On this week's Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford spoke to Anna Lapwood, Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge. They discuss what life is like for the college's choirs - both the Chapel Choir, and the Girls' Choir which Lapwood founded in 2018 - and explore their beautiful new album released on Signum Classics, 'All Things Are Quite Silent'.
In this week's Gramophone Podcast Richard Egarr tells James Jolly about his new recording of Dussek's Messe Solemnelle with the Academy of Ancient Music on the orchestra's own label.
The French conductor Alexandre Bloch was appointed Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lille in 2016 and has made a huge impact on the musical making in the city. Two of his recordings with the orchestra – Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de perles (for Pentatone) and Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer , with Véronique Gens, and the Symphony (Alpha Classics) – were shortlisted for the Gramophone Classical Music Awards. And such has been the acclaim of the Bloch/ONL partnership that the orchest...
A special Gramophone Podcast devoted to this year's Awards - join us as we discuss the winners of this year's Artist of the Year, Lifetime Achievement, Label of the Year, Young Artist, Orchestra of the Year, Special Achievement, Concept Album and Beethoven 250 awards - plus we hear from the winner of this year's Recording of the Year!
For her first solo album, 'Anima Rara', for Opera Rara, for whom she's already recorded Leoncavallo's Zazà and Puccini's Le Willis , Ermonela Jaho celebrates one of her great soprano predecessors, Rosina Storchio. Joined by the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana conducted by Andrea Battistoni, Jaho offers a programme of verismo arias, some familiar but many less so. James Jolly met Ermonela Jaho early this year – face to face – while she was in London for a Wigmore Hall recital, and they talke...
In this edition of the Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford meets Joseph Calleja to talk about a really fascinating and very personal project - a celebration of the music of the conductor Mantovani, Britain's most successful album artist before the Beatles and the first to ever sell a million stereo records worldwide. On his new album for Decca, the tenor sings to Mantovani's historic and much-loved recordings - he explains how this project came about, and how they made it work.
The 10 recording category winners have been announced, and the countdown to the naming of the 2020 Gramophone Recording of the Year has begun. All with be revealed during the evening of October 6 at a special online ceremony from Glyndebourne hosted by Gramophone 's James Jolly and the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey. (Watch it on Gramophone 's website, Facebook and YouTube channels and on Medici.TV.) To accompany the revealing of the 10 recording category winners, James Jolly was joined by Gramophon...
Saxophonist Jess Gillam joins Editor Martin Cullingford to explore some of the themes behind her new album, Time , a very personal project for her. Featuring music and arrangements by composers including Michael Nyman, Max Richter, Thom Yorke and Joby Talbot, it's released on September 25 on Decca.
Editor Martin Cullingford talks to organist Stephen Farr about recording the complete solo organ music of James MacMillan. The album is out on the Resonus label, and in this podcast Farr sets the music in the wider context of MacMillan's work, and discusses the music's challenges and what makes it so distinct and enjoyable.
On this week's Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford talks to Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the Principal Conductor Designate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, about his first recording with the orchestra, excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which is available now on Signum Classics.
Eric Whitacre's latest work, for chorus, piano and cello, The Sacred Veil , was commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale who give the first performance at Walt Disney Hall in February 2019. With Whitacre himself conducting, The Sacred Veil has been recorded by those first performers, and the album is now available from Signum Classics. Set to words largely by the poet Anthony Silvestri, The Sacred Veil , takes as its theme the death, from ovarian cancer, in 2005, of Silvestri's wife Julie,...
Keen to play her part in supporting the women and children suffering abuse and hardship in her native Mexico – a situation greatly worsened during the pandemic – the conductor Alondra de la Parra has created The Impossible Orchestra. Comprised of a stellar line-up of artists from 14 different countries – both orchestral players and soloists – The Impossible Orchestra has recorded, for video as well as audio, Arturo Márquez's much-loved Danzón No 2 in an arrangement by de la Parra (who plays the ...
Robin Ticciati, Music Director of the DSO Berlin, has just released an album that couples two tone-poems, Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung with the six songs, Op 68, often called the Brentano songs, sung by Louise Alder. As Ticciati rehearsed at Glyndebourne for the much reduced 2020 season, James Jolly caught up with him to talk about the new album.
Editor Martin Cullingford talks to guitarist Xuefei Yang about her new album Sketches of China, a beautiful celebration of music from her homeland and featuring contemporary commissions and arrangements of ancient pieces. Featuring excerpts from the album, released by Decca Classics China.
In the latest Gramophone podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford talks to Max Richter about the composer's new album Voices, a powerful and poetic musical response to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, released today on Decca Records.
In the latest Gramophone podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by conductor David Skinner to discuss the new release by Alamire of the music of John Sheppard. Based on new research, the Gramophone Award-Winning vocal ensemble have recorded a version of the Tudor composer's masterpiece Media vita in morte sumus which, they argue, is how it would have originally been heard. The recording - a digital EP - is available now on Inventa Records.
