Archive for Uncategorized – Page 16
Blues Music Magazine Reviews Fiona Boyes Box & Dice
Blues Music Magazine‘s Pete Sardon has a new review for Blues Music Awards-Nominated artist Fiona Boyes and her Box & Dice recording: “Fiona Boyes, after having a baker’s dozen of recordings in her Aussie tucker bag, has created something unusually special in her 2015 Box & Dice CD as she uses both four- and six-string cigar box guitars, an insanely rare (one of two in existence) baritone National ResoLectric guitar and is accompanied with items…
Two Gramophone Recordings of the Year!
Gramophone Magazine has released their 2015 Recordings of the Year in a special free digital issue and includes two Reference Recordings releases! Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3, “Organ” Jan Kraybill, organ; Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern “…the crucial test is not so much the volume of the organ but the way in which the orchestral context of the symphony as a whole is established. Here Michael Stern impressively injects impetus into the first section’s sinewy fabric,…
Blues Music Magazine Reviews Exactly Like This
Blues Music Magazine‘s Don Wilcock has a great new review for Doug MacLeod and his Blues Music Awards-nominated Exactly Like This recording: “His best songs are slices of life that leave you wanting the rest of the pie. Sometimes laconic but never lazy, Doug MacLeod is a class act story teller. … every cut on this album is truly a MacLeod original. Like all great blues men, MacLeod lives his music, and the songs are…
American Record Guide Reviews Tempo Do Brasil
Marc Tempo do Brasil gets a recommendation from American Record Guide in their November/December 2015 issue: “These same musicians brought us a disc of the music of Radames Gnatalli… I was impressed by that performance, and I took as much delight in this collection of solos and duos by various Brazilian composers. …most of the music is new to me, or at least rarely recorded‚the guitar world tends to look to solo works rather than…
Kansas City Saint-Saëns a “Definitive Version”
Kansas City Symphony’s GRAMMY® Award Nominated Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 “Organ” recording gets a rave review from Fanfare Magazine’s Jerry Dubins in their November/December 2015 issue: “…a disc for the most demanding audiophile and for the most discerning music lover, not that the two are mutually exclusive. … This, I believe, is the most astonishingly realistic and most stunningly awesome recording I’ve ever heard, which is why I said above that it was a disc…
Multiple Blues Music Award Nominees!
The Blues Foundation announced the 37th Blues Music Award Nominees and Reference Recordings artists are well represented! Doug MacLeod Acoustic Album (Exactly Like This) Acoustic Artist Song: “You Got It Good (and That Ain’t Bad)” Fiona Boyes Koko Taylor Award (Traditional Blues Female) Jimi Bott Instrumentalist-Drums The 37th Blues Music Awards will be presented May 5, 2016 in Memphis, TN Final Ballot will be sent to MEMBERS December 22, 2015Become a Member TODAYPurchase the recordings…
Utah Symphony Mahler in the Washington Post
The Washington Post‘s tom Huizenga reviews the Utah Symphony’s Mahler: Symphony No. 1 “Titan” recording: “In Fischer’s hands, Mahler is well-balanced… the orchestra can be proud of this performance, with its brisk tempos and transparency in recorded sound. Winds are particularly expressive in the opening movement, where nature awakens in a haze of ethereal strings and chirps from oboes and clarinets before picking up the jaunty melody to one of Mahler’s own songs. … This…
Pittsburgh Symphony Beethoven “as an anti-depressant”
Graham Rickson reviews the new Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck Beethoven Symphony Nos. 5 & 7 recording for The Arts Desk: “These performances, though never sluggish, are huge. In the best possible way. Their grandeur is irresistible, reminding us just how rare large-scale, modern instrument performances are. We know that Beethoven preferred big orchestras. He’d presumably have loved this disc. … Glorious. As is this Seventh, the Vivace’s rhythms enunciated with impeccable clarity. ……
Pittsburgh Symphony in the New York Times Classical Playlist
The New York Times critic David Allen adds the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Beethoven: Symphony Nos. 5 & 7 to the Arts Beat Classical Playlist: “Ninety seconds is all it takes to understand that Manfred Honeck’s is no sanitized Beethoven: the plethora of colorations, articulations and moods through which he forces the Fifth’s famous motto sees to that. Every phrase, every balance has been thought through in interventionist readings that are idiosyncratic but fully…
Pittsburgh Symphony Beethoven a Gramophone Editor’s Choice
Gramophone Magazine names Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s new Beethoven: Symphony Nos. 5 & 7 a December Editor’s Choice! “The Pittsburgh playing marries epic power with a revealing translucency of texture, something which the aptly named Soundmirror team catches in sound the provides generous levels of reverberation with crystal-clear detailing. Honeck has a wonderful ear for detail, be it quietly thematic or utterly bizarre, as in the piccolo’s crackerjack contributions to the finale of the…
SEVEN 2015 GRAMMY Nominations Announced!
The 58th GRAMMY Award Nominations Have Been Announced! Best Engineered Classical Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3, “Organ” Keith O. Johnson & Sean Royce Martin, engineers; Keith O. Johnson, mastering engineer (Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony) Producer of the Year, Classical Marina A. Ledin, Victor Ledin Dances For Piano & Orchestra (Joel Fan, Christophe Chagnard & Northwest Sinfonietta) • Tempo Do Brasil (Marc Regnier) • Woman At The New Piano (Nadia Shpachenko) Best Orchestral Performance Bruckner:…
Four Stars for Fiona Boyes from Downbeat!
Downbeat Magazine gives Fiona Boyes and her new Box & Dice recording ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in the January issue: “Delighted with her recent acquisition of handsome cigar-box and National Resolectric baritone guitars, Australian Fiona Boyes puts them to the test on her latest release. Sure enough, those guitars have plenty to say in discourses with her true-blue vocals. Her songs are conduits of flammable or relatively tranquil emotion.…” —Frank-John Hadley, Downbeat Order from RR!Order on Amazon.comListen on…
Doug MacLeod Exactly Like This a Downbeat Best of 2015!
Downbeat Magazine names Doug MacLeod’s new Exactly Like This recording to their Best of 2015 list in the January 2016 issue. “Doug MacLeod sets up camp in a rare niche of storytelling bluesman that are attuned to the textures and rhythms of life. On this excursion, the wry Californian’s distinctive singing voice and straight-talking guitar comment on a “rough-and-tumble” woman, staying true to oneself, the road back home, the splendor of the Blue Ridge Mountains…
Organ Polychrome a Recording of the Year!
MusicWeb International critic Dan Morgan names Organ Polychrome one of his Recordings of the Year! “This is my top pick for 2015. Reference Recordings have a reputation for top-notch engineering, but that wouldn’t count for much without performances of equal stature. Indeed, Jan Kraybill’s exemplary musicianship and the lovely sound of this noble Kansas City instrument make this one of the finest organ recordings I know. Period.” —Dan Morgan Read Dan Morgan’s original MusicWeb review.…
Pittsburgh Symphony Beethoven a 2015 Recording of the Year!
The Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s new BEETHOVEN: Symphony Nos. 5 & 7 recording has been nominated as a 2015 Recording of the Year by THREE MusicWeb International critics — one of only two recordings to receive such a distinction! Michael Cookson “The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck is on world class form with Beethoven’s Symphonies No’s 5 and 7. This release only arrived a short time ago but its merits were evident immediately.…