OUT TODAY: Guitar Innovator Marcin Releases PANICATTACK – New Single and Video on Sony Music Masterworks

Single Artwork (For Media Use): Download

Guitar Innovator Marcin Unleashes Panicattack
Visceral New Single and Video Out Today

Panicattack Reunites Marcin with
Guitarist and Co-Producer RJ Pasin
Following Their 2025 Collaboration Art Of Guitar

Warsaw-Shot Music Video Casts Marcin as Corporate Puppet Master with Choreography by Will West
(Jungle, Ariana Grande, Wicked)
Listen HERE | Watch the Music Video HERE

Marcin, the Polish-born guitar innovator hailed by Guitar World as “one of the most talented guitarists of his generation,” is ushering in a new era with new single PANICATTACK, out today. Created in collaboration with fellow guitarist and co-producer RJ Pasin, the new single marks the first time Marcin both sings and plays guitar on a release, and introduces a heavier, darker, and more visceral sound than anything he has released before.

Listen to PANICATTACK here and watch the new music video here.

Driven by rapid-fire guitar passages and explosive percussive rhythms, PANICATTACK brings together elements of metal, flamenco, and electronic music, pairing Marcin’s intricate playing with his own vocals as the track moves through moments of tension and release. The result is a restless, physical sound that puts rhythm as much as melody at the forefront. The track reunites Marcin with Pasin following their 2025 collaboration Art of Guitar, which has earned more than 20 million streams and was the highest-streaming instrumental track of 2025. PANICATTACK builds on that creative chemistry while placing boundary-pushing guitar at the center of Marcin’s bold new musical and visual identity, built around black, white, silver, and Polish-flag red.

That vision takes shape in the accompanying music video, set in an abandoned, decaying office building in Warsaw. Marcin assumes the role of puppet master, using his guitar and music to control five dancers like marionettes. With choreography by Will West, whose credits include Jungle, Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?,” and Wicked, the video explores the idea of people as cogs in the corporate machine, bringing its themes of power and control to life through movement.

On the making of the track and its accompanying video, Marcin says: “PANICATTACK is a song that I've been working on for almost two years, which is really unusual for me. It's a song I’ve played at dozens of shows around the world and has been heard in many different versions. I'm so happy that it's coming out because it’s a very new and unexpected sound. This is the first time I’m using my voice as an instrument, and it’s a big change for me.

The video is also the biggest one I’ve done. We had amazing dancers and amazing choreography by Will West, and I was very blessed to direct the video and bring my own vision to life, which I’m so proud of. I can’t wait to kickstart this new era and new sound with this piece of music.”

PANICATTACK follows Marcin’s Live Sessions EP, released in July, which captured nine live studio performances spanning original compositions and arrangements of classical works. The project included a new version of “Art of Guitar” featuring renowned Brazilian guitarist and composer Yamandu Costa. While that project showcased Marcin’s extraordinary technical skills, PANICATTACK finds him exploring new territory as an artist and composer, building on a body of work already championed by the likes of Madonna, J Balvin, and Tom Morello.

PR Photo – Marcin - Credit: Lea Hermoza: Download

In just a few years, Marcin has built a following of more than 14 million across social platforms, and an audience that follows him well beyond the screen. His first world tour, the “Art of Guitar World Tour,” took him to 25 countries across five continents – last year, he sold out every single one of his 75 shows. Along the way, he has performed at London’s Royal Albert Hall and on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, while drawing coverage from international editions of Rolling Stone, GQ and the like.

Marcin’s connection with his audience carries into 2027: Marcin has announced the first phase of his 2027 world tour, “An Evening With Marcin” dates across Europe, including the UK and the Baltics. Ahead of the tour, he will perform three special shows in Poland this December before a tour of Switzerland with Art on Ice in February 2027. Tickets are on sale now. See the full list of announced dates below.

MARCIN 2026 - 2027 LIVE DATES
TICKETING & INFO HERE

Poland tour dates
December 13 – Wrocław @ Narodowe Forum Muzyki [SOLD OUT]
December 16 – Warsaw @ Palladium [SOLD OUT]
December 17 – Warsaw @ Palladium [SOLD OUT]

Performing with Art on Ice
February 4 – Zurich, CH @ Hallenstadion
February 5 – Zurich, CH @ Hallenstadion
February 6 – Zurich, CH @ Hallenstadion (2 shows)
February 7 – Zurich, CH @ Hallenstadion
February 9 – Fribourg, CH @ BCF Arena
February 10 – Fribourg, CH @ BCF Arena
February 12 – Davos, CH @ Vaillant Arena
February 13 – Davos, CH @ Vaillant Arena

An Evening With Marcin
February 24 – Berlin, DE @ Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal
February 25 – Copenhagen, DK @ DR Koncerthuset Studie 2
February 27 – Hanover, DE @ Capitol
February 28 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivolivredenburg
March 1 – Luxembourg, LU @ Rockhal
March 3 – Stuttgart, DE @ Liederhalle Mozartsaal
March 5 – Paris, FR @ Salle Pleyel
March 7 – Cologne, DE @ Carlswerk Victoria
March 8 – Hamburg, DE @ Fabrik
March 10 – Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
March 11 – Frankfurt, DE @ Alte Oper (Mozartsaal)
March 13 – London, UK @ O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
March 14 – Manchester, UK @ Aviva Studios Andrew Law Hall
March 15 – Dublin, IE @ National Concert Hall
March 17 – Glasgow, UK @ Saint Lukes
April 6 – Helsinki, Finland @ Apollo Live Club
April 7 – Tallinn, Estonia @ Alexela Concert Hall
April 9 – Riga, Latvia @ Palladium
April 11 – Vilnius, Lithuania @ Compensa Concert Hall

Connect With Marcin:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

Follow Marcin Nation
Instagram

# # #

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com.

OUT TODAY: Anna Lapwood’s New Album Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost – Concert Film: Anna Lapwood at Nidaros Premieres November 14

Anna Lapwood Unveils Her Most Ambitious Album Yet
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean
Reimagined on the Organ
Out Today - Listen Here

Concert Film: Anna Lapwood at Nidaros
Premieres Tomorrow | Watch Here

Acclaimed organist Anna Lapwood releases her new album, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, out today, November 13, 2026, via Sony Classical. Her most ambitious recording to date, it whisks listeners into a vividly realized world of fantastical characters, dark forests, looming mountains and tempestuous seas - listen here to Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost.

One of the most gifted artists of her generation, Lapwood is famed for introducing the organ to millions of new fans through her interpretations of both classical and contemporary works. On this new record, she dives into two of the most iconic film soundtracks, Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings and Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean, reimagining them as major works for organ and using them to showcase the Steinmeyer organ of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway.

To mark the release, Anna will premiere Anna Lapwood at Nidaros: Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, a ticketed concert film featuring music from the album. Filmed at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway, the performance showcases the Steinmeyer organ within the cathedral’s remarkable architecture and acoustics and features a stunning light show designed to highlight the motivic development in the music. The film premieres at 12PM EST on Saturday, November 14 and will be available to watch for approximately 48 hours. Anna will join fans in the live chat during the premiere, reacting and commenting as the concert unfolds. Tickets are priced $17.94 (plus transaction fee) with access via watch.annalapwood.co.uk. The film is delivered with Kiswe - watch here.

For all the scale and ambition of the project, its origins were rather more modest. The album grew out of a chance encounter in an NYC coffee shop, when a young girl called Katherine requested “Concerning Hobbits” from The Lord of the Rings. That ignited a spark which would eventually become Anna’s largest transcription project yet: The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony.

“It has been the most extraordinary journey delving into JRR Tolkien's world in more detail, and into Howard Shore’s incredible scores,” shares Lapwood. “I knew that if I was going to do it, I would need to go all in! When I wrote the Pirates of the Caribbean Suite a couple of years ago it was my largest scale (and hardest!) transcription I had ever written. I feel like everything I learned from that informed The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony, which is by far the biggest project I’ve ever worked on and has completely transformed how I think about the organ. It has been such a beautiful process and has made me fall in love with the organ all over again!”

Transcribing everything by ear, Anna enlisted the help of fellow TLOR fans to choose which movements to include, exploring Howard Shore’s motivic development while maintaining a clear sense of the story’s narrative arc. She also had the opportunity to speak with Howard Shore himself, who offered suggestions along the way. “Howard and his team have been so kind and generous with their time and support during this whole process, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to ask their advice,” Lapwood exclaims.

A lover of storytelling through the instrument, Anna introduced a new element on this album, singing in Elvish throughout The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony. “I’ve never done anything like this before, but for me it was very important to the project,” notes Lapwood. “‘The Lord of the Rings’ isn’t just a story you read; it’s a world that you enter” she explains. “I really feel like I’ve lived it for the past year, as though I’ve been living in Middle Earth. I knew Howard Shore was a genius before I started this project, but the more you look at it and the more time you spend with his music, the more extraordinary it is.”

Anna has worked hard to shift the narrative around both the organ and classical music. With Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, she is keen to promote the intrinsic value of film music. “This is the music I played in my school orchestras, when I was growing up; it’s the music that made me want to compose,” Lapwood continues. “It is incredible, intelligent, beautiful music, and I think it is deserving of so much respect! I’ve tried to treat it with that respect in creating this album, showing just how virtuosic if can be. Film music isn’t some secondary art form; it is essential to the success of the stories we know and love. For me, film music is the music that makes my heart sing.”

ABOUT ANNA LAPWOOD

Demonstrating her talent in concert halls around the world and drawing a huge and loyal following on social media, Anna shot to fame on TikTok and now has over 4 million followers across all platforms. She has been hailed as a sensation by the media, covered by major titles including The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The New York Times with Tatler hailing her “the Taylor Swift of classical music.” “Social media has helped make me who I am as a performer,” Lapwood has previously explained, “in that it’s made me realize that I’m allowed to be myself onstage. Now I actually feel like I’m the freest version of myself when I’m performing - and that’s a rather lovely thing.”

Anna trained at the Junior Royal Academy of Music on the piano, harp, viola, and violin. Naturally shy, she found music was one of the ways she could most easily communicate. At school in Oxford, she played 15 different instruments, four of them to Grade 8 standard. In 2012, she became the first woman in Magdalen College, Oxford’s 560-year history to be awarded an organ scholarship.

Then, when she was just 21, Anna became the youngest person ever to hold the position of Director of Music at Oxford or Cambridge, leading the choirs at Pembroke College, Cambridge. She stepped down in 2025, after nine years in the role to pursue a full-time career as a concert organist. She has performed with pop stars like RAYE and Florence & the Machine, opened for Ludovico Einaudi at the O2 arena, and has even given Tom Cruise an organ lesson at the Royal Albert Hall, where she is the Official Organist.

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost Tracklist:

1. I. Prologue: One Ring to Rule Them All (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
2. II. The Shire/Concerning Hobbits (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
3. III. A Knife in the Dark (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
4. IV. Rivendell (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
5. V. The Ring Goes South (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
6. VI. The Three Hunters (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
7. VII. The Grace of Undómiel (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
8. VIII. The Lighting of the Beacons (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
9. IX. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
10. X. A Far Green Country (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
11. XI. The Black Gate Opens (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
12. XII. For Frodo (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
13. XIII. The Crack of Doom (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
14. XIV. The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony)
15. Song For Justice
16. I. Hoist the Colours/Davy Jones (Suite from Pirates of the Caribbean)
17. II. Jack Sparrow (Suite from Pirates of the Caribbean)
18. III. One Day (Suite from Pirates of the Caribbean)
19. IV. Drink Up, Me Hearties, Yo Ho! (Suite from Pirates of the Caribbean)
20. Romantic Flight/Test Drive (from How to Train Your Dragon)

Hi res press shots – Credit Ben Wright

Follow Anna Lapwood
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | X | Facebook | Website

About Kiswe

Kiswe is an award-winning technology company that enables the biggest brands in sports and entertainment to reliably reach their fans anywhere on any screen. Whether delivered directly to their audiences or distributed through third parties, Kiswe’s two flagship products, Kiswe Connect and Kiswe Core, provide partners with the tools to engage with their community, streamline their distribution process, and scale their brands.

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/

Jan. 29: Harpist Lavinia Meijer Releases New Sony Classical Album Dreaming Awake – The Music of Philip Glass | New Single Truman Sleeps Out Now

Harpist Lavinia Meijer Releases
Dreaming Awake –The Music of Philip Glass
New Album on Sony Classical Out January 29, 2027

New Single: Truman Sleeps
Out Now - Listen Here

Pre-Order Available Now

On January 29, 2027 Sony Classical will release Dreaming Awake – The Music of Philip Glass, the new album by acclaimed Dutch harpist Lavinia Meijer. Accompanying this announcement is the new single Truman Sleeps, which is out now - listen here.

This is Meijer's third recording dedicated to the music of Philip Glass and is also her most personal: a musical tribute that not only marks the composer’s 90th birthday but celebrates their musical relationship which has shaped Meijer’s artistic life for more than fifteen years.

For her previous Glass recordings, Meijer focused music originally written by him for the piano, whereas now with Dreaming Awake, she explores music from the whole range of Glass’s long and varied career, including film scores, operas and stage works, performed both as solo harp pieces and in collaboration with some of Meijer’s closest musical partners.

With her new Philip Glass album Dreaming Awake, Lavinia Meijer broadens her view of Glass’s musical world. Rather than focusing primarily on music originally written for piano, the new album draws on music from his film scores, operas and other stage works. The recording also expands beyond the sound of the solo harp, bringing Meijer together with several of her closest musical collaborators, including her life partner, Reyer Zwart.

The title comes from Glass’s little-known 2002 piano work Dreaming Awake, composed to benefit the Tibetan Buddhist organization Jewel Heart. For Meijer, the title captures something essential about both the music of Glass and her own approach to performing it: the balance between freedom and absolute concentration. The repetitive structures can create an almost trance-like state, yet precisely because of this, the performer must remain constantly alert to the subtle changes within the music.
“To feel free but focused, that’s the concept in a nutshell,” says Meijer. “So ‘dreaming awake’ is a perfect analogy for that kind of balance.”

The unique resonance of the harp has been central to Meijer’s exploration of Glass from the beginning. As a teenager, she set herself the goal of showing audiences that the instrument could be far more than the gentle, romantic sound often associated with orchestras or background music. For her, Glass’s music became an ideal vehicle to reveal its depth, resonance, and extraordinary range of overtones.

“Philip Glass’s music has helped me to demonstrate how much depth there is to the instrument,” she explains. “The harp makes a sound with a lot of resonance and many overtones, so if I play one tone, you may hear what sounds like more than one. In fact, I’m often told that when I play it can sound like a whole orchestra.”

