The title of this album refers to the Yiddish word Mensch: literally a human being, but in everyday use someone who acts with integrity, awareness and responsibility. For Rzewski, the term carried exactly this meaning. A Mensch is not a perfect person, but someone who remains fully human - capable of doubt, contradiction and critical thought, and resistant to becoming passive within larger societal systems. This idea runs quietly but consistently through his work.

L'Arte dell'Arco is thorough in its exploration of the Italian Baroque, recording Tartini's complete concertos and all of Vivaldi's published works.

Nel corso degli ultimi anni Stefano Veggetti si è distinto nel panorama concertistico e discografico europeo per il suo virtuosismo strumentale, per la raffinata musicalità e comprensione dello stile del periodo, e per una presenza scenica viva ma non da protagonista. Ha conseguito il diploma di violoncello presso il conservatorio dell’Aquila con David Cole. In seguito ha ricevuto una borsa per un periodo di studi con Orlando Cole a Philadelphia (USA).Affascinato dalle sonorità degli strumenti ad arco antichi ha frequentato corsi con Anner Bijlsma ed ha suonato come solista edin complessi cameristici con musicisti che si sono specializzati sul repertorio della musica barocca e classica (tra i quali Anner Bijlsma, L’Archibudelli, Stanley Ritchie, Alfredo Bernardini, Ottavio Dantone, L’Astrée, Erich Höbarth, Rachel Podger, Jos van Immersel, Anima Eterna Brugge) in Europa, Mexico, USA. Come direttore dell’Ensemble Cordia propone programmi di musica da camera ed orchestrale scelti dal patrimonio di musiche del periodo barocco e classico meno frequentato ed ha realizzato diverse registrazioni per l’etichetta Brilliant, accolte con entusiasmo dalla critica specializzata. Come solista e direttore si è esibito per prestigiose istituzioni e festivals italiani ed europei quali Stresa Festival, Konzerthaus di Vienna, Bachfest di Lipsia, Concerti del Quirinale. Utrecht Early Music Festival, Magdeburger TelemannFesttage.

Toyohiko Satoh, born 佐藤豊彦 on November 4, 1943 in Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Japan, is a Japanese lutenist. He studied music history and guitar at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, giving his first guitar recital in 1965. In 1968, Satoh moved to Europe to study lute with Eugen Müller-Dombois at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. His career took off when he recorded the first LP devoted entirely to the solo Baroque lute in 1970. He collaborated with notable artists such as Gustav Leonhardt and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. In 1973, he became a professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Netherlands, holding this position until 2004.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago is an American opera company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma. Fox re-organized the company in 1956 under its present name. Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by Lyric.

Café del Mundo is a German musical group formed in 2007 by guitarists Jan Pascal and Alexander Kilian. The duo met during a Flamenco guitar workshop at the Buchener Gitarrentage. Café del Mundo released their album La Perla in 2014, followed by Dance of Joy (2015). They signed with GLM Music and performed as an opening act for Lang Lang at Jazz Open Stuttgart in 2013. Their subsequent albums include …In Passion Live at Theaterhaus Stuttgart (2015) and Famous Tracks (2019), recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London. In 2023, they collaborated with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the album Symphonic, also recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Their cover of "Una Mattina" went viral on Instagram and TikTok in 2023.

Handel’s flautist. The first port of call for every aristocrat who wished to master the German flute. A founding father of the Royal Society of Musicians. Charles Weidemann was everywhere in Georgian London — and almost nowhere in the history books. These twelve flute sonatas, composed at the height of a blooming career, reveal why he deserves better. Graceful, inventive, and reflecting his virtuosity, they are the rediscovery of the season.

Laura Lootens' deeply sensitive tribute to music of Romantic essence ranges from Frederic Chopin, in transcriptions by guitarists Jerzy Koenig and Tariq Harb, to La Chanson des vieux amants as sung by Jacques Brel and the sumptuous lyricism of Agustin Barrios Mangore.(complete blurb)As a teenager, Laura Lootens discovered a song by Sting that deeply moved her. From the 1993 album Ten Summoner's Tales, Shape of My Heart has remained her favourite song, to this day. She includes it as an epilogue on her second album for Naive, which she conceived as a heartfelt tribute to music of Romantic essence.

To mark the 40th anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber returned to the original analogue master tapes of the 1986 London cast recording and remixed the score for the first time ever. The release, The Phantom of the Opera (The Andrew Lloyd Webber 2026 Mix), is billed as the most complete presentation of the score to date. It restores sections cut from the original album because of running-time limits and adds rare material from the composer's personal archive.

