Sibelius Piano Trio Makes an Impact in Australia

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The eminent music critic Neville Cohn reviews the Trio’s debut album in NewOZartsreview. …this intriguing compilation encompasses music written by contemporary Finnish composers whose names could well be new to most listeners living beyond the borders of Scandinavia. Diego Schissi’s Nene… opens with a terrific, offbeat dance. It radiates gusto, with tricky rhythms and much pizzicato.  Listen to a background of quiet pizzicato across which runs a dream-like cello line. Later, the attention is drawn to the piano with its stab-like utterances…. David Lefkowitz’s Ruminations calls up images of Middle East dances and what might be a folksy Yiddish extemporisation, desperately melancholy and introverted…. Recordings like this don’t just happen. And those who have pooled their resources to this excellent end deserve real praise. The focused work of many has been called upon to bring this CD into being: executive producer Ann Mulally, 100th Anniversary sponsors Randy and Linda Bellous Continue Reading →

Tom Schnabel features Sasha Cooke singing Mahler on Rhythm Planet

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Tom Schnabel features Mahler’s Liebst du um Schönheit on Rhythm Planet. Click to hear Tom & Sasha Hear the entire broadcast here. “… we continue with an art song by Gustav Mahler, beautifully rendered by mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke and The Colburn Orchestra from Los Angeles. The album is on Yarlung Records, an audiophile label known for pristine sound quality.” Thank you Tom and thank you KCRW! See also Sasha’s review in Opera News See Yarlung Records for more information on Sasha Cooke “If You Love For Beauty.”

Opera News: Sasha Cooke “If You Love for Beauty”

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The Colburn Orchestra, Gilad. Works by Adams, Chausson, Handel and Mahler. Texts in French, Italian, German and English. Yarlung Records YAR14148 Mezzo Sasha Cooke made a striking impression as Kitty, the wife of J. Robert Oppenheimer, in the Met premiere of Doctor Atomic five seasons ago. The high point of her performance was her seductive love duet with Gerald Finley’s Oppenheimer, which included her aria “Am I in Your Light?” Cooke leads with that piece on her excellent debut solo CD, If You Love for Beauty, in which she is sensitively accompanied by Yehuda Gilad and the Colburn Orchestra. Cooke’s attractive, erotic stage presence struck plenty of sparks in Doctor Atomic, but without question she also delivers the vocal goods. She possesses a firm, fruity mezzo, straight-toned in quality, which allows the listener to luxuriate in her unerring sense of pitch. And she has a strong yet subtle interpretive ability, Continue Reading →

Eminent music critic John von Rhein writes in the Chicago Tribune about James Matheson

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Baird Dodge, principal second violin of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, gave the world premiere of American composer James Matheson’s Violin Concerto with the CSO under Esa-Pekka Salonen here in 2011. Yarlung Records has issued an all-Matheson disc anchored by a composite of those live performances, and it’s a winner. The concerto is a supercharged neo-romantic showpiece, two perpetual-motion outer movements surrounding a lyrical chaconne. Brilliantly played by its dedicatee and his orchestral colleagues, the concerto shares disc space with two Matheson chamber works that make the recording well worth checking out. Please enjoy John’s full article in the Tribune. Thank you John!

How do talented musicians reach new audiences?

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How do talented musicians reach new audiences? This is a question we ask every day at Yarlung.  As the music “industry” continues to “evolve,” we must reevaluate how we increase visibility for new music and our musicians on a regular basis.  (I use “industry” and “evolve” euphemistically, as you may have guessed.) The music industry of recorded music, especially in its more sophisticated forms of classical music and jazz, has largely ceased to be a “business” like it was in the heyday between say 1940 and 1990.  “Evolve” is a euphemism for “disintegrate.”  People no longer spend money on recordings the way we did in prior decades.  We acknowledge this, and find other ways to help our musicians reach new audiences. Five years ago, “Social Media” seemed to be the key.  Large print ads no longer sold albums in significant numbers, but interactive media did hold the promise of engagement Continue Reading →