Her close work with Glass has also shaped the way she approaches his music. He taught her to keep its textures open when transferring them to the harp, an instrument whose resonance can easily make the music too dense, and to pay close attention to the weight and timing of every note. For Meijer, however, all these details ultimately serve one purpose: expression.

Alongside her arrangements of Glass’s music, Dreaming Awake also includes Meijer’s own composition Atmospheric Rivers. Inspired by Glass’s music for a documentary about climate change, the piece reflects the phenomenon of vast rivers of water vapour in the atmosphere and the way changes within them can contribute to storms, flooding, and devastation.

Ten years after The Glass Effect celebrated Philip Glass’s 80th birthday, Dreaming Awake becomes Meijer’s personal tribute to the composer as he turns 90.

“Philip’s music is about life in all its complexity, and with themes that are so urgent to us today,” says Meijer. “And, in a way, his music is life for me because it harnesses the power of art to connect with one’s inner self.”

Lavinia Meijer has played an important role in opening up the music of Philip Glass to an entirely new sound world. When she first met the composer in 2011 in Amsterdam, she performed her harp arrangement of his Metamorphosis. Glass was fascinated by the transformation of his music and gave Meijer his blessing to arrange his works for her instrument. They have worked together regularly ever since. The collaboration also became one of the defining chapters of Meijer’s recording career. Her 2012 album Metamorphosis / The Hours reached No. 3 in the Dutch album charts and achieved Platinum status. Four years later, The Glass Effect – The Music of Philip Glass followed on Sony Classical, featuring Meijer’s own harp arrangements of ten of Glass’s Etudes and Koyaanisqatsi. The album reached No. 17 in the Netherlands and remained in the charts for ten weeks.

Dreaming Awake – The Music of Philip Glass will be released on January 29, 2027 via Sony Classical.

Dec. 5: Cahill-Myers Duo Gives World Premiere of Bodywork by Theresa Wong for First Performance of the Dresher Ensemble Studio’s 88+ Piano Series

Photo credit: Miranda Sanborn

Cahill-Myers Duo Perform a Concert Celebrating Living Composers on December 5, 2026
First Performance of the Dresher Ensemble Studio’s 88+ Piano Series

Featuring the World Premiere of Bodywork by Theresa Wong

Plus Music by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina,
Eleanor Alberga, Meredith Monk, and David Borden

Saturday, December 5, 2026 at 7:30pm
Dresher Ensemble Studio | 2201 Poplar Street | Oakland, CA
Tickets and More Information

www.sarahcahill.com | www.reginamusic.com

Oakland, CA – The Bay Area-based Cahill-Myers Duo – pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers – will perform a concert together featuring the music of five living composers on Saturday, December 5, 2026 at 7:30pm at Dresher Ensemble Studio (2201 Poplar Street). The celebrated pianists have a long history of friendship and musical collaboration, including several past performances at Dresher Ensemble Studio. The lively duo, known for their interpretations of contemporary music for two pianos, will perform a colorful program that includes Canciones para el incendio by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina, Two Piano Suite by Eleanor Alberga, Folkdance by Meredith Monk, Fool on the Hill Variations by David Borden, and Bodywork by Theresa Wong, which Cahill and Myers previewed at the Mendocino Music Festival earlier this year. This program features the world premiere of the complete work. Theresa Wong and Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina will be in attendance and speak about their works. This is the first performance in the Dresher Ensemble Studio’s new 88+ Piano Series.

The concert centers around Theresa Wong’s Bodywork, a four-hand piece for piano written for and co-commissioned by Cahill and Myers. In her program notes, the composer describes the unconventional work, writing, “[Bodywork] is an homage to ‘caring hands’ with the intention to transform the experience of a health crisis into a ritual of beauty and healing. The two pianists are dressed in ceremonial jumpsuits which take inspiration from hospital and auto mechanic uniforms, and perform body work on the piano through various acts of making sound. The score consists of through-notated components as well as text-based frameworks for improvisation, which are played on the keyboard, inside the piano, and under and around the piano body with the help of auto-mechanic 'creepers', or rollers. The intention is to transform the performance venue into a ritual-like atmosphere.”

Cahill and Myers' program also includes Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina’s Canciones para el incendio for piano with four-hands, which is inspired by the Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s short story of the same name and resonates with the themes of Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise. Minimalist composer David Borden’s Fool on the Hill Variations experiments with the 1967 song by The Beatles. Borden transforms the theme through a number of minimalist permutations over its eight variations. Jamaican-born, British composer Eleanor Alberga’s Two Piano Suite is a sprightly one movement work that is as lively and uplifting as is the reason for its composition. Alberga wrote the work to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Jamaica's independence in 1987. Written in 1996, Folkdance embraces the connection between Meredith Monk’s music and the pianists themselves. The work incorporates tangible rhythm keeping through clapping and vocalization in chanting, adding an extra layer of expression unique to each artist who performs it.

For more information about Sarah Cahill visit www.sarahcahill.com.

For more information about Regina Myers visit www.reginamusic.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers of the Cahill-Myers Duo, perform a stylistically diverse program of music by living composers for the first performance in the Dresher Ensemble Studio’s new 88+ Piano Series. The long time friends and Bay Area artists will perform Canciones para el incendio by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina, Two Piano Suite by Eleanor Alberga, Folkdance by Meredith Monk, Variations on Fool on the Hill by David Borden, and the full world premiere of Bodywork by Theresa Wong. Wong and Ospina will be in attendance and speak about their works.

Concert details:

Who: Cahill-Myers Duo, pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers
Presented by Dresher Ensemble Studio as part of the 88+ Piano Series
What: Music by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina, Eleanor Alberga, Meredith Monk, David Borden, and Theresa Wong
When: Saturday, December 5, 2026, at 7:30pm
Where: Dresher Ensemble Studio, 2201 Poplar Street, Oakland, CA 94607
More information: https://dresherensemble.org/event/cahillmyers-duo/

Dec. 19-20: A Far Cry Continues 20th Anniversary Season with A Baroque Holiday – Two Neighborhood Chamber Concerts Curated by A Far Cry Violinist Jae Cosmos Lee

Photo by Josh Reynolds available in high resolution here.

GRAMMY®-Nominated A Far Cry Continues 20th Anniversary Season
with A Baroque Holiday on December 19 and 20, 2026

Two Neighborhood Chamber Concerts
Curated by A Far Cry Violinist Jae Cosmos Lee

Saturday, December 19, 2026 at 3:00pm
St. John’s Episcopal Church | 1 Roanoke Avenue | Jamaica Plain, MA
Tickets and More Information

Sunday, December 20, 2026 at 3:00pm
First Church Cambridge | 11 Garden Street | Cambridge, MA
Tickets and More Information

Boston, MA – GRAMMY®-nominated chamber orchestra and “world-wide phenomenon” (WBUR) A Far Cry (AFC) continues its 20th anniversary season with A Baroque Holiday, its second set of Neighborhood Chamber Concerts of the season, on Saturday, December 19, 2026 at 3:00pm at St. John’s Episcopal Church (1 Roanoke Avenue, Jamaica Plain) and Sunday, December 20, 2026 at 3:00pm at First Church Cambridge (11 Garden Street, Cambridge).

Curated by A Far Cry violinist Jae Cosmos Lee, A Baroque Holiday is an afternoon of radiant baroque music to celebrate the holiday season. A Far Cry hosts a warm reception and performs a festive concert on the brink of the winter solstice. Highlighting J.S. Bach’s beloved, exuberant Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048, the program also includes Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos in G minor, RV. 531, Antoine Dauvergne’s elegant and charming Concert de Simphonies No. 4 in A major, Op. 4/2, and Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8, Christmas Concerto, which captures the mystery of a 17th century midnight mass in Rome.

J.S. Bach’s famous Brandenburg Concertos were dedicated to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg on March 24, 1721. Bach wrote these six iconic works with great care, working diligently to live up to the enthusiastic interest and expectations of the royal dedicatee. Bach conveyed his hopes and aspirations for the works to the Margrave, saying, “I have then in accordance with Your Highness’ most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigor of the fine and delicate taste that the whole world knows Your Highness has for musical pieces; but rather to infer from them in benign consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience that I try to show Your Highness therewith.” Despite Bach’s apprehensions, the concertos have stood the test of time as some of the most enduring examples of concerto writing from the Baroque era, unparalleled in their complexity, structure, and melodic and harmonic vibrancy.

Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos in G minor, RV 531 stands out among the composer’s roughly 500 surviving concertos  because of its turn away from conventional concerto form and as the only concerto for two cellos that he wrote, out of his 30 for the instrument. The work’s three movements oscillate between the frenetic and the calm, with a somber Largo movement set between two fast and acrobatic movements. The result is one of Vivaldi’s most dramatic works.

While Antoine Dauvergne’s Concert de Simphonies No. 4 in A major, Op. 4/2 suggests the grandiosity of a symphony, the Concert de Simphonies aligns more closely with the style of the traditional French suite. Each “concert” presents an overture and a series of dance movements. The music has a delicate energy – vibrant but graceful, and more evocative of music from the early Classical era.

Of the twelve concertos, Corelli’s sixth Opus, No. 8 in G minor is the best known. The “Christmas Concerto” nickname is drawn from the work’s inscription: “Fatto per la notte di natale” (made for Christmas Night). Corelli does note that the work can be performed without the final Pastorale, writing “Pastorale ad libitum” in the score. However, 17th-century Italy viewed the pastorale as something associated with the Christmas season, calling to mind the shepherds who bore witness to the birth of Jesus, making it extremely rare for the work to be performed without it. Corelli is believed to have performed the work in 1690 in a church in Rome, though the music itself was not designated for liturgical purposes.

“Perhaps it’s the fickle and sensitive nature of the gut strings that force the string instruments to be played in cozy, temperate rooms indoors during a cold winter but, I grew up near traditions of Handel’s Messiah & Bach’s Brandenburg concertos being performed often during the Christmas holidays,” says Jae Cosmos Lee “And to my ears, the sound of a harpsichord, cello and a bass playing the continuo feels like receiving a warm glass of mulled wine sitting around a fire, and contrapuntal melodies of the violins remind me of putting my favorite ornaments on the Christmas tree. If all the audience who come to these concerts feel such warmth and comfort listening to these works, then it would certainly be a very merry holiday season indeed!”

A Far Cry’s 20th anniversary season includes nine thoughtfully curated programs presented throughout the Boston area including a grand finale anniversary celebration, from September 2026 through June 2027 at venues including New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, Old South Church in Boston, First Church in Cambridge, and the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama. See schedule below.

A Far Cry was founded in 2007 on the belief that every voice deserves to be heard; so instead of one artistic director, the collective of musicians curate and submit program ideas inspired by individual curiosities, the greater musical community, and what is happening in the world at large. The result is a dynamic representation of music and collaborators across genres and backgrounds. The Criers believe it is this core value and sense of curiosity and mission that led The Boston Globe to write that, “even though A Far Cry has decisively established itself as a mainstay of the Boston musical community, something about it feels perpetually fresh with every performance.” In addition to its home season in Boston, the ensemble tours nationally, collaborates regularly with other world-class musicians throughout the country, and has twice been nominated for GRAMMY® Awards in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category. The group’s recording of Rounds by Jessie Montgomery with pianist Awadagin Pratt on his album Stillpoint garnered Montgomery the GRAMMY® Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2024.

A Far Cry’s national tours have taken the ensemble to leading venues including The Kennedy Center, National Gallery of Art, Kaufman Music Center, the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, Caramoor, the Ravinia Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival-Shalin Liu, Groton Hill Music Center, Newport Classical Music Festival, and many more. The Criers are proud to call Boston home, and maintain strong roots in the city. Collaborating with local students through educational partnerships with the New England Conservatory and Project STEP, A Far Cry aims to pass on the spirit of collaboratively empowered music to the next generation.

More about A Far Cry: www.afarcry.org/group-bio

A Far Cry Season 20: At-a-Glance Concert Schedule

September 19: Goldberg Variations with Simone Dinnerstein, piano
October 24-25: Folie à deux
November 7: Mighty Fortress with Boston Children's Chorus, Ariadne Greif, soprano; Clare McNamara, alto; Brian Giebler, tenor; and Paul Max Tipton, bass
December 19-20: Brandenburgs (12/19), (12/20)
January 9-10, 2027: Coming to Boston: From Haiti with Charlot Lucien, Haitian poet (1/9), (1/10)
February 12, 2027: Heartstrings: The Most Beautiful Music in the World with Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, Boston Poet Laureate
March 13-14, 2027: The Greatest (3/13), (3/14)
April 10, 2027: Side by Side: Absolute Cinema with Students from New England Conservatory and Project STEP
June 5, 2027: Season 20 Celebration - Mix Tape for Boston: Costumes Change, Pulse Remains

A Far Cry’s full performance calendar: afarcry.org/all-concerts

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY®-nominated chamber orchestra and “world-wide phenomenon” (WBUR) A Far Cry continues its 20th anniversary season with a set of Neighborhood Chamber Concerts on Saturday, December 19 at St. John’s Episcopal Church and Sunday, December 20 at First Church Cambridge. Curated by A Far Cry violinist Jae Cosmos Lee, Brandenburgs is an afternoon of radiant baroque music to celebrate the holiday season. The festive concert program features two of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Antoine Dauvergne’s Concert de Simphonies, and Arcangelo Corelli’s Christmas Concerto.

Concert details:

Who: GRAMMY®-nominated chamber orchestra A Far Cry
What: A Baroque Holiday – A Neighborhood Chamber Concert
When: Saturday, December 19, 2026 at 3:00pm
Where: St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1 Roanoke Avenue, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Tickets and More Information: www.afarcry.org/all-concerts/brandenburg-jp

Who: GRAMMY®-nominated chamber orchestra A Far Cry
What: A Baroque Holiday – A Neighborhood Chamber Concert
When: Sunday, December 20, 2026 at 3:00pm
Where: First Church Cambridge, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Tickets and More Information: www.afarcry.org/all-concerts/brandenburg-cambridge

Caramoor Celebrates the Holiday Season & New Year - Christmas with Cantus Concerts, Holiday Tea Musicales, Holiday Rosen House Tours, and Much More

Photos available in high resolution here.

Caramoor Celebrates the Holiday Season & New Year

November 19: Juilliard Extension Class – Sacred Songs, Folk Roots: The Making of the Christmas Carol
December 3: Rosen House Studio Nights – Winter Wreath-Making
December 5: Kids Crafts at Caramoor – Winter Wreath-Making
December 6: Christmas with Cantus Concerts
December 9 to 20: Holiday Rosen House Tours
December 9 to 20: Holiday Tea Musicales
December 19: Gingerbread House Decorating for Families
January 5 to 26: Yoga in the Music Room Series 

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts | Rosen House
149 Girdle Ridge Road | Katonah, NY
Tickets & Information

Getting to Caramoor from NYC: Caramoor is an approximately one-hour ride on Metro-North from Grand Central to Katonah, NY.

