I was immediately drawn to this release because of the artists involved (…) And, as expected, the playing is very stylish, with great ensemble and nuance. (…) The stereo recording by Jared Sacks is excellent, with all of the transparency, detail, and balance among the performers that we’ve come to expect from his recordings over the years.
– Rush Paul, Positive Feedback / NativeDSD [Read Full Review]

Born in Mexico City, violist Dana Zemtsov has always retained a deep love for the colorful Latin-American culture. The discovery of Gabriel García Márquez’s book One Hundred Years of Solitude, in which the vivid literary images of clouds of yellow butterflies precede a forbidden lover’s arrival, inspired Dana to revisit her earliest musical memories.

This led to a unique project embodying the most characteristic expression of love in Latin-American culture. The beautiful boleros presented on this album entitled Yellow Butterfly: Latin American Favorites. They are so well known that practically every Spanish-speaking person can sing them by heart.

With arrangements by the legendary Joan Albert Amargós and Claudio Constantini, the recording conjures the surreal atmosphere of the Americas: melancholy, roughness, poetry, vitality and joy. These ‘recomposed’ boleros were arranged for solo viola and a small ensemble that consists of pianist Anna Fedorova, trumpeter Angelo Verploegen, bandoneonist Claudio Constantini, double bassist Nicholas Schwartz and percussionist André Groen.

The smell of smoked sugar cane, corn and coffee; mysterious noises of strange creatures in the night, heavy rains, colibris around deep green-colored plants and powerful sharp colored flowers… All of this and so much more is to be heard in the rhythms and melodies of Latin American boleros. It was the familiarity of this colorful, almost surrealistic, atmosphere that struck me when I started discovering the literature of Gabriel García Márquez. One day, all these motives came together in one simple yet timeless moment while I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in the beloved Parque México in my place of birth, Mexico City. This is where it all began. I was sitting and reading surrounded by plants and birds, in my quiet oasis in the middle of this noisy and chaotic city, on one of those green ornamented benches that are so typical in the gardens of Mexico and are so dear to me since the times of my childhood. – Dana Zemtsov

Dana Zemtsov, Viola
Angelo Verploegen, Flugelhorn & Trumpet (Tracks 1, 3, 6, 8, 13-15)
Claudio Constantini, Bandoneon (Tracks 1, 4, 9, 11, 14)
Nicholas Schwartz, Double Bass (Tracks 1, 3-8, 10, 11, 13-15)
Anna Fedorova, Piano (Tracks 1-3, 6-8, 12-15)
André Groen, Percussion (Tracks 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 15) 

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The inspiration for Inkwash on Paper came about following a concert where artist Gunnel Wåhlstrand heard one of Byström’s other art-inspired works. It was decided on the spot that artist and composer should collaborate. Wåhl- strand specializes in the demanding technique of ink wash, creating overwhelming large-scale images photo-realistic images of nature on the west coast of Sweden.

The clarity of detail, the quality of light and the reflections in these greyscale works are truly hypnotic and are beautifully complimented by Byström’s soft-focus sonics.
This is graceful and elegant music but also somewhat bizarre; rarely rising above a mezzo-forte. As English critic Lynn René Bayley (Art Music Lounge) wrote, “Byström’s world seems to consist of gentle gestures that somehow add up to a listening experience that is transformative. Nothing is quite as it appears to be at first glance/listen, yet she sucks you into her sound world and says, “Why don’t you stay for a cup of galactic star tea?”

Recognized as a rising star on the contemporary music scene, composer Britta Byström was born in Sundsvall, Sweden 1977 and began her musical career as a trumpet player. She started composing while still in her teens and studied composition at the Royal University of Music in Stockholm with Pär Lindgren and Bent Sørensen. In an age when most composers can only dream of hearing orchestras perform their works, Byström distinguished herself as a master of orchestral textures even during her student days. Byström’s work can be heard with major orchestras, soloists and concert halls like BBC Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Philharmonic, Royal Albert Hall, NDR Elbphilharmonie, John Storgårds, Janine Jansen and Malin Broman.

