When Fay Victor found herself struggling to break into New York City’s jazz scene in the ‘90s, the singer and composer took a gamble on moving to Amsterdam to hone her voice and develop her improvisational instincts a move that transformed Victor from a straight ahead jazz singer into a daring vocal improviser. Over 20 years later, Victor has revisited these Amsterdam compositions for Barn Songs, her tenth album as a bandleader. Recording alongside cellist Marika Hughes and alto saxophonist Darius Jones, the experimental project came to fruition in a tumble-down barn Hughes owns in the northern foothills of the bucolic Catskills Mountains.

Jean-Paul Estievenart writes of his new release: Strange Bird is a representation of myself in music. Through this album, you can travel inside my head. The compositions were all written with the greatest emotional spontaneity, and pride of place given to improvisation. You will hear gentleness, anger, passion, joy, sadness, or melancholy in them. That is why I called on Romain Pilon, Antoine Pierre, Nicolas Thys, Nicola Andrioli, and Logan Richardson to map out my mental world. Because we share the desire to find the energy that urges us to forget our presence and let ourselves be borne along by music and not by notes. Have a good trip!

After carrying out a multiyear pilgrimage of experimentation in jazz and pop music, Montreal singer-songwriter Sonia Johnson has emerged from out of the shadows and into the light with Chrysalis, her first English language album. On this new recording, Johnson is accompanied by a fabulous ensemble of 11 musicians and vocalists – featuring singer Elie Haroun – and is supported by an incredible cast of collaborators including Stanley Péan, Stephen Johnston, Mark Alan Haynes, Alex Lefaivre, and Normand Deveault. Chrysalis is an audacious musical flight – poetic, soulful, and delicately woven with silken sounds.

The great Jay Leonhart has always shown a deft touch on his instrument, the double bass. It would be fair to say that he is equally skilled at turning a phrase. Leonhart’s storytelling in word and low tones is sure to delight on his new recording, Joy, a wonderful collection of jazz-inflected art songs. Beginning his musical explorations as a teenage trad jazz player in Baltimore, Leonhart was immediately attracted to the music and the upright bass soon after. He attended The Peabody Institute, The Berklee School of Music and The Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto before turning professional and settling in New York at 21 years old.

Essential: a masterpiece of rock music
I can see that I am out voted on this one. Again IMHO Houses Of The Holy is worthy of a five star rating.

Essential: a masterpiece of rock music
Led Zeppelin at its highest point and rock at its highest point too. Really, this album is so freaken good, its umbelievable! 1971 was a great year for music in general and specially in prog, but no one, and I mean no one came close to this…this is rock as only the gods can make it.

Essential: a masterpiece of rock music
The most brilliant debut in rock ‘n’ roll history, but not from the prog rock point of view. By all possible parameters considering rock – this album is a masterpiece. It’s a milestone and it changed face of the rock sound forever.

PFM aggiunge un nuovo entusiasmante capitolo alla sua discografia: i concerti filologici. Denominatore comune del progetto è la rilettura dei primi cinque dischi in un percorso musicale di ricerca e di riscoperta delle radici della band con un'esecuzione accurata, fedele e ricca di energia espressiva come PFM sa garantire nei suoi concerti. Le registrazioni sono avvenute il 30 e 31 maggio di quest'anno in due location di prestigio quali Dome City Hall e Shibuya Duo Music Excange, nel cuore di Tokyo. Il successo di pubblico ha confermato lo straordinario contenuto artistico delle performance.

It was when the young Haydn was appointed Kapellmeister to Prince Nikolaus Esterházy that he composed his Missa Cellensis, a work of vast proportions, whose popularity is demonstrated by the many surviving copies.

Sony Classical invites you to listen to the album of the Swiss pianist, born in Ukraine - Alena Cherny. She is a graduate of the Conservatory of P. Tchaikovsky in Kiev and Hochschule für Musik in Friborg. The artist regularly gives concerts in the USA, England, Italy, Israel, Germany …

Angela Gheorghiu returns to Decca to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her legendary La Traviata with Sir Georg Solti

A setlist like no other, a never-heard-before compilation of deeply moving musical pieces highlighting numerous aspects of war and peace. This is how the Wiener Philharmoniker, led by Franz Welser-Möst and supported by an all-star line-up, among them singular pianist Yuja Wang, tackled the highly anticipated concert in commemoration of the end of the 1st world war. 100 years after the first of the devastating humane catastrophes of the 20th century officially ended at Versailles, a group of inspired musicians gathered at the historic site for a concert that will live on in the memory of those who have seen or heard it.

Piano Book is a compilation of post-Bach piano music’s greatest hits. Lang Lang puts together a retrospective anthology beginning with J.S. Bach’s Prelude in C major from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The piece, in fully written arpeggio, which every piano student has studied to practice fingering, articulations, and harmonic tiering is followed by Beethoven’s Lettre à Elise. Lang Lang then invites Mendelssohn (La Fileuse), Chopin (15th Prelude from Opus 28), and Mozart (Allegro from Sonata "Semplice" or Variations on "Ah, vous dirai-je Maman") The record also includes lesser-known repertoire from such composers as Badarzewska-Baranowska, Czerny, or Clementi and a few Chinese classic and traditional / popular songs from diverse parts of the world.

After 10 years as Principal Conductor, Vladimir Jurowski made this concerto recording to showcase some of the amazing musicians who play next to each other every day in the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This is especially evident in the Sinfonia Concertante for 4 Winds.

Building on the success of the first two instalments of their cycle devoted to Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and violin (Alpha 240, Diapason d’Or of the year, and Alpha 407), Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer conclude this complete series by recording the remaining four sonatas. Composed between 1797 and 1801, these sonatas are dedicated to Emperor Alexander I of Russia, except for op.12 no.3, which Beethoven dedicated to his teacher Antonio Salieri.Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer’s feeling for melody and tempo works wonders in these pieces, which they recorded in the ideal surroundings of the Salle de Musique of La Chaux de Fonds (Switzerland) and the Flagey Studio (Brussels, Belgium).