KATONAH, NY – Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY, celebrates the season and welcomes the New Year with holiday-themed performances, classes, workshops, house tours, and teas from November through January. Highlights include Christmas with Cantus as part of the Rosen House Concert Series on Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 2:00pm and 4:00pm; plus Holiday Rosen House Tours, showing off the house decked for the holidays, running from December 9 to 20, 2026 at 12:30pm and 1:00pm (by advance ticket purchase only); Holiday Tea Musicales from December 9 to 20, 2026; and two Winter Wreath-Making workshops, one for adults on December 3 and one for children on December 5, 2026. Caramoor will also offer a Gingerbread House Decorating event for families, in collaboration with local bakery BreadsNBakes, on December 19, 2026 at 10:00am. New this year, through its inaugural lifelong-learning collaboration with Juilliard Extension Caramoor offers the class Sacred Songs, Folk Roots: The Making of the Christmas Carol on November 19, 2026. Additionally, from December 9 to 20, 2026 Caramoor’s Summer Dining Room is transformed into a Holiday Gift Shop, which includes locally made artisan goods. In January, Caramoor invites guests to reset for the New Year with Yoga in the Music Room, on Tuesday evenings throughout the month. Once the estate of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor is one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performance, cultural engagement, and exploration. The estate’s gardens and grounds are also open year round to visitors, free of charge, for picnicking and walking daily from 10am to 4pm.

Caramoor’s Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May, held in the exquisite Music Room of the historic home – a Mediterranean-style villa from 1939 filled with treasures from around the world. Audiences enjoy performances by some of today’s most in-demand artists in the same living room salon setting where the Rosens once entertained their many friends. As part of this Series, Caramoor rings in the season with Christmas with Cantus in two performances Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 2:00pm and 4:00pm. Now in its 32nd season, the widely acclaimed low-voice ensemble Cantus is known for its trademark warmth, blend, and innovative programming. Lessons and Carols for Our Time invites audiences to a rich, contemplative holiday experience that merges tradition with timely resonance. Cantus reimagines the beloved format of Lessons and Carols, exploring themes of hope, peace, and unity through classic carols, music from around the world, and a captivating blend of poetry curated by award-winning author Michael Kleber-Diggs. Celebrate the season with the timeless beauty of carols such as “Silent Night” and “I Saw Three Ships,” alongside recent works from bold, fresh compositional voices like Zanaida Robles, Kim Andre Arnesen, and Sarah Quartel. The program unfolds with a dynamic range of emotions and textures, featuring pieces by Eric Whitacre and Taku Izumi that spark reflections on faith and humanity. At once classic and modern, Lessons and Carols for Our Time is a heartfelt program that evokes the spirit of celebration and reflection.

Watch Cantus at Westminster Presbyterian Church

Prior to Christmas with Cantus, audiences have the opportunity to learn more about the caroling tradition on Thursday, November 19, 2026 from 6:00 to 8:00pm with Sacred Songs, Folk Roots: The Making of the Christmas Carol, one of the six classes that Caramoor is offering this season through a new collaboration with Juilliard Extension. Participants will learn from acclaimed professors and lecturers and engage in thoughtful discussion with fellow music lovers. Long before becoming synonymous with Christmas, carols originated in medieval Europe as lively folk dances, before eventually giving rise to some of the world's most cherished anthems. This lecture explores that rich evolution through the surprising backstories of several iconic carols, including Veni Emmanuel, O Tannenbaum, and Stille Nacht. Together, these vignettes reveal how local folk customs and monastic devotion intersected to forge a global holiday tradition. Taught by Juilliard Extension Music Theory and Analysis Chair Patrick Kreeger, who serves as associate organist at New York City’s historic Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church where he works with a 20-voice professional choir, this class is a great primer for Christmas with Cantus.

From December 9 to 20, 2026, Caramoor invites guests to step into a holiday wonderland on special Holiday Rosen House Tours at 12:30pm and 1:00pm daily (by advance ticket purchase only). The art-filled Rosen House is decked out for the holidays with enchanting decorations inspired by the cherished Rosen family archive. Beloved favorites like the towering Music Room tree will return, but there are new decorations as well, so returning visitors and first-time guests will be beguiled. The House offers a number of treasures, including complete 18th-century rooms, originally from private villas and chateaux in Italy, France, and England. The Burgundian Library is a French 17th-century, paneled room with a brilliant blue groin-vaulted ceiling. An exquisite 16th-century painted Spanish ceiling resides in an alcove off the Music Room. The Formal Dining Room features doors thought to have been designed by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1695-1770), made for a Venetian palace, along with turquoise Chinese export wallpaper featuring birds perched in flowering trees. The Music Room includes Renaissance furniture and architectural elements such as the intricately carved coffered ceiling from a house in Lecce, Italy; a pair of pink marble twisted columns from Verona, once in the collection of William Randolph Hearst; and a magnificent Franco-Flemish tapestry titled “The Holy Family.” With the holiday decor enhancing these extraordinary rooms, Caramoor’s Holiday Rosen House Tours offer a unique seasonal experience steeped in art, history, and beauty.

From December 9 to 20, 2026 at 2:00pm, Caramoor also offers Holiday Tea Musicales (by reservation only), featuring tea service in the Music Room and seasonal performances by vocalist Kimberley Hawkey with pianist Peter Yarin on December 9, 10, and 11; plus alumni of Caramoor’s Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program including mezzo-soprano Kate Morton with pianist Michele Wong on December 12, 13, and 15;  tenor Nathan Romportl on December 16 and 17; and soprano Sophia Baete with pianist Francesco Barfoed on December 18, 19, and 20. Following the spirited performances, the tea service includes an assortment of finger sandwiches, scrumptious holiday treats, a variety of teas, and hot chocolate with marshmallows for children.

On Thursday, December 3, 2026 from 6:30 to 8:00pm, Caramoor hosts Rosen House Studio Nights: Winter Wreath-Making. In this seasonal hands-on art workshop, floral designer Abby Blatte guides participants in creating their very own holiday wreath using fresh flowers and fragrant greens. Taking inspiration from the Rosen House’s beautiful holiday décor, the event will start with a self-guided tour of the West Corridor of the Rosen House. Participants will craft a stunning, personalized wreath that reflects their unique style, creating the perfect festive centerpiece to take home and enjoy all season long. All premium materials will be provided. On Saturday, December 5, 2026 from 10:00 to 11:30am, children can enjoy their own wreath making workshop with Kids Crafts at Caramoor: Winter Wreath-Making, also led by Abby Blatte. Parents or guardians must stay for the duration of the class.

On Saturday, December 19, 2026 at 10:00am, Caramoor invites families to celebrate the season with a festive Gingerbread House Decorating event in collaboration with BreadsNBakes. Perfect for children ages 4 and up (accompanied by an adult), this cozy, hands-on class offers a creative morning of holiday magic as participants bring their own candy cottages to life while sipping warm hot chocolate. Before the class begins, families can stroll through the Rosen House to gather inspiration from its holiday decor. Each child will take home their own decorated gingerbread house and gingerbread friend, wrapped and ready to display (or eat!). All materials are included: pre-baked gingerbread house pieces, icing bags, candies, and packaging. 

Following the holidays, Caramoor begins the New Year with a special yoga series on Tuesdays at 5:30pm throughout the month of January. Yoga in the Music Room is designed to nurture both body and mind. Each session offers a gentle, mindful practice led by an experienced instructor, with an emphasis on breath, alignment, and presence, providing a peaceful way to end the day while experiencing Caramoor from a new perspective. 

About Caramoor

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is a vibrant cultural destination nestled on 81 acres of historic gardens and woodlands in Katonah, NY. Once the home of music and art lovers Walter and Lucie Rosen, Caramoor has evolved into one of the region’s most distinctive destinations for live performances, cultural engagement, and exploration – a sanctuary for music, art, and nature.

Each year, Caramoor presents an exciting array of concerts across genres – from classical, opera, and chamber music to jazz, American roots, global sounds, and the American songbook. Caramoor’s acclaimed Summer Season brings audiences together for unforgettable outdoor performances from June into August in five distinct settings (the Venetian Theater, Friends Field, Spanish Courtyard, Sunken Garden, and the Music Room), while the intimate Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May in the historic Rosen House, a Mediterranean-style villa listed on the National Register of Historic Places and filled with treasures from around the world. With a mission to engage audiences of all ages, Caramoor also offers a selection of concerts and programs for families and our youngest listeners.

Caramoor is a place where music, history, and nature come together to create moments of beauty and connection for all who visit. In addition to hearing concerts, visitors to Caramoor can tour the spectacular Rosen House, explore its intriguing collections, enjoy a picnic, and experience the lush gardens and grounds – including Caramoor’s unique collection of site-specific Sound Art, permanently installed sound sculptures that draw inspiration from their environment. Caramoor also offers a formal afternoon tea service year-round in the Music Room (by reservation), the summer seasonal concessions Bravo Bar, and a selection of public programs such as yoga, art classes, and large-scale community events.

Ticketing Information

Concert tickets are available for purchase online at caramoor.org; by phone at 914.232.1252 Tuesdays through Fridays from 10am-4pm; and on site from the Box Office two hours before each performance.

Caramoor is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road in Katonah, NY.

How to get to Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit-us/amenities

More information about visiting Caramoor: caramoor.org/visit

At-a-Glance Calendar: 2026-27 Rosen House Concert Series Performances

Friday, October 2, 2026 at 7:30pm: Nobuntu

Friday, October 16, 2026 at 7:30pm: Bandits on the Run

Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 3:00pm: Countertenor Iestyn Davies and Harpist Oliver Wass

Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 3:00pm: Pianist Jonathan Biss

Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 3:00pm: Evnin Rising Stars

Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30pm: Pianist Aaron Diehl

Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet

Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 2:00pm and 4:00pm: Christmas with Cantus

Sunday, March 7, 2027 at 3:00pm: Schwab Vocal Rising Stars

Sunday, April 4, 2027 at 3:00pm: Viano Quartet

Friday, April 9, 2027 at 7:30pm: The Summer Camargo Quintet

Sunday, April 11, 2027 at 3:00pm: ACRONYM and Countertenor Reginald Mobley

Saturday April 17, 2027 at 7:30pm and Sunday, April 18, 2027 at 3:00pm: The Other Mozart with Creator & Actress Sylvia Milo

Sunday, April 25, 2027 at 3:00pm: Pianist Inon Barnatan

Sunday, May 2, 2027 at 3:00pm: Renaissance Quartet

Friday, May 7, 2027 at 7:30pm: Sister Sadie

Friday, May 14, 2027 at 7:30pm: Cabaret in the Music Room with Vocalist Mandy Gonzalez

For Caramoor's complete schedule, including the Rosen House Concert Series and Beyond the Music events: caramoor.org/events/calendar

Caramoor’s Rosen House Concert Series runs from October through May, held in the exquisite Music Room of the Rosens’ historic home – a Mediterranean-style villa from 1939 filled with treasures from around the world. 
Photo by Gabe Palacio available in high resolution here.

Saxophonist Valentin Signs to Sony Music Masterworks – First Single Out Today Rameau's The Arts and The Hours

Single Artwork (For Media Use) - Download
Publicity Photo - Credit: Dean Chalkley (Download)

Saxophonist Valentin Signs to Sony Music Masterworks
The Arts and The Hours by Jean-Philippe Rameau
First Single Out Today - Listen Here

Debut Album to be Released Spring 2027

(New York, NY – November 6, 2026) - Valentin, a brilliant young saxophonist newly signed to Sony Music Masterworks in an exclusive contract, is one of today's most exciting classical artists. With his virtuosic performances, innovative programming, dynamic artistry, ease across many musical genres, and strong online presence, Valentin is proud to elevate the saxophone to new heights and serve as a trailblazer for his instrument.

Over recent weeks, Valentin has been busy in the recording studio working on his forthcoming Masterworks debut LP set to arrive in the Spring of 2027. Today, Valentin shares his debut single, The Arts and the Hours, a serene and beautiful musical interlude from the lyric tragedy Les Boréades by French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – listen here.

“I’ve chosen to record Rameau’s The Arts and the Hours because I’ve always admired his music, and France holds a special place in my heart from studying and performing there,” says Valentin. “I find something almost ethereal in his slower pieces of music, and this one feels especially intimate. There is a strong sense of time stopping and being fully present - a moment of stillness. When approaching this recording, I wanted to preserve these qualities.

As I explored ways to arrange it for saxophone, I spoke with my friend, composer and arranger Dmitry Selipanov, who suggested experimenting with how it might sound with a modern analog synthesizer. It could offer almost unlimited sonic possibilities while providing the sustained harmonies I was looking for, and I loved this creative idea. Dmitry ultimately joined me on the recording, performing the synthesizer part himself, and together we gave this work a second life. This recording has a particular warmth, almost as if the music embraces you and draws you closer.

Revisiting Rameau’s music for this recording reminded me of my time in France and how it taught me to savor the moment and slow down. I hope that, as you listen to this version, you experience the same sense of stillness and presence that France and Rameau’s music have given me.”

ABOUT VALENTIN

Born in Siberia, Valentin first studied in Moscow before undertaking further studies in Paris and in the USA.  A huge turning point in his life and career came as he was applying for his scholarship at the Paris Conservatoire.  Unbeknown to Valentin, another talented student - Chinese saxophonist Aiwen Zhang - was also applying for the same coveted place.  Both proved to be so exceptional that the Conservatoire unusually decided to make two places available for both musicians to study there.  They would fall in love in Paris and marry and are now settled in the USA together with their two young daughters, where they share a vibrant life, combining music, travel, and family. 

Valentin makes a point of sharing his own stories online about balancing life as a musician, husband, and father.  Acutely aware of the pressures faced by professional musicians all over the world as they try to offset family and career, he hopes that by sharing his own personal thoughts and experiences, he can help to support and inspire other young musicians. 

Valentin frequently speaks about the importance of introducing young children to music and the arts, emphasizing the joy, enriching experiences, and sense of community they foster, as well as their potential to inspire creativity and shape positive pathways for the future.

A highly sought-after performer, Valentin has upcoming international performances including appearances in Mexico, Andorra, Taiwan, and across the US in New York City, Miami, Cleveland, and San Antonio. For a listing of future performances, visit his website and stay tuned for more dates to be announced soon.

As a passionate educator, Valentin teaches masterclasses around the world and was recently appointed Visiting Professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The music world eagerly awaits these first looks from this talented, vivid, and expressive young musician, keen to make his mark and to share his artistry with a wider audience.

