Tag: GRAMMY

Symmetria Pario: Creation “My immediate reaction was to stand and cheer”

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When you take contemporary compositions from nine different composers (six of which were commissioned for your recital), and you add the brilliant artistry of Pekka Kuusisto and Joonas Ahonen, and you record it in a world class, acoustically magnificent music hall using some of the best microphones and recording equipment available, and you then mix it all together with the musical sensibilities of recording engineer and producer Bob Attiyeh… YOU GET MAGIC! After listening through this album for the first time, my immediate reaction was to stand and cheer.  Bob Attiyeh had told me that he thought this might be the best sounding recording Yarlung has yet released. I thought to myself, “Naw…, this is just your most recent child and you love it because of that.” But no. Bob is right. Sonically, this album is a masterpiece. Musically it is equally compelling.  Executive producer Russell Ward generously underwrote six Continue Reading →

Jacob Heilbrunn writes about “Absolutely Astounding New LPs From Yarlung Records”

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–Jacob Heilbrunn Tracking Angle VIOLINIST PETTER IIVONEN AND MEZZO-SOPRANO SASHA COOKE EACH DELIVER MESMERIZING PERFORMANCES Everything about Yarlung Records’ new album featuring the violinist Petteri Iivonen, the concertmaster of the Paris Opera, screams retro. The cover, a closeup photo of Iivonen, is in black-and-white, the violin is a 1767 Ferdinandus Gagliano, and the performance itself was recorded with an AKG-C-24 microphone with the original brass surround CK12 tube. But the LP itself could not sound more contemporary—deathly quiet, transparent and lucid. My 45rpm pressing had nary a tick or pop when I played it on my TechDAS Air Force Zero turntable. All the virtues of digital without any of its nasty artifacts, in other words, are present. The result is a humdinger of a recording of Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor. Bach wrote the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in 1720, when he was thirty-five-years-old and court Continue Reading →

Maria Tsakiri’s Yarlung article in “Yellowbox”

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Yellowbox Editor in Chief Theodore Bafaloukas and Staff Reporter Maria Tsakiri reached out to me in 2020 to write an article about Yarlung and our upcoming anniversary. We communicated in English, but to read the original article in Greek, please click on the magazine cover image above. What follows is an English approximation of the topics we discussed (hyperlinks added by me after the fact). Hope you enjoy! Many thanks to the musicians, board members, volunteers and companies that make our work possible. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Yellowbox is a premium bi-monthly subscription-based Audio, Video, Home Entertainment and Music magazine published in Athens. –Bob Attiyeh, producer YARLUNG RECORDS IS A SMALL, INDEPENDENT RECORD LABEL FROM THE USA, BRAINCHILD OF A VISIONARY AND REMARKABLE MAN, WHO HAS BEEN RESPECTFULLY ADMITTING FOR 15 YEARS THAT THE HIGH QUALITY OF THE LABEL’S RECORDINGS RESULTS FROM A TRUE TEAM EFFORT. Continue Reading →

Jacob Heilbrunn, Stephen Estep and Michael Johnson wax poetic about “Korppoo Trio” in The Spectator, The Absolute Sound and Analog Planet

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Executive Producer Jim Mulally’s 180 GRAM 45RPM release of Sibelius Piano Trio’s western hemisphere premiere performance of Sibelius’ Korppoo Trio excited audiophile listeners and writers around the world. Michael Leser Johnson reviews Korppoo Trio in Analog Planet, Stephen Estep writes about the release in The Absolute Sound, and Jacob Heilbrunn covers the pressing and more in The Spectator. From The Spectator: The Sibelius Piano Trio’s live concert, featuring Petteri Iivonen on violin, Juho Pohjonen on piano and Samuli Peltonen on cello, is a treat to hear. For one thing, Yarlung Records, which always goes to great lengths to ensure high recording quality, down to the microphone amplification and tape machines it employs, has produced another sonically stellar LP. The individual instruments are almost perfectly balanced and the timbral fidelity is impeccable. The pleasure that Sibelius must have had in playing with his siblings on a work that he himself had composed Continue Reading →

“Fire & Fancy,” the new LP from Sibelius Piano Trio

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Michael Leser Johnson reviews Fire & Fancy in Analog Planet …Both sides of this record are a tour de force…. All the little details such as note decay, string bite, pizzicato tone, piano weight, are all here in spades. “Nene” by Diego Schicci takes the listener through four themed movements: I. Jumping on the Walls, II. Dozing on a Hanger, III. Riding a mosquito, and IV. Oozing Away. The compositional style is assuredly tonal, but with enough modern thematic elements to appear new and refreshing. The perpetual motion of the first movement; ‘Jumping on the Walls’, as well as mvmt 4 ‘Riding a Mosquito’, is masterfully played by the trio, particularly in the frantic and seemingly random string ostinato that weave in and out of the texture. On another note, I was very impressed by the depth of the recorded Steinway piano tone, which is almost always frustratingly difficult to Continue Reading →

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Catching up with Bob Attiyeh in The Absolute Sound

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Yarlung Records Catching Up With Bob Attiyeh Jeff Wilson Much has been made of the vinyl resurgence that began a little over a decade ago, but that was really part of something larger that had already started brewing.  Suddenly new audiophile labels were popping up that switched or added formats as tastes changed and new technology became available. When Yarlung Records released its first album in 2005, it was definitely ahead of the curve, and for a small, hands-on label, Yarlung quickly achieved an outsized presence, with both GRAMMY® nominations and awards and a large international audience.  Recently, we interviewed the Executive Director of Yarlung, Bob Attiyeh, whose passion for music and insight into the record process have served the label well.  The lockdown has thrown a curveball into the music industry, and I’m curious how it affected you. Did you stay busy, or did everything grind to a halt? Continue Reading →

Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina, Yarlung 15th Anniversary Edition

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ALBUM BOOKLET Yarlung celebrates two people close to us whom we have lost in the past few months.  My friend the veteran Yarlung executive producer Carlos Mollura passed away in February, and my sweet mother Linda Attiyeh died last November.  Both Carlos and Linda believed whole-heartedly in Yarlung and in our mission, and supported us unstintingly since our inception.  We dedicate Antonio Lysy’s Yarlung 15th Anniversary edition of his GRAMMY® Award winning Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina to Carlos.  He and his wonderful wife Haydee (my honorary sister) underwrote this album and serve as executive producers.   I have loved Wind in the Willows since my mother first read it to me when I was four years old, and we dedicate Yarlung’s first audio book to Linda Attiyeh.  Many thanks to executive producer Mike Rosell and audio engineers Cliff Harris and Scot Derwingson-Peacock for your talent and guidance.  Continue Reading →