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Joe Hisaishi: A Symphonic Celebration: Music from the Studio Ghibli films of Hayao Miyazaki
by Scott Gudell
Many movie directors have forged tight bonds with musicians/composers and crafted long lasting and trusted partnerships. Director Hayao Miyazaki is the creator, architect and wizard behind the curtain of arguably the greatest film animation studio on the planet, Japan's Studio Ghibli (with all due respect to, and an occasional photo finish with, Disney.) Joe Hisaishi is the intuitive composer of dozens of film scores including numerous projects with Studio Ghibli. Together, they've mastered the delicate art of combining image and ...
read moreJohn Williams and Berliner Philharmoniker: The Berlin Concert
by Nenad Georgievski
Composer John Williams turned 90 in February 2022, but the “force is still strong with him." Williams, who is an Academy Award-winning composer behind some of the most famous film scores in cinema history, is considered as one of the most prolific composers of our time. Having soundtracked more than 100 films and worked with great directors from Spielberg and George Lucas to Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman, to name but a few, his music has taken its listeners to ...
read moreNicholas Lens & Nick Cave: L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S
by Nenad Georgievski
All music has a presence, but there's a certain level of respect saved for works that prove their value by surrounding, engulfing, and perhaps even altering listeners. The opera titled L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S, which is a second collaboration between Belgian classical composer Nicholas Lens and singer and composer in his own right Nick Cave, captures a specific mood that makes this collaboration distinctive and rewarding. Conceived during the first lockdown in 2020 when the planet was on standstill, Lens contacted Cave to ...
read moreLang Lang: Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations Deluxe Edition
by Nenad Georgievski
An early biography of composer J.S. Bach by Johann Nikolaus Forke tells the story of how the famous variations known as Goldberg Variations came to be. Bach received a commission from Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk, the insomniac Russian ambassador to the Kingdom of Saxony to compose a set of variations that would help him ward off his insomnia. For this task, Bach was allegedly awarded a golden goblet filled with 100 Louis d'ors (French coins). During the sleepless nights, ...
read moreVíkingur Ólafsson: Debussy • Rameau
by C. Michael Bailey
Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson had a recording career before signing with the German monolithe Deutsche Grammophon, having released three recordings for his own label, Dirrindí. In 2016, Ólafsson signed with DG, releasing the next year Philip Glass -Piano Works. It was an interesting debut for the august label, featuring Philip Glass's Études, “Opening" from Glassworks, and a surprise rework of Glassworks by Dutch pianist and composer, Christian Badzura. Ólafsson fashions himself a progressive traditionalist, intensely focused on the music and ...
read moreRoger and Brian Eno: Mixing Colours
by Nenad Georgievski
In a storied and kaleidoscopic career which has seen him change the course of music several times, it is fair to say that British musician, producer and visual artist, Brian Eno has never been one to park himself in the same spot for too long. It will come as little surprise then, that his latest effort, in collaboration with his younger brother, pianist and de-composer Roger Eno, titled Mixing Colours finds him inhabiting a seemingly known but vastly different space ...
read moreVíkingur Ólafsson: J.S. Bach Works & Reworks
by C. Michael Bailey
Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has found himself soaked to the skin in accolades in 2019. It all began auspiciously enough with the pianist with Ólafsson beginning piano early, taught by his mother, a music teacher. Ólafsson eventually attended and matriculated from the Juilliard School in New York, with a Bachelor's and Master's degrees directed by Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald. The pianist went on to blaze and international trial with concerts and recitals. He released three recordings on his own ...
read moreAnoushka Shankar: Reflections
by Nenad Georgievski
Over twenty years, Anoushka Shankar has grown into one of the world's leading sitarists. She has long been omnivorous in her musical tastes and this has resulted in a journey without borders. A daughter and student of the late Ravi Shankar, who almost single handedly introduced Indian music to Western musicians and audiences, she has nonetheless pursued her own muse, one which has been as adventurous and multi-faceted as that of her father. Some of her achievements are compiled in ...
read moreVíkingur Ólafsson: Philip Glass – Piano Works
by C. Michael Bailey
Captain Obvious once said, “The appeal of Philip Glass' music is its simplicity." The minimalist school, which includes Glass, as well as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich, produces music that uses limited or minimal musical materials, or as defined by composer Tom Johnson, as ..."any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that use only a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such ...
read moreMax Richter: Three Worlds: Music From Woolf Works
by Nenad Georgievski
Since his debut record Memoryhouse, composer Max Richter has consistently delivered music of unquestionable beauty and depth. Over the years, he forged a unique path that saw him melding classical contemporary music with electronic and the result to that was always an engaging progression of various works that went back and forth between the familiar and comfortable with the new and forward-thinking. But it's tricky to try to pigeonhole the music of this composer. There is an unconventional inventiveness where ...
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