Malin Broman, Violin & Viola
Eriikka Nylund, Viola
Marie Macleod, Cello
Rick Stotijn, Double Bass
Niklas Andersson, Clarinet
Henrik Blixt, Bassoon
Chris Parkes, Horn
Simon Crawford-Phillips, Piano & Celesta
Jens Ulrich Braun, Tonmeister

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According to Swiss-Canadian pianist Teo Gheorghiu, the two works share the quality of being “concertos with predominantly cheerful and optimistic expression.” French violinist David Castro-Balbi notes that “of Mozart’s violin concertos, No. 5 has the strongest operatic character.” The two soloists are accompanied by the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under the direction of Howard Griffiths.

Teo Gheorghiu – Piano (Bösendorfer VC 280) [Tracks 1–6]
David Castro-Balbi – Violin (Jacques Fustier, donated by CIC Nord) [Tracks 7–9]
Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg
Howard Griffiths, Conductor

The post Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 KV 219 appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

In discussing musicianship, one often highlights technical mastery. Yet what sets these performers apart is their ability to channel pure emotion into every note. Listen to Roosmarijn Tuenter’s enchanting viola introduction on Woman in Three Stages, Jeroen van Vliet’s tranquil piano on Madonna, Joost Lijbaart’s almost imperceptible percussive textures on Starry Night, and Sanne Rambags’ mesmerizing voice on Dance of Life.

Each moment brims with authenticity and depth, with silence and space as integral as the notes themselves. This is not easy music, yet it flows organically, like amount in stream in springtime. Premiered at the November Music Festival to critical acclaim – “Moments arise where, under the influence of goosebumps and moist eyes, we are driven to the edge of our seats” (JazzProg) – this suite is a deeply moving experience. Thanks to Frans de Rond’s extraordinary recording technique, described as “A Van Gogh painting come to life, vivid and multidimensional” this masterpiece has been immortalized. It offers listeners the rare chance to step into the music and experience it as if standing among the musicians themselves.

Sanne Rambags, Vocals & Compositions
Roosmarijn Tuenter, Viola, Vocals & Effects
Jeroen van Vliet, Piano & Effects
Joost Lijbaart, Drums & Percussion

The post The Frieze of Life appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Together, they have elicited new commissions from four brilliant early-career composers: Migiwa “Miggy” Miyajima, Xavier Muzik, Sam Wu and 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist Leilehua Lanzilotti. Loggins-Hull herself contributed her own masterwork to the project. Passionate, committed, hopeful and inspiring, each piece contributes to an experience which surpasses the sum of its parts.

Taking its title from Loggins-Hull’s quintet, Persist marks the fifth iteration of HomeBaked, ETHEL’s commissioning program for early-career composers. The initiative, begun in 2010, has commissioned and debuted 20 works by 16 early-career artists. Loggins-Hull teamed with ETHEL to solicit, select and collaborate with composers from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Supported by two NEA grants, the program was premiered in 2022 at Brooklyn Public Library, and will tour in 2024-25.

Sono Luminus says “Ethel continues to be one of the finest string quartets performing today, and showcases not only their talent, but their commitment to diversity and equality with this record we’re sure you’ll enjoy.”

ETHEL
Ralph Farris, Viola
Kip Jones, Violin
Dorothy Lawson, Cello
Corin Lee, Violin

With Very Special Guest
Allison Loggins-Hull, Flute

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Drawing on diverse musical sources and the talents of a superb group of musicians, the music on “Phonetics” is greater than the sum of its parts. Insightful performances of saxophonist Mark Turner, violist Oene Van Geel, bassist Mark Helias, and percussionist Emile Biayenda are presented in first-rate audio quality, with excellent low-level detail (breathiness from the saxophone mouthpiece, the faint scraping of the viola bow), fast response in the double-bass low notes, and a deep soundstage for the drum set.
– Mark Werlin, NativeDSD & AllAboutJazz

Paris-based pianist-keyboardist-composer Delbecq counts among his inspirations Cowell, Cage, Ligeti, Aka pygmy song, Balkan dance, Abdullah Ibrahim, Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy, Miles, Monk, Ornette, and colleagues such as Steve Argüelles and Marc Ducret. He has developed an unmistakable yet richly varied musical idiom. Intellectually intriguing, emotionally evocative, palpably elegant, Phonetics presents an artist at the height of his imaginative and synthesizing powers. The audiophile recording and subtle 5.0 mix burnish the music’s lunar intensity.

