort where the music constantly gravitates toward a simple reserved chorale with repetitive chords. In between them the violin goes on an adventure of virtuosity.'  Hugi Guðmundsson

Viktor Orri Árnason was born in Reykjavík in 1987. Viktor studied violin and viola at the Icelandic University of the Arts and composition and conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

'I was inspired by one of the great mysteries of the world – would you believe that when we calculate the total mass of the reality that we know and understand to be true that is the stars, galaxies, blackholes – there seems to be missing 85% of the mass that we define as reality. The piece Dark Gravity wonders about the nature of this unexplainable mass.' Viktor Orri Árnason

Sif Margrét Tulinius was born in Lyon, France moving at an early age to her home country Iceland. Upon completing her Soloist–Performer’s Diploma from Reykjavík College of Music, she received a Fulbright grant to study in the United States, completing her Master’s degree from New York under the guidance of esteemed musicians such as Almita and Roland Vamos, Joyce Robbins and Joel Smirnoff, professor of violin at the Juilliard School, New York.

During her career Sif Margrét has performed as soloist on numerous occasions in such works as Gubaidulina’s Offertorium, Lutoslawski’s Partita, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Bach Violin Concerto in E major. She collaborates regularly with pianists in sonata recitals, most recently in February 2024 at the Harpa Recital Hall performing a programme of French music including the Sonatas by Debussy, Ravel, Pauline Viardot and Lili Boulanger.

Sif Margrét served as Associate Concertmaster of the Icelandic National Symphony Orchestra for a number of years acting regularly as Concertmaster. In recent years she has also performed with many esteemed orchestras in Germany such as the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Sif Margrét is involved in creating interesting and inspiring concert programmes and has been the Artistic Director of many concert series as well as being the main performer. This includes a Beethoven VIolin and Piano Sonata cycle, and recently Bach and Modernity, the inspiration for her album De Lumine.

Recording Engineer: Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir
Album artwork and photos: Sigríður Hulda Sigurðardóttir

Pre-Release Singles

Electronic press kit and listening links are available for reviewers and radio stations from Ulysses Arts

Didier Recloux's single Enotis (Wedding Song), performed by Leos Strings Quartet (Brookspeare Music), releases on 9 July 2024.

'Striking and tender', Grace Bradford, Music Review World, June 2024

For press kit, more details, and interviews, contact Ulysses Arts.

Didier Recloux is a Belgian-born composer based in London, his passion for music was fostered from an early age, having come from a musical family where he was introduced to a wide range of music by his Polish grandmother. His musical career began aged six, studying guitar, drums, piano, singing, and composition at his local music academy. He also studied counterpoint, music for film and television with Berklee Online, orchestration in New York with Steven Scott Smalley and learned about music production at IMW London. He still studies with pianist, music teacher and author Jonathan Walker.

Didier started his musical career playing in bands, writing and demoing songs with friends, mainly in a pop/rock style. Progressive rock, heavy metal, pop, electronic and classical music or film composers like Maurice Jarre and Ennio Morricone have all played influential roles in shaping Didier's musical sensibilities. Belgium is also a mosaic of communities and he was therefore exposed to a huge amount of foreign music and styles.

Didier's music emphasises melody, which he describes as something he would like to call “portable”, that one can carry away from a film, bringing back the feelings experienced while watching the movie. His aspiration is to touch and move people, the way that he has been moved by the music he loves. 

Didier's latest album Monsieur Linh and His Child was released on the 7 March 2024. Inspired by a novel by French author Philippe Claudel, the music illustrates the story of Monsieur LInh, an old and frail man who has to leave his country because of war, taking with him a small suitcase and his baby grand-daughter Sang Diû. The album was rated “outstanding” byMusic Review World.

His first television credit was 2014 documentary The Lost Child, written and presented by renowned broadcaster and director Zeinab Badawi (World News Today & HARDtalk), produced and broadcast by BBC World.

Didier's most significant musical contribution so far is his collaboration with Zeinab Badawi on her twenty-eposide BBC series The History of Africa part I and II. Broadcast on BBC World, it has had more than 14 million views on YouTube alone.  This was followed by the series Take me to the Opera (2021-24) for which he wrote the main theme and arranged well-known classical pieces. Its third season currently is in pre-production. Zeinab describes collaborating with Didier: ‘He is a wonderful composer who worked meticulously to capture the spirit and authenticity of each programme'.