FOLLOW VALENTIN
Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com.

OUT TODAY: Il Volo Releases Our Christmas – New Sony Album Celebrating The Magic Of The Holiday Season

Il Volo Announces New Sony Album Our Christmas
Celebrating The Magic Of The Holiday Season

The Album Will Accompany the Tour Across Italy’s Leading Arenas
Throughout The Month Of December
Il Volo - Christmas Nights

Out Today - Listen Here

Worldwide Album Release Date: Out Today

During the final evening of the concert event Uno Per Tutti, held in the prestigious setting of the Esedra at Palazzo Te in Mantua, Il Volo announced Our Christmas, the new album celebrating the magic of the holiday season.

The album is out today via Epic Records / Sony Music Italy and is available in CD and White LP formats here.

Recorded with the accompaniment of a full orchestra, Our Christmas brings together the unmistakable voices of Piero Barone, Gianluca Ginoble and Ignazio Boschetto with the power and elegance of symphonic music.

The project gives life to a special album that evokes the atmosphere, emotions and musical traditions of Christmas through the trio’s unique interpretations: from timeless classics such as White Christmas, Astro del Ciel, Adeste Fideles and Amazing Grace, to iconic songs including Feliz Navidad and It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas, as well as solemn and deeply moving renditions of Schubert’s and Gounod’s Ave Maria.

The new album will take center stage during Il Volo - Christmas Nights, the tour that will see the trio return to perform live in Italy’s leading arenas throughout December, presenting their Christmas repertoire alongside the most beloved hits from their career.

Produced by MT Opera & Blues and Friends & Partners, the tour will kick off on December 7 at the Unipol Forum in Milan, before continuing on December 12 at the Nelson Mandela Forum in Florence, December 17 at the Palazzo dello Sport in Rome, December 19 at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, and December 20 at the Unipol Arena in Bologna. Tickets are available via TicketOne.

OUR CHRISTMAS
TRACKLIST

Angels We Heard on High
Amazing Grace
Adeste Fideles
Astro del ciel
Ave Maria by F. Schubert
Feliz Navidad
O Holy Night
Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Ave Maria by. C. Gounod
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas
White Christmas

IL VOLO - CHRISTMAS NIGHTS

12/7/2026 – Milano @ Unipol Forum
12/12/2026 – Firenze @ Nelson Mandela Forum
12/17/2026 – Roma @ Palazzo dello Sport
12/19/2026 – Torino @ Inalpi Arena
12/20/2026 – Bologna @ Unipol Arena

IL VOLO
www.ilvolomusic.com
www.instagram.com/ilvolomusic
www.facebook.com/ilvolomusic

Out Today: Andrea Casarrubios's Sandglass - Second Single from Pianist David Kaplan's Album quasi una fantasia

Pianist David Kaplan Announces New Album
quasi una fantasia

Second Single Out Today: Andrea Casarrubios's Sandglass
Listen Here

“striking imagination and creativity” – The New York Times

Exploring the relationship between composition and improvisation centered around Beethoven’s two Sonatas quasi una Fantasia, Op. 27 Nos. 1 and 2

Release Date: November 20, 2026
Orchid Classics (Pre-Save)

CDs or press downloads available upon request.

davidkaplanpiano.com | orchidclassics.com

Pianist David Kaplan will release his second solo album, quasi una fantasia (“almost a fantasy”), on November 20, 2026 on Orchid Classics. Quasi una fantasia is centered around Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata quasi una Fantasia in E-flat major, Op. 27 No. 1 and Sonata quasi una Fantasia in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2, and explores the elusive boundary between composition and improvisation in both old and new music. Kaplan has surrounded these two sonatas with music by György Ligeti, Louis Couperin, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, and contemporary commissioned works by Christopher Cerrone, Anthony Cheung, and Andrea Casarrubios. Kaplan’s own improvised preludes and transitions connect the works on this intriguing recording. The second single from the album, Casarrubios's Sandglass, is out today. Listen here: https://lnkfi.re/AndreaCasarrubiosSandglass 

David Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by The Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has consistently drawn critical acclaim for creative programs that interweave classical and contemporary repertoire, often featuring newly commissioned works.

The theme of quasi una fantasia is a personal one for Kaplan. He writes in the album’s liner notes, “From a young age, extemporizing at the piano came much more naturally to me than sight-reading.” As a young student learning the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, he invented his own sequences and passagework over the composed harmonic progressions, a habit that became what he describes as a private “party trick.” Recently, Kaplan has brought this aspect of his artistry to the stage, improvising cadenzas in concertos and recomposing passages in reprises, in performance. Kaplan writes in the liner notes that the album is dedicated to his childhood teachers, Miyoko Lotto and Walter Ponce, “who tolerated countless hours of me playing anything but what was on the page.”

Each of the three new works – by "the Three Cs," as Kaplan calls them – captures a different side of fantasia. Cerrone's Passagework (2020) orbits a single driving ostinato, its relentless unity of idea recalling, in Kaplan's words, “a great solo by the saxophonist Chris Potter or the pianist Keith Jarrett.” Cheung's three-movement Holding Patterns (2020) captures improvisation in two contradictory ways. It calls for improvisation through passages of indeterminate notation, while elsewhere its meticulously notated rhythms and metric modulations are designed to sound like free improvisation. Cerrone’s and Cheung’s works are also related, each inspired by elements of the other’s recent piano concertos. Casarrubios' Sandglass (2022) evokes the states of falling sand – pent-up energy, inevitable cascade, and a final transformation into stillness, “as we watch time, literally, run out,” as the composer puts it in her note.

The shorter works on the album each set up a larger one. Ligeti's Musica ricercata No. 1, built on a single pitch, prepares the austerity of Cerrone's ostinato in Passagework. Couperin's Prélude non mesuré, notated with pitches but no rhythms, anticipates Cheung's blend of aleatoric and specified notation. Brahms' Intermezzo Op. 76 No. 4 and Schumann's "Warum?" from the Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 bookend the ruminative romanticism of Casarrubios’ Sandglass. Kaplan's improvised transitions, as he explains, serve “to create the illusion of continuity between disparate musical languages.”

At the heart of the album are Beethoven's two Sonatas quasi una Fantasia, Op. 27, which Kaplan describes as fantasies in opposite ways. In Op. 27 No. 2, the “Moonlight Sonata,” Beethoven uses simple, stock forms as firm ground on which to "improvise" surprising materials – an opening movement played without dampers to create a “song in a deep cave” effect, and an incredibly virtuosic moto perpetuo finale. The Sonata Op. 27 No. 1 in E-flat major does the reverse, combining humble materials with bold form. Kaplan writes, “The ‘fantasia’ element manifests in how the music jumps from one simple idea to the next, traversing distant keys, contrasting opposite tempi, and often leaving fragmentary ideas unfinished, hanging in the air.”

Kaplan feels that classical-era scores were never meant as “sacred tablets intended for eternal posterity.” In the Op. 27 Sonatas, he improvises at a handful of what he calls “cliffhanger moments,” describing these transitions as “where a virtuoso would have felt potential energy to be mined in the form of new, unplanned expression and display.” Unlike Frederic Rzewski’s famous 20-minute improvisation in the Hammerklavier, Kaplan’s goal is “to bend rather than break Beethoven,” imagining “what one extra degree of expression, embellishment, excitement, or harmonic invention might have sounded like in 1800 at the hands of a contemporary improvising pianist.” 

The album grew out of Kaplan's recital program of the same title, which he premiered as a guest artist of Piano Spheres at Los Angeles' Zipper Hall. 

“I hope this album, with its mix of old and new, thorough composition, mock improvisation, and true improvisation,” Kaplan writes, “manages to bottle just a little bit of the magic of fantasia.”

For more information, read the album’s complete liner notes here.

About David Kaplan: David Kaplan is a New York-born piano soloist and chamber musician currently based in Los Angeles. He has appeared with the Britten Sinfonia at London’s Barbican, Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin at the Philharmonie, and with the Symphony Orchestras of Baltimore, Hawaii, and San Antonio, among many others.

As recitalist, Kaplan has consistently drawn critical acclaim for programs that creatively interweave classical, contemporary, and newly commissioned works. He has performed at the Ravinia Festival, Sarasota Opera House, Music on Main in Vancouver, Strathmore, Washington’s National Gallery, and New York’s Carnegie and Merkin Halls.

Balancing solo performances with meaningful collaborations, he is a veteran of numerous distinguished chamber music festivals and series, such as Seattle Chamber Music, La Jolla, Bard, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Northwest, Bay Chamber, and Barge Music. As a core member of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall, he performs and teaches around the world. The ensemble’s self-titled debut album was recorded at Tippet Rise Art Center and released in 2024.

Kaplan’s acclaimed solo debut album blending Schumann with music by a dozen contemporary American composers, New Dances of the League of David, was released on New Focus Recordings in 2024. He can also be heard on Naxos, Marquis, Bright Shiny Things, Albany Records, and on Nonesuch as part of his longstanding duo with pianist/composer Timo Andres (Shy and Mighty, 2010).

A student of the legendary Claude Frank, Kaplan has served on the faculty of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music since 2016. He is proud to be a Yamaha/Bösendorfer Artist, and away from the keyboard, he loves cartooning and cooking, and is mildly obsessed with classic cars.

Photos of David Kaplan by Anna Azarov, album art and pack shot, download here.

Track List:
quasi una fantasia
David Kaplan, piano
Orchid Classics | Release Date: November 20, 2026

György Ligeti (1923–2006)
1 Musica ricercata No. 1 [2:33] 

Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984)
2 Passagework [7:53] 

David Kaplan (b. 1983)
3 (improvised prelude I) [1:38] 

Louis Couperin (c. 1626–1661)
4 Prélude non mesuré [2:37] 

Anthony Cheung (b. 1982)
Holding Patterns
5 I [5:00]
6 II [4:00]
7 III [5:27] 

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Sonata quasi una Fantasia in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2
8 Adagio sostenuto [4:31]
9 Allegretto [1:59]
10 Presto agitato [7:40] 

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
11 Intermezzo, Op. 76 No. 4 [2:00]

Andrea Casarrubios (b. 1988)
12 Sandglass [6:17] 

David Kaplan
13 (improvised prelude II) [1:34] 

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Fantasiestücke, Op. 12
14 “Warum?” [2:10] 

David Kaplan
15 (improvised prelude III) [0:20] 

Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata quasi una Fantasia in E-flat major, Op. 27 No. 1
16 Andante [5:05]
17 Allegro molto e vivace [2:00]
18 Adagio con espressione [3:07]
19 Allegro vivace – Tempo I (Adagio) – Presto [5:34]

Total time: 71:30

Credits

Recorded December 3–5, 2025 at the Recording Studio of the Evelyn and Mo Ostin Music Center at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Los Angeles, CA.

Producer: Silas Brown
Engineer: Sergey Parfenov
Additional editing: Ian Striedter
Bösendorfer 280VC piano provided by Yamaha Artist Services, prepared by Sean McLaughlin and Kayako Forrest 

Cerrone’s Passagework, recorded July 18, 2023, UCLA Recording Studio.
Engineer: Benjamin Maas.
Editing and mixing: Mike Tierney.
Mastering: Silas Brown.
Yamaha D-CFX piano prepared by Sean McLaughlin 

Liner notes: David Kaplan, with notes by Anthony Cheung, Christopher Cerrone, and Andrea Casarrubios
Photography: Anna Azarov

David Lang's Unchained Melody - Single from Steven Schick's Album It's About Time - Out Today

Islandia Music Records Releases Third Volume in
Weather Systems Series from Steven Schick

It’s About Time – Out on November 20, 2026

Single Out Today
David Lang's Unchained Melody
Listen Now

“Philosopher King of Percussion” – The New York Times 

Upcoming Performances by Steven Schick: December 4 & 5, 2026 – World Premiere by Tyshawn Sorey
Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY
Tickets & Information 

Press downloads and promotional CDs available upon request.

www.stevenschick.com | www.islandiamusic.com

New York, NY – Islandia Music Records releases Weather Systems III – It’s About Time, the final volume in a three-volume series from “one of the great percussion virtuosos of our time” (San Francisco Chronicle) Steven Schick, on November 20, 2026. Weather Systems is a set of recordings of the percussion music that has been most meaningful to Schick, which spans more than 100 years. A single from the album, David Lang’s Unchained Melody, is out today.

Percussionist, conductor, and author Steven Schick has championed contemporary percussion music by commissioning or premiering more than one hundred-fifty new works. The title of his series, Weather Systems, and the first album, A Hard Rain (2022), reflect Schick’s background growing up in a farming family in Iowa, always having one eye on the weather and in particular, on the rain. The second installment, Soundlines: On Language and the Land (2023), is an echo of Schick’s walk up the California coast: a musical changing of perspectives and connection with the world. In his liner notes, Schick writes, “Each [of these recordings] presents layered emotions in which a humorous façade dissolves to reveal deeper truths.”

This third volume in the series, It’s About Time, explores time as both a large-scale concept and a micro-temporal component of music. The 2-CD set features highly contrasting works for percussion by David Lang (Unchained Melody, String of Pearls, The Anvil Chorus), Michael Gordon (XY), Harrison Birtwistle (The Axe Manual), Iannis Xenakis (Rebonds), Brian Ferneyhough (Bone Alphabet), Kaija Saariaho (Six Japanese Gardens), and Rand Steiger (For Robert Erickson). Schick describes the collection as, “an ode to the reciprocal wisdom between past and present, between pieces I have lived with for decades and the newest of the new.”

Weather Systems is released on Islandia Music Records, the record label of cellist and producer Maya Beiser. Beiser says, “Steve Schick and I met over 30 years ago, in New York City. Both of us were involved with the Bang on a Can festival; we became founding members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Steve is a true virtuoso, possessing a rare artistic force which melds rigorous discipline with mesmerizing, hypnotic performance energy. Over the years we have collaborated on many different projects and remained close friends and artistic confidants. I am so thankful for the opportunity to help bring this monumental project to fruition with Islandia Music Records.”

Schick writes in his liner notes for this release:

“Any retrospective survey such as the Weather Systems series—seven CDs of personally meaningful solo and small-form chamber music that I recorded about the time I turned seventy—risks lapsing into nostalgia, that ill-advised desire to return to, purportedly, better times. But music helps us resist the backward urge. It shows us that the past need not be an anchor; it can be a root system.

The spine of It’s About Time consists of music from my decade as percussionist with the Bang on Can All-Stars, from 1992 to 2002. The founders of the Bang collective—composers, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang—and my original bandmates, Evan Ziporyn, Mark Stewart, Lisa Moore, Robert Black, and Maya Beiser are not only fearless artistic collaborators, they are life-long friends. This music is heard here in dialogue with canonic works by other composers important to me.”

