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).

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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.

Tamayo Ikeda, originally from Japan and resident in Paris, releases her latest solo piano album, Le Nocturne, on Friday 11 October 2024, with music by Chopin and Fauré. This is her second release with Ulysses Arts, following her Schubert album of 2022.

Electronic press kit for reviewers available from Ulysses Arts.

Tamayo Ikeda writes:

'The recording is a game of mirrors between the night of Gabriel Fauré and that of Frédéric Chopin. After reading the novel titled The Nocturne by French philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch, I was profoundly amazed.  His book inspired me to associate these two composers.  Written clandestinely during the dark period of World War II, this book has the rare ability to express precisely what I feel, but in words.

Jankelevitch compares Chopin’s Nocturnes which accompany us through the deep pain experienced in the solitude of the night to those of Fauré, which evoke dark nights but with the promise of a "golden sun".  They offer hope, transforming those same nights into a promise of light.'

'Ce disque est une traversée, un jeu de miroirs entre la nuit de Gabriel Fauré et celle de Frédéric Chopin. C’est une nuit claire que nous propose Tamayo Ikeda, toute bruissante des sons de la nature, bienveillante et apaisée jusque dans ses ombres, une nuit vivante, frémissante de poésie, avec des élans qui tendent vers le jour nouveau.

Tamayo Ikeda sait exactement où elle veut aller et nous y emmène, avec générosité et une douce autorité. Chaque pièce est abordée avec une vision d’ensemble qui se déploie sans faiblir jusqu’à la note finale. Tamayo Ikeda joue comme elle parle, éloquente et inspirée, puisant sa liberté dans une maîtrise impeccable du clavier qui autorise toutes les prises de risque. Venu du fond de l’âme, son rubato est la vie même. Sa science du son lui offre une palette infinie qui éclaire et révèle ce qu’on croyait connaître par coeur. Fauré, en particulier, y retrouve des couleurs oubliées, une jeunesse et une fougue qui n’ont plus rien à envier à celles de Chopin.

Les deux compositeurs finissent d’ailleurs par parler ici la même langue, sans rien perdre de leur caractère propre.

Parvenue au sommet de sa maturité, Tamayo Ikeda ose ce voyage au bout de la beauté qui s’achève sur une berceuse, retour au paradis perdu, et retrouvé, le temps d’une interprétation à couper le souffle.'  Arièle Butaux

Electronic press kit available for reviewers and radio programmers from Ulysses Arts

Following the success of his 2023 Solo Piano Works album, with more than 1.5 million streams, Ulysses Arts releases Paul Henley's Works for String Quartet on 20 September 2024, performed by the Jarualda Quartet.

Remy Franck, Pizzicato, 26 September 2024

Press kit and listening links for reviewers available from Ulysses Arts.

Follow Jarualda String Quartet on Spotify.

Lyrita Recorded Edition releasesGeorge Lloyd's Violin Concertos and 'Cello Concerto album on 5 July 2024. The Violin Concertos are performed by Cristina Angeleschu and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Parry; the 'Cello Concerto with Anthony Ross and the Albany Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Alan Miller. The Concertos' printed scores (SRMP 0066, 0070 and 0074 and associated sheet music) will be published on 2 August.

'George Lloyd started to learn the violin at the age of five and he was a pupil of the violinist Albert Sammons for six years. Despite his facility in playing the violin and the importance he attached to his lessons with Sammons, Lloyd was slow to compose works for his own instrument. It was not until 1970 that Lloyd wrote Violin Concerto No. 1, his first piece with a leading role for his own instrument, but this achievement seemed to stir his enthusiasm and during the next seven years he completed a number of short pieces for violin and piano, a fully-fledged sonata and a second concerto. Violin Concerto No. 1 was written in 1970 and remained unperformed until the recording featured on this release took place in the summer of 1998. Seven years elapsed before Lloyd wrote a second concerto for the violin. One of Lloyd’s purest, most directly communicative melodies graces the Largo third movement.