The idea for this international band involved some educated hunches, says Delbecq: “I wanted to provoke an encounter between musicians I knew from different scenes, Europe meets North America meets Africa [Emile Biayenda is Cameroonian and leads the percussion ensemble Les Tambours de Brazza]. When I started writing I had a sound in mind… a very open but very rhythmic way of playing…and different directions I wanted us to explore collectively. The mixed timbres of tenor and viola were in a sense the key to the group.” Prepared piano is also featured on several tracks: “I wanted to leave space for the guys to improvise, and accompanying with prepared sounds allows the music to sound very open harmonically, while it places me on a different axis in the rhythmic web. It also allows the mind to escape the piano in some way, and this can lead to rare blends, such as with viola playing pizzicato.”

Critic Bill Shoemaker notes of Delbecq’s previous Songlines album, the solo piano record Nu-turn, that his “affinity for African and Asian folk music and his Paul Bley-derived lyricism and floating pulse constantly dovetail about one another. This accentuates the exotic, mysterious qualities of his music,”  with its fugutive harmonies and eddying polyrhythms. Expanding these moods and concepts in a five-way dialogue demanded an unusual degree of concentration and intuitive understanding from everyone involved – particularly as each piece has its own specific underlying structures, as well as its own potential for “mutation” of these points of departure. “I change the tools for each piece, and each piece is trying for a different character in the playing for each person….On ‘Multikulta’ it’s a strict rhythmic fabric that patterns the composed material, but I was interested in letting the bass and drums spontaneously mutate the form of it during Oene’s soloing. ‘Au Louvre’ is an actual mutation of ‘Maat,’ one of the pieces I wrote in 1990 for the collective group Kartet. Each phrase of the theme begins at a different point in the bass line’s cycle, kind of in the African way, and out of this Emile constructs these rhythmic micro-forms, which sets the bass line in motion along several different axes, a bit as if one were turning an actual object round in one’s hands to view it better or explain it. The downbeat or accenting is not an imposed hierarchy – you’ll see that Emile never really plays the crash cymbal as the marker of a rhythmic hierarchy, that’s so elegant!”

On “4MalW” (a hushed yet astringent tribute to his mentor Mal Waldron), Delbecq sampled the band at rehearsals: “I would then be able to trigger these scraps of memory as the piece unfolded. What I love about samples is that they play tricks on your memory, they move the relationship we have with what is played or is going to be played somewhere else.”

Benoît Delbecq, Piano & Sampler 
Mark Turner, Tenor Saxophone
Oene van Geel, Viola
Mark Helias, Bass
Emile Biayenda, Drums

The post Phonetics appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

On this album, Strauss: Don Quixote & Ibert: Le Chevalier Errant, violist Amihai Grosz and cellist Jian Wang take on the musical roles of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote in Strauss’s virtuoso tone poem Don Quixote. The symphonic suite from Jaques Ibert’s Le chevalier errant also depicts moments from Cervantes’ Don Quixote, replete with scenes from the knight’s adventures including the famous battle in The Windmills, the Dance of the Galley Slaves and various dances including a flamenco.

