“No one would seem to be better equipped to present the music of African composers Akin Euba, Ayo Bankole, Christian Onyeji, David Earl, Fred Onovwerosuoke, J. H. Kwabena Nketia, and Nabil Benabdeljalil than Rebeca Omordia.… Omordia has created something truly special. Not only does she bring attention to figures whose names might be new to […]
Gamal Khamis and Christopher Kent’s new recording of Richard Strauss: Enoch Arden and The Castle by the Sea will get its official launch on Tuesday 31 May at 1901 Arts Club! Get your tickets today! When: 7:30pm (Doors at 6:30) Tuesday 31 May 2022 Where: 1901 Arts Club7 Exton StreetWaterlooLONDON SE1 8UE Cost: £20 adult, £15 Early […]
The May issue of Gramophone Magazine features a must-read review of Rebeca Omordia’s new African Pianism recording: “For her fascinating new Somm release, ‘African Pianism’, Nigerian-Romanian pianist Rebecca Omordia has chosen music from three Nigerian composers, Ayo Bankole (1935 76), Akin Euba (1935-2020) and Christian Onyeji (b1967); two Ghanaians, Kwabena Nketia (1921-2019) and Fred Onovwerosuoke […]
“I should declare an interest at the outset of this review. Towards the end of 2020 I conducted an extensive interview with Ian King and, following on from this, I was asked to write the booklet notes for this CD. Ian King was terminally ill by the time I first became involved in this project […]
The Eusebius Quartet and Alasdair Beatson’s recording of Korngold Chamber Music is a BBC Music Magazine Choice and January 2022 Recording of the Month! “The Eusebius Quartet and Beatson bring this heady score all the intensity it deserves, their lavish tone conjuring quasi-orchestral colours, sensitive to every twist of the rubato-laden canvas (and there are […]
“What a pleasure then to encounter Schubert’s great C minor Sonata, the centrepiece of Cordelia Williams’s extraordinary new release, ‘Nightlight’, in a performance so fully inhabited, probative and heartfelt. Williams is at one with this music to the extent that physical constraints seem to disappear. For all the architectural grandeur of the opening Allegro, she brings […]
SOMM’s celebration album of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s 75th anniversary with the world premiere release of Sir Thomas Beecham conducting Sibelius’ Symphony No 1 with the RPO at the Edinburgh Festival also includes the first ever release of the same artists performing extracts from Sibelius’s Scènes historiques in a live concert and the first issue […]
Classica Magazine’s Laure Dautriche gives ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ to the Carlock-Combet Duo’s new Romantic Violin Sonatas recording: “It’s not easy to make one’s mark in works which are such firm favourites in the romantic repertoire for violin and piano. However, violinist Guillaume Combet and pianist Sandra Carlock, a Duo resident in the United States, succeed in impressing […]
SOMM’s Ariadne release of George Szell & the Cleveland Orchestra’s The Forgotten Recordings album received a Diapason D’Or distinction in the July/August 2021 issue! “The recordings which come to us from SOMM were made in 1954 and 1955 for the Book of the Month Club, a subscription mail-order service. They demonstrate that the Cleveland Orchestra… […]
“Vocal lines serve the verse… In the ongoing recorded collaborations of tenor James Geer and pianist/musicologist Ronald Woodley… this collection most clearly gives an alternative view of 20th-century British music. The literary factor here is extremely high and diverse. … Arguably, Clarke’s songs are the most distinctive on the disc, including her ‘Cradle Song’, whose […]