The solo instrument’s poetic qualities are to the fore in music of supplicatory spirit. In a couple of ear-catching passages, the soloist’s scrunchy, dissonant chords have the raspy nostalgia of a squeeze box. Lloyd completed his 'Cello Concerto in July 1997, a year before his death at the age of 85 and in this autumnal piece, one can discern a wistful, valedictory quality, with feelings of sorrow and regret surfacing repeatedly. The solo instrument’s inherently lyrical aspect is suited to the composer’s expressive needs, and the one-movement format allows the musical narrative to ebb and flow naturally so that this work has a strong claim to be regarded as Lloyd’s most formally successful concertante piece. A small orchestra is required, consisting of double woodwind, three horns, modest percussion (for one player) and strings.' © Paul Conway
 
'These two works were recorded during the week before George Lloyd died on July 3, 1998. He was supposed to conduct these performances, but David Parry stepped in at the last minute with the wonderful Romanian violinist Cristina Anghelescu and members of the Philharmonia Orchestra to complete the project. The recording was made in Henry Wood Hall. George was even too ill to attend the sessions, but he was making suggestions as to the best placement of the players to achieve just the recorded sound he wanted 48 hours before his death. This beautiful recording is a fine and lasting memorial to this composer whose music brings such passionate joy to so many music lovers all over the world.' Presto Classical

'Those familiar with Lloyd's warm, spacious, big-hearted, sumptuously orchestrated symphonies won't be disappointed with his violin concertos.' American Record Guide

Electronic press kit and pre-release listening links are available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.

Nimbus releases Robert Saxton's Epic of Gilgamesh and The Resurrection of the Soldiers (NI 6447) on 5 July 2024 with the English Symphony Orchestra and English String Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Woods.

Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest written literary text in Middle Eastern/Western cultural history, predating the Hebrew Bible. The epic relates the story of King Gilgamesh, partly divine, partly human, who may have existed historically circa 2800 BC. From immature youth and a belief in his immortality, he eventually comes to accept the power and reality of Death.

There are five movements/scenes including the Prologue, where the gods try to restore a sense of balance, the journey to the Forest of Cedar in search of glory, and Apotheosis, where Gilgamesh visits Ut Napishti (precursor of Noah in Genesis) who survived the Flood and had been granted immortality by the gods. Gilgamesh fails the final task set by Ut-Napishti to test his suitability for eternal life, returning to Uruk to build his lasting monument, the city walls.
 
The Resurrection of the Soldiers for string orchestra was commissioned by George Vass, to whom it is dedicated, and the English Symphony Orchestra, for the 2016 Presteigne Festival, with funds generously donated by the John S. Cohen Foundation and the Arts Council of England. The title derives from the final panel of Stanley Spencer’s Sandham Chapel visionary series of paintings which were the result of Spencer’s experiences in the British Army in World War One and depicts soldiers emerging from their graves on the last day.

The piece is in three continuous parts: a slow, sustained introduction which is, in essence, a descent from the note E by means of a prolation canon, but which ascends to a rather intense climactic point before falling and giving way to a very active fugue which, after arriving at an anguished, sustained climax, is succeeded by a closing slow movement consisting of arising melodic line which permeates the entire texture heterophonically, leading to the closing E major triad. The work thus traces a cyclical path as it progresses towards a sense of resurrection, re-birth and hope. © Robert Saxton

'Saxton here evinces an orchestral mastery.' Richard Whitehouse, Arcana, 25 June 2024

'Full of captivating music-making, two remarkable and compelling compositions, magnificently played.' Guy Rickards, Gramophone, July 2024

'In Scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh – a work that is subtle yet approachable in its idiom – Saxton reveals an understated orchestral mastery.'  Robert Saxton Composer Profile
Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone, 12 July 2024

'The strings cope with some fantastically demanding writing with apparent ease.'
Kevin Mandry, British Music Society, 18 July 2024

Maureen Buja, Interlude, 29 July 2024

'Fans of orchestral music will be impressed by this movingly powerful and emotionally charged symphonic poem.' Keith Finke, AllMusic, 2024

Robert Saxton was born in London in 1953. At 21 he won the Gaudeamus International Composers Prize in Holland and was Fulbright Arts Fellow at Princeton in 1986. Now Robert is Emeritus Professor of Composition at Oxford University, Composer-in-Association at the Purcell School, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music.
 
Robert has been commissioned by the BBC, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic  Oorchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble, Antara, Arditti and Chilingirian Quartets, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (USA) and written for the Huddersfield, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, City of London, Lichfield and Three Choirs Festivals.

Electronic press kit and listening link available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.

Lyrita releases Charles Villiers Stanford, Te Deum and Elegiac Ode (SRCD 435) on 5 July 2024 with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, sopranos Rhian Lois and Samantha Price, tenor Alessandro Fisher and baritone Morgan Pearse, conducted by Adrian Partington.

