Author Archive for Reference Recordings – Page 12
Music Notes Review for Blessed Art Thou Among Women
Rafael de Acha’s Music Notes site reviews the PaTRAM Institute’s Blessed Art Thou Among Women recording: “Works by Rachmaninoff along compositions by Gretchaninoff, Tcherepnin, and several other musical artists that lived and worked in the past two or more centuries enrich the CD Blessed Art Thou Among Women, a wonderfully varied collection of devotional texts in praise of the Virgin Mary set to choral music and superbly sung by the PaTRAM Institute Singers, led by Peter…
Carlisle Floyd: Prince of Players Receives Two 2021 GRAMMY® Nominations
The 2021 GRAMMY® Award Nominations were announced today and Reference Recordings releases appeared on four nominations! 2021 GRAMMY® Nominations for RR releases: Best Opera Recording Carlisle Floyd: Prince Of Players — William Boggs, conductor; Keith Phares & Kate Royal; Blanton Alspaugh, producer (Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Florentine Opera Chorus) Best Contemporary Classical Composition Carlisle Floyd: Prince Of Players — Carlisle Floyd, composer (William Boggs, Kate Royal, Keith Phares, Florentine Opera Chorus & Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra) Producer of the Year, Classical…
Pizzicato Highly Recommends Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff World Premieres
Pizzicato gives a four-star rating to Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang’s recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “Jonathan Leshnoff’s music needs no explanation, as it speaks for itself and immediately appeals to the listener. Although it is quite complex, it is imaginatively and brilliantly orchestrated and to be remembered with very reflective passages as well as with rhythmic pulsation. … It is again evident in Leshnoff’s four-movement…
Available NOW: Leshnoff Symphony No. 3 & Piano Concerto!
Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff World Premiere Recordings are available today! Reference Recordings® proudly presents two new works from leading American composer Jonathan Leshnoff. Distinguished by The New York Times as “a leader of contemporary American lyricism,” Leshnoff is renowned for his music’s striking harmonies, structural complexity, and powerful themes. These world premiere recordings showcase the Kansas City Symphony performing his third symphony, inspired by World War I letters home, with texts sung by baritone Stephen Powell.…
Pittsburgh Symphony’s Tchaikovsky & Leshnoff Recording Nominated for 2021 ICMA
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck’s Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 and Leshnoff: Double Concerto recording has been nominated for the 2021 International Classical Music Awards in the Assorted Programs category! See the full list at icma-info.com Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 & Leshnoff: Double Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon Reference Recordings® proudly presents Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in an exquisite interpretation from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. It is coupled with a World…
Classical Voice North America Reviews Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff World Premieres
Classical Voice North America reviews the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang’s world premiere recordings of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “The long-lined legato strings that open the symphony immediately bring to mind works like Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings with its tonal modulations and harmonically resolved suspended chords. It is meditative mood music. The winds, including a contrabassoon, briefly create an unusual, dark balance. French horns, trombones, winds doubling…
Classical CD Choice Review for Leshnoff Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto
Classical CD Choice reviews the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “In typically wide-ranging Reference Recordings sound, here are two of the composer’s most impressive works, and the Third Symphony in particular will be relished by those who admire such 20th-century composers as Vaughan Williams, Walton and Copland. It is music of great authority (inspired by World War I letters home,…
Five Stars for Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto from HRAudio
HRAudio.net gives the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Performance and Sonics in their recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto: “The opening of the [Piano Concerto’s] four movements presents a majestic (and attractively memorable) theme that is developed with increasing energy and dazzling pianism by soloist and orchestra in the manner of a grand romantic concerto before reaching a humorously abrupt ending. The slow movement…
American Record Guide Reviews Blessed Art Thou Among Women
American Record Guide reviews the PaTRAM Institute’s recording of Blessed Art Thou Among Women in the September/October 2020 Issue: “Depsite the common ethnicity and theme, the music covers so much ground chronologically and stylistically that the program stays interesting. … Rachmaninoff’s ‘Theotokos Ever-Vigilant’ sings out with the lush, spiritually-charged harmonies we know from his Vespers. There’s also a delicate embrace of the Sacred Feminine in ‘All of Creation Rejoices’ by Nikolai Mihailovich Danilin… I don’t…
Jonathan Leshnoff, Michael Stern and Joyce Yang Discuss Leshnoff’s Piano Concerto
As we prepare for The Kansas City Symphony and Joyce Yang’s World Premiere recording of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Piano Concerto, watch a nine-part interview series between Joyce, Jonathan, and conductor Michael Stern about the genesis of the work, the recording, and more: Leshnoff: Symphony No. 3; Piano Concerto Reference Recordings® proudly presents two new works from leading American composer Jonathan Leshnoff. Distinguished by The New York Times as “a leader of contemporary American lyricism,” Leshnoff is renowned for his…
Rafael’s Music Notes Reviews The Kansas City Symphony’s Leshnoff Recording!
The first review is in for the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Stephen Powell, and Joyce Yang’s Leshnoff World Premiere Recordings! “Thanks to various CD’s released by Reference Recordings, I have become an admirer of the music of American composer Jonathan Leshnoff. … The impressive lineup of soloists and the sterling work of the Kansas musicians numbers immense artistic rewards in this treasure of a recording, impeccably engineered and produced by Dirk Sobatka of Soundmirror. ……
Fanfare Reviews Pittsburgh Symphony’s Tchaikovsky & Leshnoff
Fanfare Magazine reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 & Leshnoff Double Concerto recording in the September/October 2020 issue: “Manfred Honeck has a special talent for making recordings. …A Honeck release is a documentarian’s dream. Musicologists will never have to puzzle over what he meant to achieve, as historians still do with storied conductors of the past. I wish more were like him. … Honeck’s take on the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony…
The Art Music Lounge Reviews Blues In My Heart
Lynn René Bayley reviews Fiona Boyes’s newly remastered Blues In My Heart release: “it’s a honey of an album. … crisp, clean sound, which helps one appreciate Boyes’ artistry in better detail. … her sense of rhythm sounds perfectly natural, not forced. … Everything has to work together in order for your performances to click as perfectly as hers do. For an ideal example of what I mean, listen to Honey You Can Take My Man. Not…
Cascade Blues Association Reviews Blues In My Heart
The Cascade Blues Association’s Greg Johnson reviews Fiona Boyes’s new Blues In My Heart Remaster: “Since her win at the International Blues Challenge back in 2003, Fiona Boyes has been one of the most noted blues guitarists of our time, with no less than eight nominations for Blues Music Awards, including Traditional Female Artists of the Year. … Fiona is in fine form here in what she self-describes as an acoustic album of fingerpicking ragtime…
Making A Scene Reviews Blues in My Heart
Making A Scene reviews Fiona Boyes’s new 20th Anniversary Edition of Blues in My Heart: “Too often you’ve heard an artist’s records, admired the talent, and looked forward to a live show and/or a meet and greet, only to be disappointed. It’s so refreshing when the complete opposite takes place as it did in Boyes’ case. So, if you haven’t been introduced to her yet, we are taking you all the way back, (Wow! Twenty…