Earlier in his career, Didier wrote his first original score for the documentary Featherweight, directed by Christophe Hermanns (Belgium 2005). He collaborated twice with award-winning British director Lou Hamilton on Desire of the Pitbull Warrior (2010) and Angie (2012), and later with Keith Mackin and John Reck on Cops and Robbers (2013).

CLICK BELOW TO FOLLOW DIDIER RECLOUX ON SPOTIFY

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DIDIER RECLOUX ON AMAZON MUSIC

Sir George Benjamin's opera Picture a Day Like This, with libretto by Martin Crimp, wll be released by Nimbus Records on 6 September 2024 (NI.8116).

An ordinary day. A terrible event. The death of her infant child sets in motion one woman’s search for a life-restoring miracle. All she needs to do – in the course of a single day – is find one genuinely happy human being. But when every encounter ends in disappointment, she turns finally to the mysterious owner of a magnificent garden…

Recorded during the first performances, as part of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, at the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence, France, on 5 July 2023.

Kevin Mandy, British Music Society, 15 August 2024

Justin Bernard, La Scena musicale, 5 September 2024

Catherine Kustanczy, The Opera Queen, 9 September 2024

Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 12 September 2024

The Financial Times, 25 September 2024

Christopher Cook, BBC Music Magazine, 1 October 2024

Mark Pullinger, Gramophone, 3 October 2024

'The best classical albums of 2024 so far', The Times, 7 October 2024

Morgan Burroughs, MusicWeb International, 9 October 2024

John Gilks, Opera Ramblings, 13 October 2024

Maureen Buja, Interlude, 14 October 2024

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

Vladimir Feltsman's A Tribute to Mozart piano album (NI.6448) is released by Nimbus Alliance on 6 September 2024.

In addition to sonatas, variations, and concertos for piano and orchestra, Mozart wrote numerous works for solo piano: fantasias, rondos, adagios, and other assorted pieces of short and moderate length. We don’t know exactly why these works were written, but we know that Mozart had to come up with new material for his many public and private appearances as a composer and performer.

In Mozart's time, composers inveriably were also performers. Any composition was also a potential source of income from publication and from patrons and friends to whom the works were dedicated. No matter why these marvellous works were written, we are lucky to have them.

'Fantasy in C minor K. 475 - Both C minor and E-flat major have three flats, and for Mozart these keys represent the Masonic values of “Strength, Beauty, and Wisdom,” and carry certain extra-musical and mystical implications… The beginning is dark and ominous… We are gently brought into a second episode in D major with a simple tune, gallant in style and execution. Out of nowhere there is an intrusion, a call of fate that breaks the peaceful atmosphere of the previous episode… This Fantasy ends with an ecstatic upsurge of energy in C minor scales, from low C in the bass to high C on top. Two and a half centuries later, we are still left wondering what just happened.

Fantasy in D minor K. 397… It is another unfinished work; the manuscripts lost. The last ten bars were supplied by the composer A.E. Müller, an admirer of Mozart, and this became the standard version as published by Hertel. This Fantasy is a short work, complex and intriguing.

Nine Variations on a Minuet by Duport K. 573 - Towards the end of the 18th century, variations and easy dances for keyboard were in great demand. Countless sets of variations of varying quality by diverse composers were published and sold to the public. Naturally, Mozart did not pass up this opportunity to make money and he wrote fifteen sets of variations for piano, mostly on borrowed themes. K. 573 is one such set. Mozart plays around with his material from the very beginning; the rhythmic formula of the main theme is altered right away in the fifth bar. Different pianistic textures are used in each of the nine variations, the first mimicking piano exercises and the others utilizing arpeggios, repeated notes, broken octaves, scales, double notes and what not. The obligatory slow variation “Adagio” is a parody, a spoof of Italian operatic tradition, with a Diva showing off her amazing vocal ability to an adoring public. In the last variation the time changes briskly from 3 to 2.' © Vladimir Feltsman

Gary Lemco, Audiophile Audition, 15 September 2024

VLADIMIR FELTSMAN Pianist and conductor Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time. His vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to 20th-century composers. A regular guest soloist with leading symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad, he appears in prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world.

Born in Moscow in 1952, Mr Feltsman made his debut with the Moscow Philharmonic  Orchestra aged 11. In 1969, he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Music to study piano under the guidance of Professor Jacob Flier. His debut at Carnegie Hall established him as a major pianist on the American and international scene.

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