'By the time Stanford had received a commission from the Norfolk and Norwich Festival to write a choral work for them in 1884, he had, aged 32, already begun to assert himself as one of Britain’s leading composers. The Elegiac Ode was, however, his first mature foray into the world of major British choral festivals. Some of the Elegiac Ode had been sketched three years earlier in 1881, but after the Norwich commission, Stanford grasped the opportunity to complete it in July 1884. The words were taken from the last part of Walt Whitman’s elegy, ‘When lilacs in the door yard bloom’d’, written after President Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. (Stanford’s pupil, Gustav Holst, would use the same text for his Ode to Death after the First World War in 1919.) Taking the seven verses of the burial hymn, Stanford divided his chosen text into four parts, creating a four-movement musical structure more akin to a choral symphony with its substantial and thematically related choral outer movements flanking two shorter inner essays.

Stanford’s large-scale setting of the Te Deum Op. 66 was first sung at the Leeds Festival on 6 October 1898: its ambitious, opulent dimensions were a fitting commemoration of the  accession to the throne by Queen Victoria (its dedicatee) sixty years earlier, as well as a tribute to the full-bodied, well-trained Leeds chorus of 350 singers. A particular feature of the Te Deum is the grandeur of much of its choral writing. Though also dramatic, a dominating feature of the Te Deum is its prominent use of the chorus, and the many fulsome sonorities Stanford was able to draw from the magnificent ‘instrument’ of the Leeds voices.' © Jeremy Dibble                        

'A beautifully authoritative recording.'
Maureen Buja, Interlude, July 2024 (Album of the Week)

'The performances on the disc have a sophistication and vigour that does full justice to the music.'
Planet Hugill, 24 July 2024

SRCD 382: Stanford, Mass 'Via Victrix':
 'Rescued from obscurity nearly a century after its composition, Stanford's largescale post-war mass is definitely worth checking out. Impassioned performances here.' BBC Music Magazine

Electronic press kit available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.

Clara Rodriguez

‘Venezuelan virtuoso pianist Clara Rodriguez’ (The Financial Times) has built an enviable international reputation for her innovative programme planning, juxtaposing standard repertoire with works by South American composers. She has commissioned, premièred and is the dedicatee of more than thirty works. Her playing stands out for its sheer beauty of tone, high expressiveness, sensitivity considerable digital clarity combined with stylistic acumen.’

At seventeen she was awarded the Teresa Carreño Scholarship to pursue studies at The Royal College of Music with Phyllis Sellick, where she received numerous awards including the Scarlatti Prize, the Mozart Prize, and the Percy Buck Award, as a finalist in the Chappell Prize. At the RCM she performed concertos by Mozart, Falla and Gershwin. In Caracas, at eighteen she made her orchestral debut Mozart's Piano Concerto K.595 with the Simón Bolívar Orchestra and José Antonio Abreu; her London debut in 1985 was at St. John’s Smith Square, playing Ravel’s Concerto in G.

Before coming to London, pianist Guiomar Narváez was Clara Rodriguez's first teacher. She has also studied with Paul Badura-Skoda (Austria), Niel Immelman (UK), Irina Zaritskaya (Russia) and Regina Smendzianka (Poland).

Clara Rodriguez’s solo career has earned her great acclaim in UK, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Venezuela, the United States, India, Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia. In London, she is a hugely popular performer who regularly plays in recitals and as a concerto soloist in the most prestigious halls including the Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. James’s Piccadilly, St John’s Smith Square, Leighton House, Bolívar Hall and the 1901 Arts Club.
She is invited to play concertos with the worldwide acclaimed Simón Bolívar Orchestra, including memorably in the Grandes Virtuosos del Piano Festival, performing Reynaldo Hahn’s Piano Concerto alongside other participants including Paul Badura-Skoda and Chick Corea.
Clara Rodriguez is often interviewed by the BBC; her albums CDs feature regularly on BBC Radio stations and in networks worldwide. She has recorded six solo albums for Nimbus Records including the piano works by Moisés Moleiro, Federico Ruiz, Teresa Carreño, Ernesto Lecuona, Venezuela, and Americas without Frontiers. Two more albums include El Cuarteto with Clara Rodriguez Live, and Frederic Chopin on the Ulysses Arts label.

Represented by Dominic Seligman Agency, Clara Rodriguez regularly plays recitals at Arundells, the Salisbury home of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath.

As a pedagogue her students have been awarded numerous prizes in competitions and scholarships to leading universities and music conservatoires, with successful public concerts at Wigmore Hall, the Albert Hall’s Elgar Room and venues throughout the UK. She teaches at the Royal College of Music junior department and is an international adjudicator.

Clara Rodriguez has been awarded the ‘Classical Music Act’ LUKAS Prize 2015, has been made an honorary member of the Chelsea Arts Club and has been named ‘Woman of the Year’ by the main newspapers and magazines of Venezuela. She is the editor of Clifton Editions’ rapidly growing series Venezuelan Treasures for Piano, Clifton Editions, distributed by Stainer & Bell.