About the Music:

David Lang’s Unchained Melody (2002) was, in Schick's words, “a gift from David when I left the All-Stars” that made the sadness of that departure more bearable. Each pitch of a simple melody played on the glockenspiel is paired with a unique percussive noise, and on this recording Schick teams up with computer musician William Brent, whose “ludbots” (MIDI-triggered kick-drum beaters) join gongs, bells, and broken cymbals to form what Schick describes in his liner notes as, “a strange and beautiful grunge gamelan.”

Schick describes Lang's String of Pearls (2006) as “a single line on a single instrument played out like the long arc of a fly fisherman’s line cast onto still water. Harmonies move slowly. The player’s hands move fast. And the listener is mesmerized by the beguiling eddies of marimba sound.”

Lang's The Anvil Chorus (1991), now a staple of the solo percussion repertoire, grew out of the image of a circle of blacksmiths all working together around the same piece of metal, carefully counting their blows to avoid striking one another. Scored for metallic instruments (ringing, dry, and a third group Lang once called “nasty”) as well as bass drum and wood blocks, Schick toured the piece with the Bang on a Can All-Stars performing on portable and borrowed instruments. For this recording Schick created what he calls, “a distinctly non-tour-able version,” featuring large brass bells, the heaviest of which takes three people to lift.

Michael Gordon's XY (1998) transforms five drums into what Schick hears as “an eloquent chorus,” built from interlocking crescendo/decrescendo phrases that escalate into ever more complex polyrhythms. Schick writes in his liner notes that, “The music projects the energy and expansiveness of an Elvin Jones solo, but at its core it is a barren aria with the inescapable melancholy of a Beowulf monologue.” 

Schick recorded Harrison Birtwistle's The Axe Manual (2000) with pianist Aleck Karis. The complex piece sets independent strands of piano and percussion against one another, often in different meters and tempos. Schick describes the goal as “organicity.” He writes, “With each instrument speaking its natural language, the stage is set for a ludic interplay of rhythm and texture; time and harmony.” 

Kaija Saariaho's Six Japanese Gardens (1994) was written after an extended visit to Kyoto, and references specific gardens in some cases through field recordings of Japanese music and natural sound. Schick finds that the music remains evocative throughout. He writes, “The sounds of Buddhist chanting accompanied by the tolling of gongs in the fourth movement, ‘The Rock Garden of Ryoan-ji,’ is haunting. And the solitary plinks of bell, stone, and triangle notes imitate the ubiquitous sounds of dripping water in the Moss Garden (Saiho-ji), perhaps the greenest place I have ever seen. In a final ingenious sleight of hand, one worthy of a composer of the stature of Saariaho, at the end of the sixth movement, ‘Stone Bridges,’ she pivots seamlessly to the music of the opening. We are returned to a sonic Urwelt of insects and drums; bells and breath. And we realize that we have not lost contact with the earth at all.”                                   

Rand Steiger's For Robert Erickson (2024), an homage to the co-founder of the University of California, San Diego, explores rhythm at a micro-level through what Schick describes as, “the frisson of acoustic beating between two vibraphones,” each one with one manual tuned to equal temperament and the other to just intonation. Schick writes, “As with any Steiger piece, the texture is electric with a lively interplay of rhythm and harmony. And I find that the slow bowed section at the middle of the piece, exploring the delicious differences between tuning systems, is among the most beautiful passages in all the solo percussion repertoire.”

Iannis Xenakis's Rebonds (1989) has become core repertory for percussionists, often performed, in Schick's view, with “a sense of triumph” as the player “vanquishes” its considerable challenges. Schick hears something different. He writes, “But in each Xenakis piece that I know there are moments of true impossibility, designed to thwart the heroic urge. When those impossible passages occur, the player has a simple choice—either stop playing or find a flawed and human solution to an unsolvable problem. Thus, Xenakis transforms a musical problem into an ethical one. Rebonds invites us to jettison the heroic and embrace the human.”

Brian Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet (1992) is so extremely difficult and dense that Schick learned it at what he describes as, “the glacial pace of roughly one month of intense practice per minute of music.” That slowness became its own kind of teacher, as Schick learned the piece over a long period of time, which included his father’s death in 1991. He writes, “I began learning Bone Alphabet by trying to show my mastery as a percussionist and ended with a willingness to reveal my shortcomings. . . Try it slower, then faster. Succeed here; let yourself fail there. Play it again. Practice. It might be difficult to imagine being comforted by music as prickly as Bone Alphabet. But without it I would have been lost.”

More About Steven Schick: Percussionist, conductor, and author Steven Schick was born in Iowa and raised in a farming family. Hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker as, “one of our supreme living virtuosos, not just of percussion but of any instrument,” he has championed contemporary percussion music by commissioning or premiering more than one hundred-fifty new works. The most important of these have become core repertory for solo percussion. Schick was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 2014. 

Steven Schick was artistic director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus from 2007 to 2022, and previously, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. As a conductor, he has appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, Ensemble Modern, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble.

Schick’s publications include a book, The Percussionist’s Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams, and many articles. He has released numerous recordings including the 2010 Percussion Works of Iannis Xenakis, and its companion, The Complete Early Percussion Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, in 2014 (both on Mode). He received the “Diapason d’Or” as conductor (Xenakis Ensemble Music with ICE) and the Deutscheschallplattenkritikpreis, as percussionist (Stockhausen), each for the best new music release of 2015.

Steven Schick is Distinguished Professor of Music and holds the Reed Family Presidential Chair at the University of California, San Diego. He was music director of the 2015 Ojai Festival, and co-artistic director, with Claire Chase, of the Summer Music Program at the Banff Centre from 2017-2019.

About Islandia Music Records: Islandia Music Records is an independent label founded by cellist and producer Maya Beiser. A home for boundary-breakers and sonic visionaries, it brings together avant-garde musicians, visual artists, sound designers, and technologists to forge new frontiers in art and sound. 

Steven Schick: Weather Systems III – It’s About Time
Islandia Music Records
Release Date: November 20, 2026 

Disc I
David Lang: Unchained Melody (2002) (7:13) *
David Lang: String of Pearls (2006) (9:20)
David Lang: The Anvil Chorus (1991) (8:00)
Michael Gordon: XY (1998) (16:02)
Harrison Birtwistle: The Axe Manual (2000) (23:38) ** 

Disc II
Iannis Xenakis: Rebonds (1989) (12:41)
Brian Ferneyhough: Bone Alphabet (1992) (12:19)
Kaija Saariaho: Six Japanese Gardens (1994) (16:06)
Rand Steiger: For Robert Erickson (2024) (21:06) 

*with William Brent, ludbots
**with Aleck Karis, piano

Recording engineers:

Samantha Dunscombe
David Lang: The Anvil Chorus; Kaija Saariaho: Six Japanese Gardens; Rand Steiger: For Robert Erickson 

Andrew Munsey
Iannis Xenakis: Rebonds; Brian Ferneyhough: Bone Alphabet; Harrison Birtwistle: The Axe Manual; Michael Gordon: XY 

Josef Kucera
David Lang: Unchained Melody; David Lang: String of Pearls

All pieces recorded at the University of California, San Diego, Studio A. 

Executive producer: Maya Beiser
Label manager: Kristen Loring
Art direction: Denise Burt / elevator-design.dk

Jan. 15: Pianist Khatia Buniatishvili Releases New Album Featuring Brahms and Schumann on Sony Classical

Pianist Khatia Buniatishvili
Releases New Album Featuring Brahms and Schumann
Out January 15, 2027 on Sony Classical

New Single by Robert Schumann
Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17: III. Langsam getragen. Durchweg leise zu halten
Out Today - Listen Here

Pre-Order Available Now

For her eleventh album on Sony Classical, pianist Khatia Buniatishvili takes on the most elaborate concerto of the nineteenth-century and Robert Schumann’s declaration of love for solo piano. The campaign launches on today, November 6, 2026 with the first single, Schumann’s Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17: III. Langsam getragen. Durchweg leise zu halten, ahead of the full album release on January 15, 2027. Pre-order is available now.

Known for her bold, personal and emotionally charged performances of Brahms’s music, Khatia Buniatishvili has now recorded the composer’s magisterial Piano Concerto No 2 for Sony Classical alongside Schumann’s Fantasie for solo piano – music that has been with the Georgian pianist since her first year at conservatory.

The new recording extends the pianist’s discography with Sony beyond 10 discs and returns her to a large-scale orchestral concerto on record for the first time since her acclaimed recording of Rachmaninoff concertos for the label in 2017.

The second of Brahms’s piano concertos is like no other work in the genre, setting up a profound dialogue between piano and orchestra that pianists liken to chamber music on the largest of scales.

Buniatishvili has long brought her own special qualities and personal imprint to what she describes as the piece’s ‘long, complex, contradictory, and intertwined phrases,’ balancing its delicate structures with her own emotional truthfulness and exposing a rare loneliness in the music.

The nature of the concerto also requires solo spots from members of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, conducted in this recording by Christoph Eschenbach who brings decades of experience in the central European repertoire to the work, and who played it as a pianist. Eschenbach recalls the collaboration with particular warmth:“Recording Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with Khatia Buniatishvili was an immense joy for me.  I was deeply moved by her passionate musicianship, the depth and extraordinary range of colours she displayed in the music, and the touching intimacy of her magnificent playing. Together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, a musical dialogue unfolded, filled with intensity and mutual inspiration. It is a collaboration I look back on with tremendous warmth of feeling.”

Buniatishvili herself is a seasoned but highly individual interpreter of Brahms’s music whose work with the composer has included lauded performances in recital of his testing Piano Sonata No 3.

Alongside Brahms on the album is music by Robert Schumann, the composer who became Brahms’s mentor. Buniatishvili has built a formidable reputation in Schumann performances. Her recording demonstrates her singular ability to capture something of the composer’s romantic free-spiritedness while her formidable technique makes no sacrifices against the text.

The pianist has described how she ‘fell completely in love’ with Schumann’s Fantasie in C major, a work in which the composer enshrined his love for his wife, the virtuoso pianist and composer Clara. At first, Buniatishvili played the work on pure romantic instinct, before stepping back to study and rediscover the piece and better access its depth and meaning.

Khatia Buniatishvili is one of the defining classical musicians of our time, an artist who seeks the truth of the musical moment above notions of perfection and a pianist with an almost unequalled delicacy of touch and a film-director’s ear for storytelling.

She signed to Sony Classical in 2010 and has now released eleven albums on the label – including the concept albums Motherland and Labyrinth – all of which have ignited conversations on interpretation, presentation and repertoire and many of which have received accolades including ECHO Klassik awards.

After strong statements in the music of Liszt, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Chopin and most recently Mozart concertos with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Buniatishvili is well placed to put her formidable pianism and fearless musical imagination in the service of Brahms as his most poignant and Schumann at his most rhapsodic.

OUT TODAY: Composer Amir ElSaffar Releases Ashwaaq – New Album on Maqām Records

Composer and Multi-Instrumentalist Amir ElSaffar 
Releases New Album Ashwaaq
Out Today on Maqām Records

CDs or press downloads available upon request.

Amir ElSaffar | Maqām Records

Today, November 6, 2026, New York City-based Iraqi-American composer, trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and modular synthesist Amir ElSaffar releases his new album Ashwaaq on Maqām Records, part of Maqām Studio, of which ElSaffar is the founder and Artistic Director - listen here. Ashwaaq is Amir ElSaffar’s ninth studio album and his second on Maqām Records. This recording is comprised of an original seven-movement composition for string quartet, voice, and santur (Iraqi hammered-dulcimer) by ElSaffar, that pairs his music with verses of poetry by thirteenth-century poet Ibn Arabi.

Alongside ElSaffar, the new album features renowned Syrian vocalist Khaled AlHafez, a carrier of traditional singing from Aleppo, and a string quartet with whom ElSaffar has deep musical relationships: his sister, Dena El Saffar on viola, with whom he co-leads an Iraqi Maqam ensemble; violinist Megan Gould, a major player in the Arabic music scene in New York who has played with Dena for over 30 years; Eylem Basaldi, an innovative violinist and improviser rooted in Turkish music; and cellist Naseem AlAtrash, a virtuoso and composer in his own right and member of the Turtle Island String Quartet.

Amir ElSaffar works at the intersections of jazz, Western classical, electro-acoustic music, and Iraqi and Arabic Maqam. Described as “the celebrated trumpeter and composer who explores vital connections between jazz and Arabic music” (New York Times), and “The Innovator” (SPIN), ElSaffar has created a unique microtonal language that merges the Arabic maqam modal system with jazz and Western classical harmony.

Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, or simply Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), is one of the most revered Sufi philosophers and mystics, whose work embodies the ideals of love and transcendence. The epic Turjuman Al-Ashwaq (Translator of Desires) is a collection of 61 poems that explores the divine and ecstatic nature of unity amid the diversity and variety of the manifest world. On Ashwaaq, selections from Ibn Arabi’s verses are paired with voice and string quartet, using the natural and inherent sound of string instruments to interpret and reflect upon the deeper meanings of Ibn Arabi’s texts.

“My heart can take on any form: a meadow for gazelles, a cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground, Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah, the scrolls of the Qur'án.
I profess the religion of love; wherever its caravan turns along the way, that is the
belief, the faith I keep.”

The final lines of this poem are among the most widely read and quoted in Arabic poetry, about love of the divine in its constantly changing manifestations. Here, Ibn Arabi finds the unity in all religions, faiths, and philosophies from a place free of dogma. That which is infinite cannot be grasped or contained and is perceived through an open heart “capable of every form.”

The musical side of Ashwaaq is built on much more than the series of melodies and rhythms. ElSaffar is driven by a transcultural perspective which draws on the universality of composing, listening, and reacting to music, reflecting the sentiments of Ibn Arabi’s verses. In his approach to this composition, ElSaffar explores the vast possibilities of sound, melody, harmony, and rhythm through the combination of traditional Arabic singing with the string quartet, to create a work that’s less about conventional analysis or structure and more about expressing the ecstasy, spirituality, and emotion of the poetry.

In order to best achieve his artistic vision, ElSaffar embraced a musical language known as maqam, a system of modes that has been practiced for centuries in North Africa, Western Asia, and Central Asia. These modes – similar to Western scales but with microtones and greater melodic specificity – determine the feeling and spiritual quality of a piece of music.

“Rather than relying on Western harmony or counterpoint, two approaches that conflict with the maqam’s inherent logic,” says ElSaffar, “the harmonies of Ashwaaq emerge from sustained microtonal resonances inherent to the maqam, and heterophony — the simultaneous renderings of a single melodic phrase with variation.”