Gramophone has been making an Orchestra of the Year Award since 2018 when it was given to the Seattle Symphony (last year the Award went to the Hong Kong Philharmonic). This year the voting is open and we offer ten ensembles for you to consider. Each has struck us for the dynamism, imagination and style of its collaborations with its conductors on record. This week Gramophone 's Editor-in-Chief James Jolly is joined by Gramophone critic and broadcaster Rob Cowan to discuss the Philadelphia Orche...
Gramophone has been making an Orchestra of the Year Award since 2018 when it was given to the Seattle Symphony (last year the Award went to the Hong Kong Philharmonic). This year the voting is open and we offer ten ensembles for your to consider. Each has struck us for the dynamism, imagination and style of their collaborations with their conductors on record. In this, the first of two podcasts, Gramophone 's Editor-in-Chief James Jolly talks to Gramophone critic, Andrew Mellor, about five of th...
In this week's Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford speaks to the Artistic Director of Voces8 about their fascinating new album 'After Silence' - it's out on July 24, but several sections are already available to stream online - and about the forthcoming online choral festival from the Voces8 Foundation, Live from London, of which Gramophone is a media partner.
The cellist Inbal Segev has just released an album of cello concertos by Anna Clyne, DANCE , and Sir Edward Elgar. Her partners on this Avie release are the London Philharmonic and Marin Alsop. James Jolly caught up with them – Inbal in New York and Marin in Baltimore – to talk about the album, how the Anna Clyne piece came about and what makes them fit so well together on the same album.
Beethoven's violin sonatas sit at the heart of the repertoire for violin and piano. As Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins embark on a complete cycle for Signum Classics - starting with Nos 1, 5 & 8 - they join Editor Martin Cullingford in this week's Gramophone Podcast to explore what the music means for performer and listener alike.
The broadcaster, critic, composer and author Stephen Johnson has recently published a new study of Mahler's Symphony No 8 – The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910 . James Jolly spoke to him about the book: why Mahler's Eighth and the extraordinary story of its 1910 Munich premiere. The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910 is published by Faber & Faber (hardback: £18.99 & ebook: £14.99). The musical excerpts come from Lorin Maazel's third (!) recording of the work, one captured live wit...
The conductor of Aurora Orchestra, Nicholas Collon, talks to James Jolly about their brand-new DG release, 'Music of the Spheres'. It links themed-music that takes in Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, Thomas Adès's violin concerto, Concentric Paths (played by Pekka Kuusisto), a Dowland song arranged by Nico Muhly, 'Time stands still', Max Richter's Journey (CP1919) and David Bowie's song 'Life on Mars' (in an arrangement by John Barber and sung by Sam Swallow).
This week's guest is the conductor Robert Trevino, who today has released a set of the complete Beethoven symphonies with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, on the Ondine label - recorded in order, over a two-week period. He tells Editor Martin Cullingford about his personal and musical approach to these iconic orchestral works.
Martin Fröst has just released a new album for Sony Classical entitled 'Vivaldi'. On it he plays a handful of Vivaldi 'clarinet concertos', works created with the assistance of the composer and arranger Andreas Tarkmann from arias drawn from the composers operas. James Jolly spoke to Fröst at his home in Stockholm about the project and the challenges of performing at an unusual pitch and working with the period-instrument ensemble Concerto Köln.
Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by guitarist Sharon Isbin to discuss her two new albums, both out today on Zoho. The first, Affinity, features four world premiere recordings by Chris Brubeck, Leo Brouwer, Tan dun, and Richard Danielpour. The second, Strings for Peace, offers a journey through the ragas and talas of North Indian classical music.
Gabriel Prokofiev has just released a Signum Classics album of two of his concertos: his Concerto for Turntables No 1 and his Cello Concerto. James Jolly talked to the composer about the release and why the concerto as form appeals so strongly to him. The new recording features the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Alexey Bogorad with Mr Switch on turntables and Boris Andrianov the cellist.
Purcell's The Fairy Queen , music originally written for an adaption of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream , features music of delightful theatricality and some of the composer's most beautiful songs. Paul McCreesh, founder and Artistic Director of the Gabrieli Consort and Players, has recorded the work for his latest release on the group's Winged Lion label. For this week's podcast the conductor joins Gramophone 's Editor Martin Cullingford to discuss the work, and his approach to capturin...
The Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw, who has received terrific reviews of her stage performances in the Russian operatic repertoire (particularly as Tchaikovsky's Tatyana in Eugene Onegin ), releases her first solo album, for Orchid Classics. Joined by her teacher from the Guildhall School of Music, the pianist Lada Valešová, they present 'Arion: Voyage of a Slavic Soul', songs by three Russians – Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov – and three Czech composers – Dvořák, Janáček and Novák....
As Onyx releases a fourth album of music by Elgar with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and its Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko, including the vocal works Sea Pictures and The Music Makers, James Jolly met the Russian conductor.