Artists and orchestras with whom she has performed include clarinettist and conductor Michael Collins, BBC Symphony Orchestra leader Stephen Bryant, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, Sinfónica de Venezuela, Orquesta Filarmónica Nacional de Venezuela, Orquesta Municipal de Caracas, Orquesta Sinfónica de Maracaibo, Orquesta Sinfónica Francisco de Miranda, Orquesta Sinfónica Juan José Landaeta, Phoenix Orchestra, Orquesta de Aragua, Fulham Symphony Orchestras, Camden Symphony Orchestra, conductors Jordi Mora, Marc Dooley, Levon Parikian, Christopher Adey, Eduardo Rahn, Teresa Hernández, Carlos Riazuelo, Alfredo Rugeles, Rodolfo Saglimbeni, Luis Miguel González-Fuentes, Régulo Stabilito, Telésforo Naranjo and Jesús Uzcátegui: www.clararodriguez.com   Follow Clara Rodriguez on Spotify

‘The Venezuelan is a doughty champion of Latin-American music, and her programme of piano pieces reaches below and often jaunty surface to capture the region's deeper soul. Plenty is captivating, not least Venezuelan works by Antonio Estévez and Juan Carlos Núñez, while Gershwin's Three Preludes are a class act’. Stephen Pettit, The Sunday Times
‘Venezuelan Clara Rodríguez, one of the most distinguished pianists on the international scene. This distinction is evident especially in the emotional connection she has with Chopin’s music. Rodríguez marks with delicious expressiveness its differences and contrasts while maintaining a perfect balance in the inseparable fusion between form and content. The truth is that the wisdom of Rodriguez’s interpretation, provides to her versions a universal dimension of romantic pianism.’ Marçal Borotau, Sonograma Magazine, Barcelona

‘Clara Rodriguez at the Wigmore Most of what Clara Rodriguez played to a full Wigmore Hall was marked by the sheer beauty of her tone.’ Max Harrison, Musical Opinion

‘Clara Rodriguez provides performances of alluring vivacity allied to that most essential of requisites-charm’. Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

Alex Heffes's score to Shardlake, featuring the Paraorchestra and choir Tenebrae, is now available from Hollywood Records, released on 24 April 2024. The series releases worldwide on Disney+  and Hulu on 1 May. The soundtrack also features Alex Heffes playing electric 'cello.

Shardlake is an eerie whodunnit adventure, based on the popular historical novels by C. J. Sansom.
Set in 16th-Century England during the dissolution of the monasteries, lawyer Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) is sent by Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor (Sean Bean) to the remote town of Scansea. Shardlake's mission is to investigate the death of a commissioner and to seize the wealth of Scansea's monastery, accompanied by the ambitious Jack Barak (Anthony Boyle).

Shardlake, the central character, is disabled, therefore making it especially apt that Disney chose to collaborate with the Para Orchestra - the world’s only orchestra built around people with a range of disabilities.

Flim Music Reporter, 26 Apr 2024

Electronic press kit available from Ulysses Arts

Alex Heffes is a Golden Globe, BAFTA and three-times Ivor Novello nominated composer who has scored over 70 feature films and TV projects. He has worked with many of cinema’s top filmmakers including Steven Frears, Kevin Macdonald, Catherine Hardwicke, Mira Nair, Michael Keaton & J J Abrams. His wide range of work includes scores to Macdonald’s The Last King Of Scotland & State Of Play, Justin Chadwick’s Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, Mira Nair’s Queen Of Katwe and Michael Keaton’s Knox Goes Away. Notable TV projects include Black Mirror (Shut Up & Dance), the award-winning reboot of TV classic Roots, the Stephen King mini series 11.22.63 produced by J.J. Abrams and the HBO limited series The Regime starring Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant.

Known for his great versatility across genres, Alex has shown himself equally at home scoring biopics such as Stephen Frears’ The Program, horror in The Rite, action in Escape Plan, comedy in Catherine Hardwicke’s Mafia Mamma and natural history films such as BBC Earth's Earth: One Amazing Day and The Elephant Queen for Apple TV+.

His unique ability to collaborate with artists also been been a trademark of his style. It was his iconic score to Macdonald’s The Last King of Scotland that first sent Alex to record in Africa where he created a blend of world music and orchestral scoring. His solo album Face To Face features collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Regina Spektor and Yasmin Levy and his score to A Suitable Boy features a collaboration with Anoushka Shankar. He collaborated closely with director Tim Burton on his screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd.