ElSaffar finds even more inspiration in Arab musicality for Ashwaaq, using overtones of the Arab takht – chamber ensemble – as well as rhythmic pulsations that conjure folk instruments and dance. He then brings these elements together with string techniques and aspects of contemporary music. The choice to include a string quartet of Western instruments, as opposed to traditional Arab musical instruments, was guided by ElSaffar’s desire to express the plurality and multitude of meanings in Ibn Arabi’s text, a departure from the single-melody approach characteristic of traditional Maqam music. The work proposes a new form of polyphony based on the microtonal maqam, a delicate undertaking few have attempted, making it a unique contribution in both maqam music as well as Western chamber music.

Composed in 2014 on a commission from the Royaumont Foundation in France, where ElSaffar was composer-in-residence for three years, the work premiered at the Festival d’Avignon and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and had follow-up performances throughout Europe.

Left to right: Eylem Basaldi, Naseem AlAtrash, Khaled AlHafez, Amir ElSaffar, Dena El Saffar, Megan Gould

More about Amir ElSaffar: Amir ElSaffar leads the acclaimed six-piece Two Rivers ensemble and 17-piece Rivers of Sound Orchestra, and recently founded his New Quartet featuring microtonal piano. He is also the santur player and musical director for vocalist Hamid Al-Saadi, one of the last living practitioners of the Iraqi Maqam.

ElSaffar is the founder and Artistic Director of Maqam Studio and Maqam Records, an initiative supported by the Mellon Foundation, which seeks to preserve and foster innovation within the Maqam musical tradition of the Middle East. He is also composing an Arabic-language Maqam opera, which will have its concert premiere in 2027.

ElSaffar’s compositional output includes works for jazz ensembles, string quartets, mixed chamber ensembles, and symphony orchestras. In addition, he has led numerous hybrid projects with Raga, Flamenco, Stambeli (Tunisian Gnawa) and Subsaharan African trance music. In his most recent works he has incorporated electronic elements, such as analog modular synthesizer.

He has premiered new works at the Newport Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Dream City Festival (Tunisia), Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Festival d’Avignon (France), Flamenco Biennale (Netherlands), the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, and Pierre Boulez Saal, among others.

ElSaffar’s awards and honors include a Mellon Foundation Arts and Culture grant (2023-2028), Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2013), United States Artists Fellowship (2018), a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (2020-2021), an Opera America IDEA Grant (2025-2026) and Creative Capital Award (2026), in support of hisopera. in Arabic.

Ashwaaq
Music by Amir ElSaffar
Release Date: November 6, 2026
Maqām Records

Featuring Amir ElSaffar (santur and composition); Khaled AlHafez (voice); Megan Gould, Eylem Basaldi (violin); Dena El Saffar (viola); Naseem AlAtrash (cello)

Tracklist:

1. Introduction - Nizam [1:36]
2. I - Layta Shi'ri [2:29]
3. II - Qif Bil-Manazili [6:09]
4. III - Tal'a Al-Badru [4:28]
5. VI - Qalat [3:20]
6. V - Lam’at Lana Bil-Abraqayn [4:17]
7. VI - Al Hubbu Dini (Love is My Religion) [7:32]
8. VII - Ala Ya Banat Al-Wadi [2:37]

Total Time: [32:31]

Poetry by Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 AD)
Music by Amir ElSaffar
Produced by Maqām Records
Recorded by Marc Urselli at EastSide Sound, New York, NY on November 10, 2025
Mixed & Mastered by Marc Urselli at Audio Confidential, New York, NY

Cover Art by Amina Ahmed
Design by Buyana Jargalsaikhan
Commissioned by the Royaumont Foundation in 2014
Premiered at Festival d’Avignon and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in July, 2014

Dedicated to the memory of Frederic Deval (1951-2016)

Excerpts from Ibn Arabi’s collection of mystical love poems, Turjumān al-Ashwāq (The Translator of Desires), written in Mecca in 1215. Excerpts from a translation into English by Michael Sells (Princeton University Press, 2021) are included in the linear notes.

Nov. 22: World Premiere of Robert Sirota’s Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” – Performed by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA) Orchestra Led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson

L-R: Stephen Culbertson, Robert Sirota, SOMA Orchestra

World Premiere of Robert Sirota’s Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept”
in Many Voices, One Nation
at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on November 22, 2026

Performed by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA) Orchestra
Led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson

Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 4pm
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church | 414 E. Broad St. | Westfield, NJ
Free and Open to the Public
More Information
Livestream Here

Robert Sirota | SOMA | Stephen Culbertson

Westfield, NJ – On Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 4pm, Robert Sirota’s Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” will have its world premiere at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (414 E. Broad St.), presented by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA). The premiere will be performed by the SOMA Orchestra, led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson. The concert also includes Fanfare for the Common Man and Billy the Kid Suite by Aaron Copland, Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches by George Chadwick, and La Jolla Sinfonietta by Bohuslav Martinů, featuring pianist Evan Schwartman. The program, titled Many Voices, One Nation, is part of SOMA’s celebrations in honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States. The performance is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed here.

Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” grew out of Robert Sirota’s friendship with Stephen Culbertson. Being almost neighbors in Maine, Sirota and Culbertson have bonded at musical gatherings, specifically Sirota’s Searsmont Composers’ Conclave in 2025 and his Muzzy Ridge Concerts, held each summer since 2021. Over a summertime lobster dinner, Culbertson asked Sirota to compose a short orchestral piece for SOMA’s concert celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. Culbertson proposed a work based on a hymn by William Billings, the 18th-century American hymn composer often regarded as the father of American choral music.

Billings’ hymn When Jesus Wept, a four-phrase fuguing tune or round, resonated strongly with Sirota, who spent the next two weeks after that August dinner “fairly obsessed” with it. In early September, he mapped out the piece during long haul flights between the U.S. and Nagoya, Japan, where his Symphony No. 1: 212 received its Asian premiere on September 3. Finishing the work upon returning home, he delivered it to Culbertson on October 8. Both the music and text of the hymn When Jesus Wept were written in Boston in 1770, the beginning of a tumultuous decade in American history, and were first printed that year in Billings’ The New-England Psalm-Singer, the first book of music entirely composed by an American-born composer. The text, written by Massachusetts legislator and attorney general Perez Morton (who in 1770, was a student at Harvard College), is a meditation on the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus Wept” (John 11:35), in which Jesus sheds tears over his friend Lazarus.

“Given the fraught times in which Billings and Morton lived and worked,” Sirota says, “the hymn must have had contemporary resonance for them, as it does for me in our time.”

When Jesus Wept, the falling tear
In mercy flowed beyond all bound.
When Jesus groaned, a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.

–Perez Morton, 1770

About Robert Sirota: Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US, Europe, and Asia; ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; the Chiara, American, Telegraph, and Blair String Quartets; the Neave, Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and at music festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, Cooperstown, Bowdoin, and the Mizzou International Composers Festival. Recent commissions include the Neave Trio, Judith Clurman/Essential Voices USA, Jeffrey Kahane and the Sarasota Music Festival, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Palladium Musicum, American Guild of Organists, the American String Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Naumburg Foundation, yMusic, and arrangements for Paul Simon. Recipient of grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, the United States Information Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet The Composer, and the American Music Center, Sirota’s works are recorded on the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo, and Azica labels. Sirota’s music is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Hal Leonard, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore.

About Stephen Culbertson: Stephen Culbertson brings over 40 years of experience to the Society of Musical Arts, having conducted orchestras, opera productions, and ballet companies in Europe and the United States since 1977. Since 2010, he has served as Music Director and Conductor of SOMA, where he has grown the orchestra and audience to the point where it has outgrown three venues. Culbertson also recently served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Ridgewood (NJ) Symphony Orchestra. His other recent activities include conducting productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and Candide with the State Repertory Opera of New Jersey and various stints as interim music/choir director at the Presbyterian Church of Upper Montclair.

About Society of Musical Arts (SOMA): The Society of Musical Arts (SOMA) was founded in 1981 by Dr. Samuel Applebaum, New Jersey's world-renowned master teacher of the violin. The orchestra is an expression of Dr. Applebaum's vision of providing opportunities for both amateur and professional musicians to present concerts of orchestral music free to the public, with multi-generational appeal, in a location convenient to the residents of Essex, Union, Morris and nearby counties.

For Calendar Editors:

Concert details:

Who: Society of Musical Arts (SOMA Orchestra, with pianist Evan Schwartman
Presented by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA)|
Led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson
What: Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” by Robert Sirota (World Premiere), Fanfare for the Common Man and Billy the Kid Suite by Aaron Copland, Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches by George Chadwick, and La Jolla Sinfonietta by Bohuslav Martinů
When: Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 4pm
Where: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 414 East Broad Street, Westfield, NJ 07090
More information (Free and Open to the Public): somaorchestra.org/upcoming/2026/11/22/fall-concert-happy-250th-again-america
Livestream: https://www.somaorchestra.org/ (Click the banner at the top of the page on the day of the concert)

Description: On November 22, 2026, Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” by composer Robert Sirota has its world premiere at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, presented by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA). Performed by the Society of Musical Arts Orchestra and led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson, the premiere is part of Many Voices, One Nation, SOMA’s celebration for the 250th anniversary of America. The program will also include Fanfare for the Common Man and Billy the Kid Suite by Aaron Copland, Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches by George Chadwick, and La Jolla Sinfonietta by Bohuslav Martinů, featuring pianist Evan Schwartman. The concert is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed.

March 5: PIanist Louis Philippson Enchants with New Sony Classical Album Masquerade – A Musical Journey Through Centuries of Dance

Pianist Louis Philippson Enchants with Masquerade
A Musical Journey Through Centuries of Dance

New Single Moonlight Out Now – Listen Here

New Album Out on Sony Classical March 5, 2027
Pre-Order Available Now

On March 5, 2027, Sony Classical releases Masquerade, the new album by pianist, composer, and creator Louis Philippson – pre-order is available now. Inspired by the centuries-old tradition of the Venetian masquerade ball, the album becomes a grand musical celebration of dance, transformation, and encounter, bringing together styles, eras, and audiences in a uniquely entertaining and imaginative way. New single Moonlight is out now – listen here.

From the elegance of the ballroom to today's club culture, dance music has shaped musical life for centuries. It has brought people together, reflected the spirit of its time, and crossed social boundaries. With Masquerade, Louis Philippson follows in this tradition, exploring how music has united people on dance floors across generations and cultures. The result is an imaginative new album that moves effortlessly between Bach and ‘Berghain’, Strauss and swing, Latin rhythms, and contemporary pop culture.

The album campaign began on September 25, 2026, with the launch of the pre-order and the first single, Berghain, featuring acclaimed violinist, Esther Abrami. Louis Philippson's version of Rosalía’s hit reimagines the piece as a purely classical work for piano, solo violin, and orchestra, where the piano takes over the choral lines from the original, while the violin and piano share the lead melody.

Several intimate solo piano variations reveal new colors in classical works originally conceived for very different settings. These include re-imaginings of Bach's Minuet in G Major, Liszt's Consolation No. 3, Mozart's Menuetto from Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and Brahms's Waltz in A-flat Major and Puccini's Piccolo valzer also appears in a piano arrangement. Alongside these are Louis's original compositions Duetto, Wehmut’, Rose Waltz, and Sehnsucht, whose lyrical melodies and atmospheric sound world draw inspiration from both Chopin and contemporary neoclassical music.

Alongside these solo piano works, the album features epic orchestral arrangements and original compositions. A vivid Strauss medley celebrates the Viennese ballroom tradition, combining themes from ‘Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka’, the Emperor Waltz, The Blue Danube, Vienna Blood, and Tales from the Vienna Woods. Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers is transformed into a virtuoso showpiece for piano and orchestra, while Chopin's Waltz in C-sharp Minor takes on a more dramatic, film music-inspired character in a new orchestral arrangement. Gershwin's ever popular Rhapsody in Blue is presented in a newly condensed version that brings together its most memorable themes.

The album also explores the dance music traditions of North and Latin America. Band leader, pianist and composer, Duke Ellington's It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) is reimagined with piano, rhythm section, and brass taking over the song's iconic vocal lines. New arrangements of Mas que Nada and Malagueña place the piano at the center of their Latin rhythms, supported by brass, percussion, and vibrant orchestral colors.

Contemporary popular music becomes part of this journey too via a large-scale instrumental re-imagining of Queen's iconic Bohemian Rhapsody. It brings together piano, orchestra, and electric guitar in an epic symphonic rock setting.

Louis Philippson also steps decisively into the spotlight as a composer, as Masquerade features a highly imaginative new composition built around a motif from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, yet played in reverse. Its richly textured orchestration creates an atmospheric sound world that evokes influences ranging from Philip Glass to Max Richter.

Masquerade will be released on March 5, 2027, via Sony Classical on CD, 180g color vinyl, and digitally in stereo and the immersive audio format Dolby Atmos.

Out Today: ECM New Series Releases Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica - Pages of a Biography

Gidon Kremer
Kremerata Baltica
Pages of a Biography

 Works by Arvo Pärt, Andrius Žlabys and Georgs Pelēcis 

Gidon Kremer, violin
Kremerata Baltica

ECM New Series 2803
Release Date: October 30, 2026

Downloads and CDs available upon request.

Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica ensemble continue the longstanding relationship with ECM’s New Series on Pages of a Biography, a programme of works by Georgs Pelēcis, Andrius Žlabys and Arvo Pärt. The three composers heard here are closely connected to Kremer’s work as an interpreter and advocate of Baltic music: Pelēcis and Žlabys have written works specifically for him and Kremerata Baltica, while Pärt’s music has been a constant presence throughout his artistic life.

The album opens with Pärt’s Passacaglia, written in 2007 for Kremer’s 60th birthday. Scored for two violins, vibraphone ad libitum and strings, it explores the relationship between a recurring harmonic pattern and the changing character of the violin line. For Kremer, the piece also establishes a direct connection with Tabula Rasa, Pärt’s 1977 composition which became the first album to be released on the New Series imprint in 1984.

The connection between Pärt and Kremer is both musical and biographical. Tabula Rasa was a decisive recording in the history of ECM’s New Series and in the international reception of Pärt’s music. More than four decades later, Passacaglia places Kremer once again inside a dialogue with the composer’s work, while Darf ich …, composed in 1999 for solo violin, tubular bell and strings, brings the programme to a more intimate conclusion. Kremer describes the latter as “almost a prayer” and as a reminder of the responsibility of the musician to serve something beyond the self. 

Between the two Pärt works are pieces by two composers with particularly close connections to Kremer. The title work, Georgs Pelēcis’s Pages of a Biography, was written specifically for Kremer in 2007. Pelēcis and Kremer grew up together in Riga and later shared a room at the Moscow Conservatory. His concerto draws directly on memories of Kremer’s early career, from his prize-winning performances in Latvia and at the Queen Elisabeth Competition to his victories at the Tchaikovsky Competition and his interpretations of the Brahms, Elgar, Sibelius and Beethoven violin concertos. These memories become part of the musical material itself. Pelēcis incorporates quotations from the four concertos into the work, setting them against more dramatic episodes and passages for solo violin that he describes as “intimate pages from a personal diary”.

