Fanfare’s Colin Clarke Adds Bach Aria Soloists to his 2023 Want List
Colin Clarke has added Bach Aria Soloist’s Le Dolce Sirene album to his 2023 Fanfare Magazine “Want List”: “this is a well-considered mix… It is worth taking the pieces in running order as one gets an idea of the variety of sound on offer. After that chamber Messiah, an organ sonata movement by Mendelssohn is heard in a grand performance by Elisa Williams Bickers, but one that retains miraculous clarity. Then it’s back to Handel for…
James Altena Gives Bach Aria Soloists High Praise in Fanfare
Subscribers can find the full review online or in the May/June 2023 issue of Fanfare Magazine
Happy 150th Birthday to Rachmaninoff
Join Reference Recordings in celebrating the 150th anniversary of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s birthday (April 1873)! We’re celebrating by recognizing three recordings and offering two of them at 20% off through April 9: Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 Peter Jermihov, Conductor Gloriæ Dei Cantores Richard K. Pugsley, Director Named “The Best Recording” of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 in BBC Music Magazine‘s April 2023 issue, this gorgeous production was recorded, edited and mastered by our own engineering…
Fanfare Interviews Bach Aria Soloists
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Fanfare Magazine‘s James Altena and members of the Bach Aria Soloists. The full interview is available for subscribers online and will be in the May/June 2023 Issue of the Magazine:
Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene is Brilliant and Captivating says Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare Magazine‘s Ken Meltzer recommends Le Dolce Sirene from the Bach Aria Soloists “with the utmost enthusiasm”: “In Le Dolce Sirene, the BAS explores vocal and instrumental music ranging from Monteverdi to the 21st-century English composer Cecilia McDowall. The emphasis is on Baroque repertoire, performed with such HIP elements as minimal vibrato and ornamentation in repeated sections. Within that foundation, the BAS offers music-making of striking beauty, energy, and an infectious enthusiasm for the works at…
The Absolute Sound Feature on the Reference Mastercuts Series
The April 2023 issue of The Absolute Sound features a new article from Stephen Estep entitled “New Classical Recordings on Vinyl” and highlights our Reference Mastercuts series! Look for the article in the April 2023 issue of The Absolute Sound!
Announcing Limited Edition LPs!
Reference Recordings is excited to have come across a limited collection of some of our earliest recordings on LP — including our first-ever recording, created in 1976 before Prof. Keith O. Johnson began working with RR! Explore the recordings below, and make sure to look through the images as each one includes the LP Jacket with information about the backstory of the recordings. We regret we cannot ship to the EU or UK at this time.…
Italy’s Macallé Blues Reviews Doug MacLeod’s “A Soul To Claim”
Italian Blues Magazine, Macallé Blues has a new review for Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim in their “Discs to Consider” section: “Doug MacLeod is one of the last and most iconic songwriters in blues that the contemporary scene can still offer. One of those endangered beings who should be preserved by some special law to protect the species and its few devotees. A Soul To Claim is his most recent album and … Despite…
Gramophone Reviews Le Dolce Sirene
The Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene gets a great review from Laurence Vittes in the March 2023 issue of Gramophone Magazine: “The Kansas City-based Bach Aria Soloists make their recording debut on Reference Recordings with a lovely album of Monteverdi, Bach, Handel and Mendelssohn, complemented by Cecilia McDowall and concluding with their own improvisation on La folia. Recorded with the label’s trademark sweet and clear perfection, ‘Le dolce sirene’ achieves that audiophile miracle, sounding even…
Audiophile Audition Gives an Ovation to Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene
Audiophile Audition‘s Fritz Balwit has a wonderful overview and review for the Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene recording: “The most striking feature of this opening track is the keening sound of the violin paired with a minimal cello basso continuo. This was my first exposure to the exceptional skills of the violinist and director of the ensemble, Elizabeth Suh Lane… substantial works that will appeal to fans of modern vocal recitals. They don’t lack…
Cecilia Duarte Takes Listeners through Reencuentros on WGTE Radio
WGTE Public Media in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan hosted Cecilia Duarte to discuss her new Reencuentros album in a fantastic interview with host Brad Cresswell:
RR Spotlights — Janáček Orchestral Works
Reference Recordings has been producing albums with rich histories for almost 50 years now. Some albums were successful when they were new but are unknown to our recent customers. Some are evergreen titles, continuing to sell long after they originally came out. We’ve even had some commercial flops. As time marches on, some fantastic titles are ripe to be rediscovered by a new generation of audiophiles. And now RR would like to shine a Spotlight…
Doug MacLeod’s A Soul to Claim is a Downbeat Magazine Album of the Year!
Downbeat Magazine‘s January 2023 issue has a list of their 2022 Albums of the Year, and Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim has made the list! “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…
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