Archive for Featured – Page 5
Doug MacLeod Wins 2020 Blues Music Award!
The Blues Music Awards hosted a virtual Blues Music Awards Show and Doug MacLeod was announced as the 2020 Acoustic Artist of the Year! The 2020 Blues Music Award was Doug’s 11th nomination and marks his fourth Blues Music Award in the past 5 years (2018 Acoustic Album of the Year, 2016 & 2017 Acoustic Artist of the Year)! Congratulations to Doug! Watch Doug’s Acceptance Speech from Home: Watch the awards ceremony: Doug MacLeod Recordings…
PaTRAM’s Kurt Sander: Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in Choral Journal
PaTRAM’s recording of Kurt Sander’s Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom received a three-page feature in the latest issue (Vol 60, No. 9) of the American Choral Directors Association’s Choral Journal: “The Reference Recordings album, most excellently sung by PaTram Institute Singers under the direction of Peter Jermihov, has garnered two 2020 GRAMMY® nominations, and deservedly so. It is a sublime recording, which expertly marries gorgeous choral performance with majestic, inspiring choral composition. … Sanders…
Limelight Magazine Says Utah’s Prokofiev Ticks Every Box
Australia’s Limelight Magazine gives a 4.5 Star review to the Utah Symphony and Thierry Fischer’s Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky – Lieutenant Kijé Suite recording: “what a witty juxtaposition: Russia’s great medieval nationalist epic contrasted with a cheeky satire on stultifying Tsarist military bureaucracy. … All the participants acquit themselves brilliantly. In the Kijé, the orchestra conveys just the right mixture of piquancy and subversion. The soloists are a delight, especially the fat tubas and the droll sounding…
American Record Guide Reviews Kansas City Symphony’s New Holst Recording
The Kansas City Symphony and Michael Stern’s Holst: The Planets; The Perfect Fool gets a great review in the March/April 2020 issue of American Record Guide: “This wonderful recording sounds better and better the more you increase the volume; and somehow, that glorious sound includes both great detail and great space. We seem to be hovering just above music director Michael Stern, so individual instruments are heard vividly, and yet we never seem too close.…
The Poetry of Places Wins 2020 GRAMMY® Award!
GRAMMY® Winner: Classical Compendium Reference Recordings would like to congratulate Nadia Shpachenko, producers Victor and Marina A. Ledin, and recording engineer Barry Werger-Gottesman on their 2020 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Compendium for The Poetry of Places! The Poetry of Places Nadia Shpachenko’s latest Reference Recordings release The Poetry of Places features World Premiere recordings of works for solo piano, for two pianos, percussion, electronics, voice, and toy piano in a fascinating mélange inspired by great architecture…
Richmond Symphony’s Bates & Vaughan Williams is an Opera News Critic’s Choice
The Richmond Symphony and Chorus and Steven Smith’s Mason Bates: Children of Adam; Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem recording is a December Opera News Critic’s Choice! “Richmond Symphony’s new album pairs works by prominent contemporary composer Mason Bates and twentieth-century master Ralph Vaughan Williams. Brimming with vitality, the performances of the orchestra and the Richmond Symphony Chorus, led by conductor Steven Smith, deftly reflect the strength of both composers’ choral writing while establishing a connection between…
Pittsburgh and Manfred Honeck Win the Bruckner Society’s Recording of the Year!
The Bruckner Society of America has announced that the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck’s recording of Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 has received their award for Recording of the Year! “this new recording stands out clearly as among the finest we have heard. The Pittsburgh Symphony performs with a palpable level of commitment, which is conveyed with extraordinary clarity by the superb recording. Maestro Honeck’s interpretation of the Symphony is particularly compelling and musically rigorous,…
Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 a MusicWeb International Recording of the Year
MusicWeb International Critic Nick Barnard names the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 a 2019 Recording of the Year! “Manfred Honeck is a consistently challenging and inspiring conductor. Certainly, his superb Pittsburgh players sound inspired. Deeply considered and superbly rendered this is a performance of visionary magnificence. Backed up by Reference’s state of the art recording.” —Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International See Nick Barnard’s original review from MusicWeb International RR Amazon iTunes Arkiv…
Announcing Eleven 2020 GRAMMY® Nominations!
Reference Recordings is excited to announce eleven nominations across eight categories for the 2020 GRAMMY® Awards! The Orchestral Organ 2020 GRAMMY® Award Nominee: Best Immersive Audio Album Keith O. Johnson, immersive audio engineer; Keith O. Johnson, immersive audio mastering engineer; Marina A. Ledin & Victor Ledin, immersive audio producers (Jan Kraybill) Best Classical Instrumental Solo Jan Kraybill Producer of the Year, Classical Marina A. Ledin, Victor Ledin Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 2020 GRAMMY® Award Nominee:…
Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner Symphony No. 9 is Nominated for 2020 Symphonic Music ICMA!
The International Classical Music Awards have nominated the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording for a 2020 Symphonic Music Award. The International Classical Music Awards The ICMA – having taken the place of the Cannes Classical Awards (later known as MIDEM) – first awarded prizes in 2011, and has since taken its place as the leading pan-European competition for excellence in classical recording. Its jury of 16 distinguished classical critics and…
MusicWeb International Recommends Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner Symphony No. 9
The Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck received a “Recommended” distinction from Nick Barnard of MusicWeb International for their Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording: “Honeck has restored the Pittsburgh Orchestra to its position as one of America’s very finest ensembles and, alongside the state of the art engineering from Reference, he is creating a library of recordings that will stand the test of the ages. This new recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No.9 is just such a triumph. This…
Arizona Daily Star Features Christmas With True Concord!
The Arizona Daily Star published a feature for True Concord Voices and Orchestra’s Christmas With True Concord recording! “True Concord knows how to do Christmas. With lush exquisite voices and sublime soulfully American interpretations, they take you beyond the cliche of “Jingle Bells” and “O Holy Night” to a singular somberly opening Mack Wilberg’s arrangement of “Away in a Manger.” The women’s voices, sans vibrato, deliciously replicate the sound of a children’s choir as the…
The Choral Stream Reviews Christmas With True Concord!
The Choral Stream‘s Brian Newhouse took a pre-release listen to Eric Holtan and True Concord Voices & Orchestra’s Christmas With True Concord: Carols in the American Voice: “They sure named the choir right. If you’ve never heard of them, and you celebrate Christmas, treat yourself. “Christmas with True Concord: Carols in the American Voice” spotlights an ensemble with a remarkable blend across all its voices. True concord indeed. Hold-your-breath moments? Several. The luminous solo soprano…
Gramophone Reviews the Hermitage Piano Trio’s Rachmaninoff
Gramophone Magazine features the Hermitage Piano Trio’s Rachmaninoff recording in the Awards Issue: “The Hermitage Piano Trio prove another strong contender within a catalogue of riches. The ensemble brings a darker, more brooding vantage point to the 19-year-old composer’s one-movement G minor Trio, tastefully stretching out phrases…while favouring relatively massive sonorities. … Thoroughly detailed annotations and ravishingly balanced surround-sound engineering lend further distinction to this release.” —Jed Distler, Gramophone See the full review on Gramophone.co.uk
Straight Tens for Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9!
Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording received a 10 rating for both Artistic and Sound Quality from ClassicsToday: “This is an amazing performance, captured in terrific sound. … Honeck’s aided by typically exceptional brass playing, with horns, trumpets, and trombones well differentiated in timbre, their musical lines clear in even the densest tuttis. The strings, too, make gorgeous sounds in the first movement’s second-subject “song period,” and throughout the Adagio. In…