Andrius Žlabys’s Kaleidoscope of Lost Time, written between 2014 and 2020, is dedicated to Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica. Its five movements — Prelude, Scherzacaglia, Dissonance, Quarter=87 and Perpetuum — approach the idea of time from different perspectives. Žlabys describes the work as an attempt to capture “the feeling of time slipping away like sand through fingers”, transforming experiences of beauty and sadness into something that can be revisited through music. The violin writing was conceived with Kremer’s sound in mind from the earliest sketches. 

Founded by Kremer in 1997, Kremerata Baltica brought together young musicians from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, giving a permanent form to his commitment to the musical culture of the region. Pages of a Biography continues this work through a programme in which the connections are unusually direct. It furthermore marks the anniversaries of both the ensemble, which turns 30 in 2027, and of Gidon Kremer himself, who’s 80th birthday celebrations in 2027 are inaugurated with this release.

It is thus an album in which Kremer’s artistic biography is not simply the subject of the music but part of its history. The pieces belong to different moments and generations, yet their connections — between composers and performer, between memory and the present — form a continuous thread through Kremer’s long association with the label.

OUT TODAY: Ian Axel of A Great Big World Releases The Spider – Cinematic Piano Track on Sony Music Masterworks

Single Artwork (For Media Use) - Download

Ian Axel from A Great Big World Unveils Cinematic New Piano Track
The Spider

Out Today – Listen Here

NEW YORK, NY (OCTOBER 30, 2026) –– Today, IAN AXEL, GRAMMY® Award-winning singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, and one half of A Great Big World, unveils his cinematic new piano track The Spider via Sony Music Masterworks – listen here. Released just in time for Halloween, Axel’s favorite holiday, the haunting, yet whimsical new instrumental song was inspired by a vivid image of a lone spider spinning its web as the world around it slowly comes alive.

“When I was a kid, the piano felt like this place where anything could happen,” says Ian Axel. “I could sit down and create my own musical world with my imagination. While composing The Spider, I found my way back to that kid and am honoring the part of myself that fell in love with music before I ever thought about what it was supposed to become.”

With The Spider, Axel embraces a new kind of storytelling, using melody in place of lyrics to conjure characters, images, and worlds of his own. This release marks an exciting and deeply personal new chapter, reaffirming his place as a visionary artist as he continues to push creative boundaries and welcome listeners into the vivid soundscapes of his imagination.

PR Photo - Photo Credit: Juankr (Download)

ABOUT IAN AXEL
Ian Axel is a GRAMMY® Award-winning singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, and one half of A Great Big World. A classically trained pianist and lifelong songwriter, Axel first gained attention with “This Is the New Year” before joining longtime collaborator Chad King to form A Great Big World in 2012. The duo achieved worldwide success with their Christina Aguilera collaboration “Say Something,” which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned the 2015 GRAMMY® Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The song has since been certified RIAA Diamond and surpassed one billion streams, while the duo’s Gold-certified debut album, Is There Anybody Out There?, debuted in the top three on the Billboard 200. Beyond A Great Big World, Axel and King’s work spans music, film, television and theater, with songwriting credits and collaborations including Andrea Bocelli, Matteo Bocelli, Ellie Goulding, Gwen Stefani, Ingrid Michaelson, Pentatonix, Jason Mraz and Rachel Platten. Most recently, the duo wrote the musical adaptation of Wonder and are developing a musical adaptation of Silver Linings Playbook. At the same time, Axel is creating a great big world of his own, returning to his roots as a pianist with new solo music set for release in spring 2027.

Ian Axel – The Spider
Listen Here

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Pianist David Kaplan Releases First Single from New Album quasi una fantasia - Christopher Cerrone's Passagework

Pianist David Kaplan Announces New Album
quasi una fantasia

First Single Out Now: Christopher Cerrone's Passagework
Listen Here

“striking imagination and creativity” – The New York Times

Exploring the relationship between composition and improvisation centered around Beethoven’s two Sonatas quasi una Fantasia, Op. 27 Nos. 1 and 2

Release Date: November 20, 2026
Orchid Classics (Pre-Save)

CDs or press downloads available upon request.

davidkaplanpiano.com | orchidclassics.com

Pianist David Kaplan will release his second solo album, quasi una fantasia (“almost a fantasy”), on November 20, 2026 on Orchid Classics. Quasi una fantasia is centered around Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata quasi una Fantasia in E-flat major, Op. 27 No. 1 and Sonata quasi una Fantasia in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2, and explores the elusive boundary between composition and improvisation in both old and new music. Kaplan has surrounded these two sonatas with music by György Ligeti, Louis Couperin, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, and contemporary commissioned works by Christopher Cerrone, Anthony Cheung, and Andrea Casarrubios. Kaplan’s own improvised preludes and transitions connect the works on this intriguing recording. The first single from the album, Cerrone's Passagework, is out now. Listen here: https://lnkfi.re/Passagework

David Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by The Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has consistently drawn critical acclaim for creative programs that interweave classical and contemporary repertoire, often featuring newly commissioned works.

The theme of quasi una fantasia is a personal one for Kaplan. He writes in the album’s liner notes, “From a young age, extemporizing at the piano came much more naturally to me than sight-reading.” As a young student learning the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, he invented his own sequences and passagework over the composed harmonic progressions, a habit that became what he describes as a private “party trick.” Recently, Kaplan has brought this aspect of his artistry to the stage, improvising cadenzas in concertos and recomposing passages in reprises, in performance. Kaplan writes in the liner notes that the album is dedicated to his childhood teachers, Miyoko Lotto and Walter Ponce, “who tolerated countless hours of me playing anything but what was on the page.”

Each of the three new works – by "the Three Cs," as Kaplan calls them – captures a different side of fantasia. Cerrone's Passagework (2020) orbits a single driving ostinato, its relentless unity of idea recalling, in Kaplan's words, “a great solo by the saxophonist Chris Potter or the pianist Keith Jarrett.” Cheung's three-movement Holding Patterns (2020) captures improvisation in two contradictory ways. It calls for improvisation through passages of indeterminate notation, while elsewhere its meticulously notated rhythms and metric modulations are designed to sound like free improvisation. Cerrone’s and Cheung’s works are also related, each inspired by elements of the other’s recent piano concertos. Casarrubios' Sandglass (2022) evokes the states of falling sand – pent-up energy, inevitable cascade, and a final transformation into stillness, “as we watch time, literally, run out,” as the composer puts it in her note.

The shorter works on the album each set up a larger one. Ligeti's Musica ricercata No. 1, built on a single pitch, prepares the austerity of Cerrone's ostinato in Passagework. Couperin's Prélude non mesuré, notated with pitches but no rhythms, anticipates Cheung's blend of aleatoric and specified notation. Brahms' Intermezzo Op. 76 No. 4 and Schumann's "Warum?" from the Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 bookend the ruminative romanticism of Casarrubios’ Sandglass. Kaplan's improvised transitions, as he explains, serve “to create the illusion of continuity between disparate musical languages.”

At the heart of the album are Beethoven's two Sonatas quasi una Fantasia, Op. 27, which Kaplan describes as fantasies in opposite ways. In Op. 27 No. 2, the “Moonlight Sonata,” Beethoven uses simple, stock forms as firm ground on which to "improvise" surprising materials – an opening movement played without dampers to create a “song in a deep cave” effect, and an incredibly virtuosic moto perpetuo finale. The Sonata Op. 27 No. 1 in E-flat major does the reverse, combining humble materials with bold form. Kaplan writes, “The ‘fantasia’ element manifests in how the music jumps from one simple idea to the next, traversing distant keys, contrasting opposite tempi, and often leaving fragmentary ideas unfinished, hanging in the air.”

Kaplan feels that classical-era scores were never meant as “sacred tablets intended for eternal posterity.” In the Op. 27 Sonatas, he improvises at a handful of what he calls “cliffhanger moments,” describing these transitions as “where a virtuoso would have felt potential energy to be mined in the form of new, unplanned expression and display.” Unlike Frederic Rzewski’s famous 20-minute improvisation in the Hammerklavier, Kaplan’s goal is “to bend rather than break Beethoven,” imagining “what one extra degree of expression, embellishment, excitement, or harmonic invention might have sounded like in 1800 at the hands of a contemporary improvising pianist.” 

The album grew out of Kaplan's recital program of the same title, which he premiered as a guest artist of Piano Spheres at Los Angeles' Zipper Hall. 

“I hope this album, with its mix of old and new, thorough composition, mock improvisation, and true improvisation,” Kaplan writes, “manages to bottle just a little bit of the magic of fantasia.”

For more information, read the album’s complete liner notes here.

About David Kaplan: David Kaplan is a New York-born piano soloist and chamber musician currently based in Los Angeles. He has appeared with the Britten Sinfonia at London’s Barbican, Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin at the Philharmonie, and with the Symphony Orchestras of Baltimore, Hawaii, and San Antonio, among many others.

As recitalist, Kaplan has consistently drawn critical acclaim for programs that creatively interweave classical, contemporary, and newly commissioned works. He has performed at the Ravinia Festival, Sarasota Opera House, Music on Main in Vancouver, Strathmore, Washington’s National Gallery, and New York’s Carnegie and Merkin Halls.

Balancing solo performances with meaningful collaborations, he is a veteran of numerous distinguished chamber music festivals and series, such as Seattle Chamber Music, La Jolla, Bard, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Northwest, Bay Chamber, and Barge Music. As a core member of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall, he performs and teaches around the world. The ensemble’s self-titled debut album was recorded at Tippet Rise Art Center and released in 2024.

Kaplan’s acclaimed solo debut album blending Schumann with music by a dozen contemporary American composers, New Dances of the League of David, was released on New Focus Recordings in 2024. He can also be heard on Naxos, Marquis, Bright Shiny Things, Albany Records, and on Nonesuch as part of his longstanding duo with pianist/composer Timo Andres (Shy and Mighty, 2010).

A student of the legendary Claude Frank, Kaplan has served on the faculty of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music since 2016. He is proud to be a Yamaha/Bösendorfer Artist, and away from the keyboard, he loves cartooning and cooking, and is mildly obsessed with classic cars.

Photos of David Kaplan by Anna Azarov, album art and pack shot, download here.

Track List:
quasi una fantasia
David Kaplan, piano
Orchid Classics | Release Date: November 20, 2026

György Ligeti (1923–2006)
1 Musica ricercata No. 1 [2:33] 

Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984)
2 Passagework [7:53] 

David Kaplan (b. 1983)
3 (improvised prelude I) [1:38] 

Louis Couperin (c. 1626–1661)
4 Prélude non mesuré [2:37] 

Anthony Cheung (b. 1982)
Holding Patterns
5 I [5:00]
6 II [4:00]
7 III [5:27] 

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Sonata quasi una Fantasia in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2
8 Adagio sostenuto [4:31]
9 Allegretto [1:59]
10 Presto agitato [7:40] 

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
11 Intermezzo, Op. 76 No. 4 [2:00]

Andrea Casarrubios (b. 1988)
12 Sandglass [6:17] 

David Kaplan
13 (improvised prelude II) [1:34] 

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Fantasiestücke, Op. 12
14 “Warum?” [2:10] 

David Kaplan
15 (improvised prelude III) [0:20] 

Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata quasi una Fantasia in E-flat major, Op. 27 No. 1
16 Andante [5:05]
17 Allegro molto e vivace [2:00]
18 Adagio con espressione [3:07]
19 Allegro vivace – Tempo I (Adagio) – Presto [5:34]

Total time: 71:30

Credits

Recorded December 3–5, 2025 at the Recording Studio of the Evelyn and Mo Ostin Music Center at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Los Angeles, CA.

Producer: Silas Brown
Engineer: Sergey Parfenov
Additional editing: Ian Striedter
Bösendorfer 280VC piano provided by Yamaha Artist Services, prepared by Sean McLaughlin and Kayako Forrest 

Cerrone’s Passagework, recorded July 18, 2023, UCLA Recording Studio.
Engineer: Benjamin Maas.
Editing and mixing: Mike Tierney.
Mastering: Silas Brown.
Yamaha D-CFX piano prepared by Sean McLaughlin 

Liner notes: David Kaplan, with notes by Anthony Cheung, Christopher Cerrone, and Andrea Casarrubios
Photography: Anna Azarov

Dec 2: Holiday Music in the Courtyard at the Gardner Museum - an immersive evening of music from across four centuries

Holiday Music at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, available in high resolution here.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Presents
Holiday Music in the Courtyard 2026

Led by George Steel
Performances by Vox Vocal Ensemble, American Brass Quintet, and Special Guest Salar Nader, Tabla

Featuring a World Premiere by John Zorn

Wednesday, December 2, 2026 from 6–9 pm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Courtyard
25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/holiday-music-courtyard-1

For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com

BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum reimagines the traditional holiday concert with its annual Holiday Music in the Courtyard celebration, from 6–9pm on Wednesday, December 2, 2026. The performance will take place in the Gardner Museum’s famed Courtyard, while guests are invited to watch from the surrounding galleries, strolling through the Museum to take in the music from every angle. (Please note, this is not a seated concert.) 

Led by George Steel, Abrams Curator of Music, this immersive evening will showcase music from across four centuries, celebrating a variety of cultures’ winter traditions. The performance features the acclaimed Vox Vocal Ensemble, which Steel founded in 1990, and the all-star American Brass Quintet—described by The New York Times as the most venerable of North American brass ensembles—with additional brass and percussion. The festive event will include opportunities for everyone to sing along in familiar carols, including “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” “The First Noel,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” 

This year’s celebration welcomes special guest Salar Nader, the tabla virtuoso recognized as a global ambassador weaving South Asian arts into the musical traditions of his Afghan heritage. A student of Ustad Zakir Hussain from the age of seven, Nader has toured with Stanley Clarke, Kronos Quartet, and Wu Man. Born in Los Angeles, Nader is committed to bringing the tabla to a wide audience. He has appeared on soundtracks including the 2012 film The Reluctant Fundamentalist and recently scored the Broadway stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

The Holiday Music program ranges from Renaissance treasures including William Byrd’s motet Vigilate and dances from Michael Praetorius’s Terpsichore, to the traditional carols “Gaudete” and “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” (arranged by David Willcocks), Richard Wayne Dirksen’s Chanticleer in a new arrangement by George Steel, and music by David Jason Snow. The evening features the world premiere of tzur hanevi’im, a new work by John Zorn composed expressly for the 16 singers performing, and closes with Steel’s own The Three Kings, newly revised for this year’s celebration.

