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!…
Audiophile Audition Reviews Lowell Liebermann’s Frankenstein
Steven Ritter gives four stars to San Francisco Ballet Orchestra’s recording of Lowell Liebermann: Frankenstein in Audiophile Audition: “The San Francisco Ballet Orchestra plays wonderfully with great tone, exemplary dynamic range and a genuine sensitivity to the changes in color and emotion found in this work, which are considerable. The recording is superb—everything is captured on the broadest of sound stages with great depth and presence. Musically, the piece is extraordinary, tuneful, full of expression,…
Classical Music Sentinel Review for Pittsburgh Symphony’s Beethoven and Stucky Recording
Jean-Yves Duperron reviews the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring recording on Classical Music Sentinel: “This ‘live’ performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Manfred Honeck of the iconic Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, “Pastoral” by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), is nothing if not light-footed and yet muscular, airy and yet intricately detailed, naïvely good-natured and yet deeply expressive. Could it be that they’ve hit upon its spiritual…
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…
Atlanta Audio Club Reviews Beethoven Symphony 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring
Phil Muse’s Atlanta Audio Club Mid-Summer Classical Reviews Column features Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 & Stucky: Silent Spring: “What better choice for summertime listening than Beethoven’s time-tested ‘Pastorale’? … Quick but soul-satisfying pacing by conductor and orchestra makes it all come together. … Stucky pays respect to Carson’s dark, uncompromising vision of environmental destruction in musical terms that are positively chilling.… disspirited birdsong in haunting brass and reeds, relentless…
The Arts Fuse Hails Pittsburgh Symphony’s Beethoven Symphony 6 as “Another Winner”
The Arts Fuse‘s Jonathan Blumhofer gives a warm recommendation to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven & Stucky recording: “The Pittsburgher’s performance is nothing if not very well balanced and strongly colored. Solos short and long – for tuba, contrabassoon, and English horn, among them – are all well done. And the orchestra has clearly got a firm grasp on Stucky’s highly intellectual (but still accessible) personal style. … it’s forceful, well-written music and…
Vote for Pittsburgh Symphony for Gramophone Orchestra of the Year!
Gramophone Magazine has announced its 10 finalists for the 2022 Orchestra of the Year — the only one of its prestigious awards decided by the public — and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has made the list! “Nomination comes as a result of each ensemble impressing Gramophone’s editors and reviewers through its work on record, and all ten have released magnificent and often thought-provoking new albums over the past 12 months.” Vote now through Monday, September 7!…
Five Star HRAudio Review for Pittsburgh Symphony’s Beethoven Symphony No. 6
HRAudio.net‘s Adrian Quanjer gives a five-star rating to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Steven Stucky: “Silent Spring” recording: “Unfamiliar as I was with Silent Spring, in Honeck’s reading it unescapably got my immediate attention. Expressing in music what is barely possible to express in words. Around 15 minutes of awareness of the formidable complexities of nature is in itself already worth acquiring this release. … I have no…
Living Blues Rave for Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim
The May/June 2022 issue of Living Blues Magazine features a rave review for Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim: “A Soul to Claim builds on MacLeod’s skillful, expressive acoustic guitar work, supported here by Dave Smith on bass guitar, Rick Steff on keyboards, and Steve Potts on drums. The arrangements are subtle, with lots of spaces between the notes and a warm, intimate character. The bass, drums, and keys are often felt more than heard;…
Blues Blast Magazine Reviews Doug MacLeod’s “A Soul To Claim”
The latest edition of Blues Blast Magazine has a Featured Blues Review for Doug MacLeod and A Soul To Claim: “After many visits to Memphis with the Blues Music Awards and other work with the Blues Foundation, Doug MacLeod decided to move to that area and settle down in Tennessee, giving up the West Coast for a home on the Mississippi River. This album is inspired by his move and his new home. It is…
Classical Candor Reviews “The Happy Workshop”
Classical Candor reviews the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble and George Vosburgh’s recording of Strauss: The Happy Workshop & Serenade, Op. 7: “the Carnegie Mellon players do the piece justice, as we might expect from an ensemble that has been around since 1908. Maestro Vosburgh has been their Director since 2011. They dance through the music with a smooth, graceful, subtle, yet expressive agility. It was fun listening to them move effortlessly from Strauss’s more serious…
MusicWeb International Recommendation for James MacMillan’s Larghetto for Orchestra
Another “Recommended” distinction from a MusicWeb International Critic for Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Brahms & MacMillan release, and this time the spotlight shines on James MacMillan! “I really have to doff my hat to Reference Recordings, as well as to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, for their commitment to programming and recording new music is genuinely admirable. … I have come across the music of MacMillan more than once in the past, both in…
MusicWeb International Review for The Happy Workshop
Michael Cookson reviews the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble and George Vosburgh’s recording of Strauss: The Happy Workshop & Serenade, Op. 7 for MusicWeb International: “The Reference Recordings label is noted for the quality of its recordings and this new album presenting a pair of underrated and neglected works for wind ensemble by Richard Strauss is no exception. … the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble under Vosburgh provides an engaging performance making a convincing case for this…
MusicWeb International Reviews Frankenstein
“the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra play with a ravishing warmth. Clearly the orchestra has been well rehearsed. The brass playing is monumentally precision perfect; Liebermann’s music… is of extraordinary complexity. This is an especially densely written ballet in places in others it is quite the opposite, open to making orchestral players feel very exposed – and yet the orchestral playing is brilliant enough that details emerge with astonishing clarity. Those great sweeping string passages at…
Stylus Phantasticus Gets A MusicWeb International Recommendation
Tekla Cunningham and Pacific MusicWorks’ Stylus Phantasticus gets a rave review and recommendation from MusicWeb International‘s Johan van Veen: “Over the years I have heard many recordings of this kind of repertoire, and it never fails to make a strong impression. The instrumental music of the 17th century is quite exciting stuff. However, its effect largely depends on the performance. If the contrasts within pieces are flattened out or the dynamic differences are equalized, the…