Archive for Featured – Page 2
Fanfare Says Invasion is Not To Be Missed
Fanfare Magazine’s Colin Clarke says Nadia Shpachenko’s Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine is “Not To Be Missed”: “Spratlan’s music is viscerally exciting, a sonic representation of (understandable) anxiety via a preponderance of gesture. The performance is as good as one could imagine. It falls to Shpachenko to present Piano Suite No. 1 (2021), a somewhat Schoenbergian utterance, perhaps particularly in the initial “Capriccio.” Shpachenko truly understands, as does Spratlan, the expressive nature of dissonance,…
Doug MacLeod is a 2023 Blues Music Award Nominee!
The Blues Foundation announced its 2023 Blues Music Awards Nominees and Reference Recordings is excited to share that Doug MacLeod has been nominated for his 22nd Blues Music Award with a 2023 nomination for Acoustic Blues Artist of the Year! Doug MacLeod Recordings on Reference
Gramophone Reviews Nadia Shpachenko’s Invasion Release
The January 2023 issue of Gramophone Magazine features a review of Nadia Shpachenko’s recording of Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine: “Lewis Spratlan’s Invasion is a raucous, volatile tone poem for a sextet of piano, saxophone, horn, trombone, percussion and – I assume to provide some local Ukrainian colour – mandolin, written at speed in March this year.… Invasion is the music of indignation and outrage, its combative nature (it does have a more contemplative central section) mirrored…
Pittsburgh Symphony’s Brahms Symphony No. 4 and MacMillan Larghetto a 2022 Recording of the Year Nominee
Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Brahms: Symphony No. 4 and James MacMillan Larghetto for Orchestra is a MusicWeb International 2022 Recording of the Year Double-Nominee! “Indisputably the finest – and possibly the most important – recording to emerge in 2022 was this release of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony by Manfred Honeck. In an age where recordings of the old war-horses are not universally welcomed, the general thought being that everything that has been said about the…
Fiona Boyes Inducted into Blues Music Victoria Hall of Fame
Congratulations to Fiona Boyes! On November 23, 2022, Fiona will be inducted into the Blues Music Victoria Hall of Fame! She also has the distinction of being the first woman inducted into the Hall of Fame. “Fiona Boyes will be the first woman even to be inducted into the Blues Music Victoria Hall of Fame on Wednesday November 23. Extraordinarily talented blues guitarist and vocalist Fiona Boyes will this month be inducted into the Blues…
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring Nominated for Engineering GRAMMY®
We are thrilled to share that Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY® Award in the Best Engineered Album, Classical category! Congratulations to engineer Mark Donahue on his nomination! “Throughout the symphony, passion is omnipresent, be it in a positive or ominous posture. Honeck unravels with his musicians to infinite perfection a modern version of a symphony that is all too…
Two 2023 International Classical Music Awards Nominations!
We are thrilled to share that the International Classical Music Awards have nominated two of our recordings in the 2023 ICMAs! The final result with all winners will be announced on January 18, 2023, and the Award Ceremony and Gala concert will take place in Wrocław, Poland on April 21, hosted by the NFM Philharmonic. Nominations Symphonic Music Manfred Honeck & Pittsburgh Symphony Contemporary Music Martin West & the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra
Migration in Gramophone’s November Issue!
Gramophone Magazine’s Christian Hoskins reviews the University of Texas and Jerry Junkin’s Migration recording in the November 2022 issue: This generously filled album brings together four works by contemporary American composers either scored or adapted for wind ensemble. Adam Schoenberg’s Second Symphony is a programmatic piece inspired by his wife’s family’s migration to the United States. The first of its five movements, ‘March’, with its imposing brass statements and busy percussion, communicates the tension that…
All About the Arts Previews Reencuentros
Rafael de Acha previews and reviews Cecilia Duarte’s Reencuentros recording on All About the Arts: “Cecilia Duarte gives renewed life to a dozen Latin American songs… the profound meditation on the end of life Alfonsina y el Mar, arranged by David Scanlon for his string bass as the sole accompaniment to Duarte in a posthumous homage to the Argentine poetess Alfonsina Storni, follow each other in impressive succession evidencing Cecilia Duarte’s beautiful voice and her impeccably…
Invasion is Not To Be Missed
Huntley Dent has added Nadia Shpachenko’s Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine to Fanfare‘s “Not To Be Missed” list! “Calling upon her friend and sometime collaborator, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlan, Shpachenko commissioned Invasion, which is scored for piano and chamber ensemble. My expectations of grim, angry music were overturned by Invasion, whose three sections, lasting 12 minutes, don’t echo the stark bleakness of wartime Shostakovich, or any other war music I can think of. Instead, Spratlan…
Migration is Not To Be Missed!
Huntley Dent has a second Fanfare rave review for the University of Texas Wind Ensemble and Jerry Junkin’s Migration recording in the Not To Be Missed Section: “This is an eye-opening release… There is no air of elitism around this collection, thankfully. The splendid sound of a large wind orchestra (the UT Wind Ensemble, at 65 strong, ranks as an orchestra to me) doesn’t immediately connote a piece as sophisticated as Corigliano’s brilliant Clarinet Concerto,…
Five Star Fanfare Review for Migration
Fanfare‘s Mark Novak gives the University of Texas Wind Ensemble’s Migration recording a Five Star Review and places it in the “Not To Be Missed” section! “This is an outstanding compilation of music for wind ensemble by four living American composers. The first accolade goes to Reference Recordings and their superbly excellent recording which can be heard even with standard CD resolution. The dynamic range is wide, the impression of being present in the hall…
Doug MacLeod and Jim Gaines Nominated for 2022 Blues Blues Blast Music Awards
In June 2022, a group of music critics, journalists, festival promoters, music venue managers, musicians and other Blues music industry professionals nominated the best in Blues music in twenty-two categories for the 15th Annual Blues Blast Music Awards. We are thrilled to share that Doug MacLeod has been nominated for the Acoustic Guitar Award, and Jim Gaines (A Soul to Claim) has been nominated for the Producer Award! Voting begins Tuesday, July 12th at BluesBlastMagazine.com!…
Downbeat Magazine Gives Four Stars to Doug MacLeod’s “A Soul To Claim”
Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim received a four-star review in the July 2022 issue of Downbeat Magazine: “Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim, like many of his 21 previous albums, makes it clear that he’s an archetype of the top-level blues storyteller: wry, sharp-witted, virile, inclined to poke fun at sentiment.… MacLeod bestows his music with a human intimacy that’s a function of his affable personality and the original material he works with. With…
2022 GRAMMY® Nominations!
Reference Recordings is excited to announce multiple nominations for the 2022 GRAMMY® Awards! Best Orchestral Performance Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 Manfred Honeck, conductor (Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh & Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra) Best Engineered Album, Classical Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 Mark Donahue, engineer; Mark Donahue, mastering engineer (Manfred Honeck, Mendelssohn Choir Of Pittsburgh & Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra) Congratulations to all involved in this double-nominated album!!! Producer of the Year, Classical David Frost Congratulations to producer David…