Amihai Grosz, Viola
Jian Wang, Cello 
Orchestre National de Lyon
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Conductor

The post Strauss: Don Quixote & Ibert: Le Chevalier Errant appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Ideally, your speakers should ‘disappear’ and the musicians should seem like they’re right there in the room with you, with a distinct presence and in a space that can sound larger than your listening room.
– Paul McGowan

The Art of HiFi: Soundstage is a true state-of-the-art reference disc created to test and show off your system’s amazing soundstage. From deep and wide to beyond the walls of the room, Soundstage presents 11 stunning tracks of great music, each hand-crafted to reproduce a breathtaking three-dimensional image. This is a must-have Octave recording by Paul McGown, Terri McGowan, Jessica Carson and Mastering Engineer Gus Skinas. Recorded live and in the studio in Pure DSD 256 Stereo.

The Art of HiFi: Soundstage was recorded in Pure DSD 256 Stereo at multiple live venues as well as at Octave Studios with the goal of capturing sound in a variety of spaces. Whiskey by Boulder’s own bluegrass quartet, Jake Leg, appears twice on the album, once at Octave Studios and once at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO.

As you compare and contrast the two recordings, you not only hear the difference in the room sound, but you’ll be able to detect a difference in tempo as the band responds to the energy of a live audience.

Octave’s Director and leader of Clandestine Amigo, Jessica Carson, creates an a cappella experience at the Octave studio by singing seven vocal parts to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. By singing each part at a different distance from the microphone and engineer, Paul McGowan’s, addition of reverb, a deep and wide soundstage is created using studio magic.

First Congregational Church UCC in Boulder has a natural reverb that is perfect for the Duo Azure performance of Italian piece, Diporti di Euterpe, Op. 7, No. 4: Lamento. Dr. Jessica Nilles Kressin and Russian soprano Ekaterina Kotcherguina, give a soft and beautiful performance on piano and vocals, you can almost feel the snowy Sunday afternoon.

Soundstage begins and ends with a bang as the footfalls of dancer Salli Gutierrez transport us to an old platform stage at an intimate venue. With live performances from Octave’s own, Gabriel Mervine, and up-and-comers Enmanuel Alexander and Sturtz, this album showcases a variety of artists, genres and soundstages.

Steve Mullins & Salli Gutierrez (Track 1, 11)
Jeremy Mohney (Track 2)
Gabriel Mervine (Track 3)
Sturtz (Track 4)
Jessica Carson (Track 5)
Longmont Symphony Orchestra String Quartet (Track 6)
Duo Azure (Track 7)
Emmanuel Alexander (Track 8)
Jake Leg (Track 9, 10)

The post The Art of HiFi Vol. 2 – Soundstage [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

The sounds of plucked, bowed, and strummed stringed instruments are a fundamental part of music and human history, sounds that we respond to in an almost instinctive way.

– Paul McGowan

The Art of HiFi Vol. 4: Strings takes us on a journey of well-known stringed instruments like violin, viola and cello, but breaks into lesser heard instruments like the nyckelharpa. Each track has a prominent feature so you can truly be immersed and hear the nuanced differences between the instruments. Recorded at Octave Studios in on the Pyramix Workstation in Pure DSD 256 Stereo.

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Nieuw Amsterdams Peil (NAP) is a fearless band that does not shy away from any genre or style. It was founded in 2005 by violinist Heleen Hulst and pianist Gerard Bouwhuis . As a collective, they focus on a broad repertoire of chamber music and music theater in a flexible line-up. Their focus is on the music of today. Musicians of Nieuw Amsterdams Peil feel more like a ‘band’ than an ‘ensemble’. Little hierarchy and a lot of personal input by each player individually.

An hour and fifteen minutes is long for a piano quartet, but it pales in comparison to the nearly five hours of Crippled Symmetry and the six hours of the Second String Quartet. Morton Feldman (1926-1987) is renowned for compositions that are simultaneously the longest, softest, and slowest. Feldman completed his piano quartet, which is not actually titled as such but rather Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, on May 28, 1987. He could not have foreseen that this would be his last work.

Nieuw Amsterdams Peil
Emma Breedveld, Violin
Heleen Hulst, viola
Mick Stirling, Cello
Gerard Bouwhuis, Piano

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