Curtis J Stewart – of Love. (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:02 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New Amsterdam
Tearing down the facade of “classical violinist,” Stewart is in constant pursuit of his musical authenticity, treating art as a battery for realizing citizenship.
He has made special appearances with Los Angeles Opera and singer-songwriter Tamar Kali; as curator and guest soloist with Anthony Roth Costanzo and the New York Philharmonic “Bandwagon,” touring performance installations from NYC’s Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, and Museum of Modern Art; to MTV specials with Wyclef Jean; and sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden with Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Seal. Stewart’s 2021 album of quarantined song cycles and art videos, Of POWER (Bright Shiny Things), was nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. JazzTimes raves, “he shows his audience the colors inside of himself—color(s) not yet invented. Far from self-indulgent, it is self-revelatory. It is vulnerable. It is creation.”
In 2022, he was named Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, a national organization dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by diverse and innovative American composers.
Read moreCuarteto Casals – J.S. Bach: The Art of Fugue (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:24 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Notated on four staves, as though intended for some unspecified set of instruments (or even voices? or keyboard?), these thirteen erudite contrapuncti, four canons, and an unfinished triple fugue—incorporating the letters of Bach’s name—are often considered to be his musical testament. Shrouded in myths traceable to its very origins, The Art of Fugue is a puzzle for the performers and for the listeners alike, but when a brilliant string quartet takes up the challenge, a solution becomes obvious, and the music takes flight.
Read moreCristina Bayon Álvarez, Noelia Reverte Reche, Diego Leverić, Federico Del Sordo – Spanish Secular Cantatas (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 58:13 minutes | 590 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics
Songs of love and loss by a trio of early 18th century Spanish composers, showcasing the vocal art of a distinguished early-music soprano.
Cristina Bayón Álvarez has sung with early-music luminaries such as Christophe Coin, Diego Fasolis and Carlos Mena. She has also recorded a pair of warmly received albums for Brilliant Classics, reviving the sacred music of Juan Francés de Iribarren (95859) and Romantic-era songs by female composers (‘Boulevard des femmes’, 96729).
Read moreCowboy Junkies – Such Ferocious Beauty (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:06 minutes | 417 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cooking Vinyl Limited
The album is vintage Cowboy Junkies and another dimension from the lo-fi Canadian band comprised of, well, family. A tangle of sonic textures, Beauty is a rumination on aging, losing parents, facing mortality and creating space for one’s life in the midst of the ruin that comes from merely living. ‘Mike has never shied away from the darker, harder and sometimes uglier realities of our human condition’, Margo Timmins explains of the band’s singular focus, ‘nor has he shied from its beauty. Thankfully, with one comes the other’.
Read moreCostel Nitescu – Entre amis (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:26 minutes | 463 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © To Become Music
A brilliant improviser with a formidable sense of swing, he is undoubtedly the best Gypsy jazz violinist today, and it’s not unusual to come across him on stage with such greats as Stochelo Rosenberg and Tchavolo Schmitt. Here he presents a jazz-oriented album, with exceptional musicians: Hugo Guezbar, William Brunard, Dominique Di Piazza and Vincent Frade.
Read moreCordâme – Ravel inspirations (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:22:31 minutes | 941 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Malasartes
Cordâme continues the exploration of French composers, after Satie and Debussy, it is Maurice Ravel’s turn. Always under a new light, the composer and double bassist Jean Félix Mailloux composed pieces inspired by Ravel’s impressionist universe and adapted several of his most famous works. At the crossroads of chamber music and jazz, Cordâme’s music creates wonderful sound images representing imaginary landscapes of great beauty.
Read moreCordâme – Fabula femina (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:16 minutes | 717 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Malasartes
A vibrant tribute to poetesses from the Renaissance to the present day. Composer and bassist Jean Félix Mailloux has set to music the sublime stories by Gaspara Stampa, Louise Labé, Emily Dickinson, Catherine Pozzi and Louise De Vilmorin of timeless richness. Texts about love, life and death, wonder, joy and suffering. Cordâme’s musicians with the singer Coral Egan interpret these songs with great sensitivity. Rich orchestrations, dreamlike and touching poetry that will leave no one indifferent. Music at the crossroads of chamber music, lyrical singing and jazz, highlighting poetesses of great talent with accuracy and sensitivity.
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