The music and sing-along will run from 7–8 pm, and ticket holders can come early at 6 pm or stay late until 9 pm to enjoy the Museum galleries, shop at Gift at the Gardner, or purchase treats from Café G’s holiday menu of small plates and cocktails/mocktails.

Visible from virtually any gallery in the Palace, the Courtyard is the heart and soul of the Gardner Museum, with changing horticultural displays throughout the year. In December, the festive garden features dark forest greens and shades of red and silver including masses of flowering jade trees, silver dusty miller, green aloe, and the dark red winter blooms of amaryllis, creating a magical setting for Holiday Music in the Courtyard. 

George Steel’s music programming for the Museum continues founder and legendary arts patron Isabella Stewart Gardner’s vision of bringing together musicians and audiences for inspiring gatherings. Dating to 1927, the Gardner’s Weekend Concert Series is the longest running museum music program in the country. Much like Isabella Stewart Gardner did in her time, Steel champions unknown repertoire and embraces new works, creates connections and builds community among musicians, and supports them by presenting them in new endeavors and collaborations. His programming also frequently draws on the history of the Gardner Museum, featuring instruments from the Museum’s collection and music by composers who were associated with its founder. In honoring Isabella Stewart Gardner’s musical legacy, Music at the Gardner remains strongly committed to broadening the repertoire of music presented to include previously overlooked and marginalized composers as well as performers of all backgrounds.

About the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invites you to escape the ordinary in a magical setting where art and community come together to inspire new ways of envisioning our world. Embodying the fearless legacy of its founder, the Museum offers a singular invitation to explore the past through a contemporary lens, creating meaningful encounters with art and joyful connections for all. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, unforgettable galleries surround a luminous Courtyard and are home to masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent. The Renzo Piano Wing provides a platform for contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars and serves as an innovative venue where creativity is celebrated in all of its forms.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115 • Hours: Open Weekends from 10 am to 5 pm, Weekdays from 11 am to 5 pm, and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • General admission: Adults $25; Seniors $22; Students $15; Free Thursdays from 5 – 9 pm and for members, children 17 and under, and everyone named Isabella • Information: 617 566 1401 • Box Office: 617 278 5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org

Music at the Gardner is supported by the Nora McNeely Hurley Foundation. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Scott Nickrenz Concert; Alford P. Rudnick Memorial Concert; David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder; Wendy Shattuck Young Artist Concert; and Willona Sinclair Memorial Concert. The piano is dedicated as the Alex d’Arbeloff Steinway. The harpsichord was generously donated by Dr. Robert Barstow in memory of Marion Huse, and its care is endowed in memory of Dr. Barstow by The Barstow Fund. Music at the Gardner is also supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Joseph Mari, Sallie and Jim McGregor, Nicie and Jay Panetta, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.

Jan. 22: Cellist Matthew Zalkind Announces In a Folk Style – New Album with Pianist Julio Elizalde on First Hand Records

Cellist Matthew Zalkind Announces In a Folk Style
New Album with Pianist Julio Elizalde

Music by Schumann, Tsintsadze, Chopin, Dvořák, and Burleigh
Out January 22, 2027 on First Hand Records

Pre-Order Available Now

CDs or press downloads available upon request.

Matthew Zalkind | First Hand Records | Julio Elizalde

On January 22, 2027, Denver, CO and Madison, WI-based cellist Matthew Zalkind will release In a Folk Style, his new album with pianist Julio Elizalde. This is Zalkind’s debut recording on First Hand Records. In a Folk Style features a program inspired by folk traditions and dance idioms, centered around Robert Schumann’s beloved work of the same title.

The album includes Schumann’s Fünf Stücke im Volkston (“Five Pieces in a Folk Style”), Op. 102, Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s Five Pieces on Folk Themes, Frédéric Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise Brillante, and Antonín Dvořák’s In Folk Tone, Op. 73, alongside Zalkind’s own transcription of Harry Burleigh’s Southland Sketches. With this program, Zalkind sought to explore the many ways composers draw upon folk melodies, rhythms, and styles to create deeply personal concert works.

“In a Folk Style brings together five composers – from five different countries and spanning two centuries – who, in their own way, turned toward the sound of home in their duo writing,” says Zalkind. The recording highlights a wide range of musical voices and traditions, united by a shared spirit of storytelling, song, and dance.

Praised for his “impressive refinement, eloquent phrasing, and singing tone” by The New York Times, American cellist Matthew Zalkind regularly performs throughout the United States and abroad as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician. An active chamber musician, Zalkind has appeared at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, New York’s Alice Tully Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Zalkind is a dedicated teacher and currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His students have been recognized on national and international concert stages.

A musician of "compelling artistry and power" (Seattle Times) the gifted American pianist Julio Elizalde is a multifaceted artist who enjoys a versatile career as soloist, chamber musician, artistic administrator, educator, and curator. He has performed in many of the major music centers throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America to popular and critical acclaim. Since 2014, he has served as the artistic director of the Olympic Music Festival near Seattle, Washington. He tours internationally with violinists Sarah Chang and Ray Chen, and currently serves on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

“My friend and duo partner Julio Elizalde and I have been living with this program for a while now, and what struck us most, putting it together, is how much these six pieces have in common despite coming from such different places,” says Zalkind. “This music holds some of the most heartfelt singing, the most raucous dancing, and the most infectious, sincere writing one could imagine – and turns popular music ‘for the people’ into chamber music perfectly built for cello and piano.”

In the album’s liner notes, Zalkind traces the story behind each work.

Chopin wrote very little for any instrument other than solo piano, which makes the Introduction and Polonaise Brillante in C major, Op. 3, one of his rare chamber works, alongside the Cello Sonata. He began it in October 1829 while staying at the country estate of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, an amateur cellist and early patron, and wrote it with the Prince’s own playing in mind. The Introduction followed in 1830. Because the original cello part is modest next to the piano’s, generations of cellists, from Emanuel Feuermann to Leonard Rose, have “borrowed” material from the piano. Zalkind and Elizalde built their own version in that tradition, “really just the latest entry in a long line of cellists to do so.”

Dvořák wrote his first set of Slavonic Dances in 1878 at the request of his publisher, Simrock, who hoped to match the success of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances. The set made Dvořák famous almost overnight, although all of its folk-flavored melodies are his own invention. He began a cello-and-piano arrangement of No. 3 but never finished it, and Josef Chuchro completed it after his death. Dvořák did finish No. 8, the fiery G-minor furiant, writing it out himself as a gift for a cellist friend. Zalkind calls the pair “genuinely virtuosic.”

Sulkhan Tsintsadze was a cellist in the Tbilisi String Quartet before becoming one of Georgia’s most important 20th-century composers. His Five Pieces on Folk Themes (1950) show an insider’s command of the instrument. The movements sketch scenes of Georgian folk life: an ox-cart driver’s song, an imitation of the chonguri folk lute, a stamping wrestlers’ song, a tender lullaby and an exuberant closing dance. Championed by cellists from Daniil Shafran onward, they have become staples of the repertoire.

Harry T. Burleigh was a composer and singer and the first to bring the African American spiritual into the concert hall. He studied with Dvořák in New York in the 1890s and is widely believed to have introduced him to the spirituals that shaped the “New World” Symphony and the “American” Quartet, which made pairing the two composers a natural choice. Southland Sketches (1916) is Burleigh’s violin-and-piano reworking of his piano suite From the Southland, heard here in Zalkind’s own cello transcription. Its four movements draw on spirituals and Southern song, set in Burleigh’s late-Romantic harmonic language.

Schumann wrote Fünf Stücke im Volkston in 1849, one of his most productive years. It is the only work he wrote specifically for cello and piano – a second set from 1853 was never published, and Clara Schumann destroyed the manuscript in 1893. As with Dvořák, the “folk style” is invented rather than borrowed, “more inward than rustic,” in Zalkind’s words. The five short ABA-form pieces have unpredictable phrase lengths. They move from the dry humor of the first, subtitled Vanitas vanitatum, through a lullaby-like second movement and a deeply inward third, to a sunny, heroic fourth. The finale ends the cycle, as Zalkind puts it, “not with warmth, but with real ferocity.”

The album closes with Zalkind’s own transcription of “Dobrú noc, má milá” (“Good night, my darling”), the first of Dvořák’s four songs In Folk Tone, Op. 73 (1886), settings of Slovak folk texts.

More about Matthew Zalkind: Zalkind was awarded First Prize in the Washington International Competition, as well as top prizes in the Beijing International Cello Competition and Korea’s Isang Yun Gyeongnam International Competition. As a soloist, Matt has performed recitals at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the Moscow Conservatory in Russia, the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in Washington, DC, and the Beijing Concert Hall in China. He has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Utah Symphony, Albany Symphony, Hangzhou Philharmonic, Musica Viva Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Tongyeong International Music Festival Orchestra, Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other North American orchestras. He has performed under the baton of celebrated conductors including Ludovic Morlot, Thierry Fischer, Giancarlo Guerrero, and David Alan Miller. As a former member of the acclaimed Harlem String Quartet, he toured internationally with jazz legends Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, and Gary Burton. He regularly participates in prominent chamber music festivals, including Marlboro and Musicians from Marlboro tours. Alongside his wife, cellist Alice Yoo, Matt is the Co-Artistic Director of the Denver Chamber Music Festival, a premier destination for world-class chamber music in Colorado. Matt holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan. A native of Salt Lake City, his primary mentors included Richard Hoyt, Pegsoon Whang, Hans Jørgen Jensen, Timothy Eddy, and Richard Aaron. Matt performs on a rare Italian cello made by Florentine maker Luigi Piattellini in 1760.

More About Julio Elizalde: Julio Elizalde is a founding member of the New Trio with violinist Andrew Wan, co-concertmaster of the Montréal Symphony and Patrick Jee, cellist of the New York Philharmonic. The New Trio was the winner of both the Fischoff and Coleman National Chamber Music Competitions and is the recipient of the Harvard Musical Association's prestigious Arthur W. Foote Prize. As part of the New Trio, Julio has performed for leading American politicians such as President Bill Clinton, Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger, and the late Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. He was a featured performer on the soundtrack of the 2013 film Jimmy P, composed by Academy Award-winner Howard Shore. Elizalde is a passionately active educator. In 2013, he served as a visiting professor of piano at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington and has given piano and chamber music masterclasses throughout the United States at major conservatories and universities. He has also appeared at various summer music festivals including Yellow Barn, Taos, Caramoor, Bowdoin, Kneisel Hall, and the Music Academy of the West. In 2012, Julio was the youngest juror ever selected at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition held at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Elizalde received a bachelor of music degree with honors from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Paul Hersh. He holds master’s and doctor of musical arts degrees from the Juilliard School in New York City, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Joseph Kalichstein, and Robert McDonald.

In a Folk Style
Matthew Zalkind, cello
Julio Elizalde, piano

Release Date: January 22, 2027
First Hand Records

Tracklist:

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)
1. Introduction and Polonaise Brillante, Op. 3 (1829–30) [9:25]

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Slavonic Dances, Op. 46 (1878) (arr. Dvořák, 1891)
2. No. 3 in A-flat major, B83 (compl. J. Chuchro) [4:06]
3. No. 8 in G minor, “Furiant,” B172 [4:21]

Sulkhan Tsintsadze (1925–1991)
Five Pieces on Folk Themes (1950) [14:34]
4. No. 1. Arobnaya [5:20]
5. No. 2. Chonguri [1:34]
6. No. 3. Sachidao [2:34]
7. No. 4. Nana [3:07]
8. No. 5. Plyasovaya [1:58]

Henry “Harry” Thacker Burleigh (1866–1949)
Southland Sketches (1916) (transcr. M. Zalkind, 2024) [11:19]
9. I. Andante [2:29]
10. II. Adagio ma non troppo [2:50]
11. III. Allegretto grazioso [3:15]
12. IV. Allegro [2:43]

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Fünf Stücke im Volkston, Op. 102 (1849) [15:17]
13. I. Mit Humor [2:52]
14. II. Langsam [3:37]
15. III. Nicht schnell, mit viel Ton zu spielen [4:00]
16. IV. Nicht zu rasch [1:54]
17. V. Stark und markiert [2:53]

Antonín Dvořák
In Folk Tone, Op. 73, B146 (1886)
18. No. 1. Dobrú noc, má milá (“Good night, my darling”) (transcr. M. Zalkind, 2024) [3:13]

Total Time: [62:24]

Recorded at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York
May 24-25, 2024 and December 27, 2025
Recorded, Edited and Produced By Ryan Streber
Album Cover Design by Leah Vautar
Artwork by David Murphy

Nov 13: ECM New Series Releases András Schiff's 2003 Recording of J.S. Bach's The Goldberg Variations as 2-LP Set

ECM New Series Releases
András Schiff's 2003 Recording of J.S. Bach's The Goldberg Variations as 2-LP Set

András Schiff, piano
ECM New Series 1825

Release Date: November 13, 2026

András Schiff’s return to the Goldberg Variations on ECM’s New Series in 2003 (after a first account for Decca twenty years prior) was considered one of the decade’s great recorded achievements in classical music, with the Sunday Times speaking about “the result of a lifetime’s devotion to Bach,” that is “absolutely magnificent.”

Released on vinyl for the first time – spread across two LPs – Schiff’s towering interpretation of Bach’s masterpiece now receives the deluxe reissue it deserves, packaged in a tip-on gatefold and accompanied by a high-quality 12-page booklet containing a “Guided Tour” of the Goldberg Variations written by András Schiff. At its conclusion he asks: “Isn't it understandable that every musician would want to play this wonderful work? Its deep humanity, spirituality, optimism and intellectual power speak to us directly in these 'distracted times'. This is one of those few journeys that can be repeated again and again.”

As The New York Times said, “Mr. Schiff is, in Bach, a phenomenon. He has quite simply internalized this music. He doesn’t so much perform it as emit, breathe it.” The fluency of the playing in this concert recording from Basel is quietly astonishing, the technical demands of the work transcended with uncanny gracefulness.

“[András Schiff] has given the matter far more thought than words could ever express. His piano playing is calm and lucid, with tempos that are deliberately unassuming. He never plays the know-it-all or the experimenter; in his hands, every variation becomes a living, breathing entity. Yet his attention to detail borders on the insane. Because the Hungarian pianist plays every prescribed repetition, he creates space for his own methodology of deviation. New tonal shades emerge, like echoes that take on a life of their own, or dialectical manoeuvres in phrasing and articulation. Moreover, Schiff—drawing on a practice close to that of the Baroque tradition—comes up with embellishments so astonishing that one can hardly stop marvelling at them.” – Die Zeit