Commissioning New Music: Jim Farber writes in the San Francisco Classical Voice

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The eminent music critic Jim Farber interviewed me recently for a two-part article he wrote for San Francisco Classical Voice about new music, organizations that commission new music, and various ways to fund these exciting creations.  He was particularly interested in Coretet, the commissioning arm of Yarlung Artists, founded by Coretet’s executive director Donna Morton. Jim speaks at length with Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Raulee Marcus, who has been intimately involved (and generous)  as an underwriter for several commissions by Yarlung Artists, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. It was also great to see Jim include Thor Steingraber, who now runs the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge, where Yarlung is planning multiple recordings in June, 2017. Thank you Jim, for bringing clear focus to commissioning new music, which is pumps fresh life blood into the musical experience. -Bob Attiyeh Jim’s Continue Reading →

New Year’s Eve Concert at Hesperia Hall

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Hall members welcomed in the New Year with another in a series of New Year’s Eve concerts organized by resident Bob Attiyeh and Yarlung Records.  This year’s offering swerved away from previous concerts when, following a short medley of songs played on the Renaissance pipes by Adam and Rotem Gilbert, the stage was turned over to jazz pianist Yuko Mabuchi.  She started off with a jazz arrangement  of three Japanese songs and then charmed us with Jerome Kern’s “All the Things You Are “and a pair of Duke Ellington numbers, “Take the A Train” and “Satin Doll.” Bassist Ilai Gilbert and keyboard player and Master of Ceremonies Billy Mitchell then joined Yuko with a rousing cover of “Route 66” with vocals by Billy and the audience. Dancing broke out, and from there the concert was in full swing. A base solo by Ilai in a Sonny Rawlins tune was followed Continue Reading →

A Gorgeous Debut from the Sibelius Piano Trio

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…once you hear [The Sibelius Piano Trio’s debut album] from Yarlung Records, best appreciated via stereo and multi-channel DSD downloads from NativeDSD.com… you’ll understand why their debut recording of trios by Sibelius and contemporary composers deserves a place in your collection. [Pianist Juho Pohjonen] is distinguished by deep sensitivity and lucid insights. Like him, violinist Petteri Iivonen (b. 1987) and cellist Samuli Peltonen (b. 1981) have won top prizes in national and international competitions, and used them to launch international careers. IIvonen is actually famed Finish composer Kaija Saariaho’s violinist of choice for her Violin Concerto, which is saying quite a lot. Together, these three friends formed the Sibelius Piano Trio just two years ago. For a new ensemble that has only performed once in the U.S., and does not yet have a viable website, they’ve certainly racked up several impressive commissions. The discs contain three intriguing works written for Continue Reading →

Analog Planet article “Three Percussion Records You Should Own”

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Michael Fremer includes “Smoke & Mirrors” in his Analog Planet article “Three Percussion Records You Should Own” Smoke & Mirrors is another collection of “serious” (yet fun) works for percussion recorded in Zipper Hall, Los Angeles, June 7-10, 2011 and June 3-5, 2012. I think they had to wait a year to finish up after the first recording session in order for the hall reverberation to stop! This was recorded to analog tape using a single AKG C24 tube microphone and features the ensemble playing their own tunes plus one by Maurice Ravel. The sonics here are spectacular, in some ways the best of the three records covered here, and presented at 45rpm because the 33 1/3 test pressing proved too difficult for most tone arms and cartridges to track. At 45rpm you should have no difficulty. These performances were recorded live to tape with no editing by the seven Continue Reading →

“James Matheson” earns coveted spot in the Stereophile Magazine “Records to Die for 2017” lineup!

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James Matheson: Violin Concerto, String Quartet, Times Alone Baird Dodge, violin; Esa-Pekka Salonen, Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Color Field Quartet; Laura Strickling, soprano; Thomas Sauer, piano The two-channel version of this release, fine in its own right, is available on CD and on three individual LPs: Yarlung YAR65005-670V, YAR25668-670V, and YAR25669-670V. However, my real motivation for this R2D4 listing is the DSD256 five-channel version, downloadable from NativeDSD. With no prior knowledge or expectations of James Matheson’s music, the slashing opening of Taut, energetic, the aptly titled first movement of his String Quartet, hooked me. Not only was the music gripping and appealing, the multichannel sound was completely involving. Matheson is a living composer for whom direct and emotional communication is not compromised by an unintelligible style or obscured by adherence to dated ones. His String Quartet is dramatic, his Violin Concerto virtuosic and witty, and oh, the lovely songs of Times Continue Reading →