A Bad Donato is an essential psych-funk and bossa fusion landmark by pioneering Brazilian composer, arranger, and keyboardist Joao Donato. Recorded in Los Angeles in 1970 and released on CD by Dubas Music in 2004, this concise 10-track set captures Donato at a pivotal moment when he seamlessly merged Brazilian bossa nova rhythms with heavy American funk, psychedelic jazz fusion, and soul-drenched organ grooves. Featuring an outstanding studio lineup including horn arrangements by Eumir Deodato and contributions from studio legends like Dom Um Romao and Bud Shank, the album moves effortlessly between hypnotic electric piano vamps, wah-wah guitar flourishes, and infectious Latin percussion. Highlighted by standout tracks such as the groovy opener The Frog (A Ra), the atmospheric Lunar Tune, and the infectious Cade Jodel? (The Beautiful One), A Bad Donato stands as a seminal bridge between 1960s bossa nova sophistication and the funky, synth-laden fusion soundscapes of the 1970s.

Four chapters across generations: Danish Resonances sets accordion works by Hans Abrahamsen, Niels Rosing-Schow and Per Nørgård against four newly commissioned world premieres by Anders Skibsted, Loïc Destremau, Matias Vestergård and Gustav Bjerre. Accordionist José Valente threads them into a single, unfolding journey that moves by turns lyrical, virtuosic, introspective and expansive, revealing the full expressive range of the classical accordion.

Shaped by fragments and moments of improvisation, the Noctunes are the personal take on the tradition of the Nocturnes?. This album contains a series of pieces dedicated to the quiet hours of the night?. Composer and pianist Clemens Christian Poetzsch is recognized for his unique blend of modern classical, jazz, and electronic music. He studied piano at the Hochschule fur Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, earning his artistic diploma in 2010, followed by composition studies under Thomas Zoller.

The multi-Grammy award-winning Pacifica Quartet continues its highly acclaimed series of recordings exploring the sounds of America with an album of string quartets featuring elements of American folk music and spirituals by Anton Dvorák, Florence Price and Louis Gruenberg, as well as a new work by James Lee III.Pacifica has been praised by The Telegraph as "nothing short of phenomenal" and is known for its "remarkable breadth of expression and beauty of sound" (New York Times). With a career spanning nearly three decades, Pacifica has established itself as the embodiment of the leading American quartet sound.

"Earthly Delights for Angelic Voices" is the promise of the latest recording from the Boston Early Music Festival, and the performers alone suggest that the title was chosen for good reason. Amanda Forsythe, recently honored with a Grammy for her performance in Telemann's Ino, joins fellow singers Dorothee Mields (soprano) and Cecilia Duarte (mezzo-soprano) in bringing back to life a legendary trio that, almost exactly four hundred years ago in the Eternal City of Rome, filled the city's most distinguished connoisseurs with heavenly delight: Le Canterine Romane—Andreana, Leonora, and Caterina Basile, the celebrated "Roman Singers." It was for these three that the crème de la crème of composers—including Luigi Rossi, Domenico Mazzocchi, and Marco Marazzoli—wrote their music, and anyone fortunate enough to hear Mother Basile and her two daughters perform together never forgot the experience. "This concert filled me with such rapture that I forgot my mortal frame and imagined myself among the angels," wrote a French visitor in 1639. One wonders whether he wouldn't have liked to take a recording of the occasion home with him?

As the founder of the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble, which performs on period instruments, the Polish conductor Andrzej Kosendiak is a champion of Baroque music and has specialised in oratorios and cantatas from various periods. Giovanni Antonini has a special connection with this city and this ensemble, as he has been artistic director of Wratislavia Cantans from 2013 to 2024. The flautist and founding conductor of Giardino Armonico was invited by Kosendiak to perform as soloist in Bach’s cantatas featuring the flute: BWV 106, known as Actus Tragicus, BWV 161 Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 182 – Bach’s only cantata for Palm Sunday – and finally the hymn for solo voice with basso continuo, BWV 478 Komm, süßer Tod, komm selge Ruh!. ‘In Bach’s cantatas, the flute is never merely ornamental: depending on the moment, it is the “voice of the spirit”, the breath of prayer…’, writes Piotr Maculewicz. The NFM Boys’ Choir joins the soloists and musicians in this invitation to “enter” Bach’s spiritual world!