Alex’s many honors include nominations for a Golden Globe, BAFTA and several International Film Music Critics Awards as well as wins and nominations at The World Soundtrack Awards, European Film Awards and The Royal Television Society. He has been nominated three times for an Ivor Novello, winning for Best Film Score of the Year. His score to Roots won Best TV Score of the Year at the Hollywood Music In Media Awards. In 2016 he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Nimbus Records releases Steve Elcock, Symphony No. 8 and Violin Concerto on Friday 7 June 2024 (NI. 6446), with the English Symphony Orchestra and soloist Zoë Beyers, conducted by Kenneth Woods, as part of their 21st Century Symphony Project.

The 21st Century Symphony Project

The 21st Century Symphony Project (21CSP) is an English Symphony Orchestra initiative conceived by conductor Kenneth Woods. The initial goal was to commission, premiere and record nine new symphonies by nine different composers. The 21CSP has been called 'one of the most important musical initiatives of modern times' by Robert Matthew-Walker, Editor of Musical Opinion, and 'the most important series of commissions and recordings of our times' by musicologist and cultural commentator Peter Davison, former Artistic Consultant at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

Alongside Steve Elcock’s Symphony No. 8, other works in the 21st Century Symphony Project include David Matthews Symphony No. 9 (NI 6382), Philip Sawyers Symphony No. 3 (NI 6353) and Adrian Williams, Symphony No. 1 (NI 6432).

 Symphony No. 8
'Following the weighty Sixth and Seventh symphonies, I felt the need to write a smaller scale piece before tackling the Ninth, the finale of which was already written and was monumental enough in character to require some substantial movements to precede it. I attempted to produce such a lighter piece by turning to an early string quartet written in 1981 when I was aged 24. I had dismissed it as juvenilia but thought it could perhaps be salvaged by arranging it for string orchestra and filling out the textures… While my first two symphonies still await either performance or recording after a quarter of a century, the Eighth was already on the programme of the Three Choirs Festival before I had even finished reorchestrating it… Symphony no. 8 was commissioned by the English Symphony Orchestra and first performed by them as part of the Three Choirs Festival in Kidderminster on July 28, 2021.'
© Steve Elcock
 
Violin Concerto
'With the first movement, I wanted to achieve a return to the classical momentum that had largely been lost throughout the Romantic era and onward. The energy is unflagging, verging on the desperate, relief being provided only by the two appearances of the expansive second theme; but even this is underpinned by a niggling rhythm in the violas. The second movement provides a welcome contrast. Its opening makes use of change-ringing techniques applied to slowly moving scales in violins and violas, evoking distant bells ringing across a valley.' © Steve Elcock

'Juxtaposing two major works which confirm his standing among the leading European symphonists of his generation ... This latest release warrants the strongest of recommendations.'
Richard Whitehouse, Arcana, 18 May 2024

'One of the UK's foremost composers.'
Geoff Pearce, Classical Music Daily, 26 May 2024

Maureen Buja, Interlude: 27 May 2024

Remy Franck, Pizzicato, 12 June 2024

'The more I discover and experience the music of Steve Elcock, the more I feel the need to recommend it to anyone who happens to read this review. If you enjoy classical music in general, with a preference for symphonic writing, this living composer ticks all the boxes when it comes to harmonic integrity, orchestration colors and textures, emotive power and structural stability.'
Jean Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel, 13 June 2024

'A thoroughly gripping, involving album, urgently recommended.'
Guy Rickards, Gramophone, June 2024

Electronic press kit available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts

Lyrita Records releases George Lloyd's A Litany and A Symphonic Mass, conducted by the composer, on 3 May 2024, with Bounemouth Symphony Orchestra/Brighton Festival Chorus, soprano Janice Watson and bass Jeremy White, and Philharmonia Orchestra with Guildford Choral Society (SRCD 2419).

‘I just write what I have to write’. The artistic credo of George Lloyd conveys the directness and emotional honesty of his music, which is distinctive and written with integrity. He was fortunate enough to discover his individual and versatile musical voice at an early age. The deceptively artless quality of his scores stems from a thorough grounding in composition techniques.

Lloyd wrote in a traditional idiom enriched by a close study of selected models, Verdi and Berlioz chief among them. There is a remarkable consistency to his output, most of which was created spontaneously and without the incentive of a commission. Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd’s late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output.

Chris de Souza writing in The Independent, 1998, described the Brighton Festival commission of A
Symphonic Mass as ‘perhaps the climax’ of Lloyd’s ‘astonishing career’. In his review of the original
release of the present recording, Ivan March was moved to describe the Mass as ‘one of the finest pieces of English choral writing of the twentieth century’.

Electronic press kit available for reviwers.
Digital download and streaming links will be published here.