Tag: Sasha Cooke

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 →

Laura Strickling triumphant in “Opera News”

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Congratulations Laura! Opera News remains the crème de la crème of publications for serious classical singers.  Opera News wrote a glowing review for Sasha Cooke’s Yarlung debut album If You Love For Beauty, and now Opera News celebrates Laura Strickling and Joy Schreier for their debut album Confessions.  Laura and Joy we are so happy for you. Many thanks for your great artistry Laura and Joy, and thanks to Randy Bellous for your support as our executive producer. Not only did Joanne Sydney Lesser label Confessions with the Opera News Critic’s Choice Award, but opens her article: Laura Strickling, an experienced interpreter of new music, has put together and exemplary recital of world-premiere recordings.  Strickling is a compellingly honest performer, whose rich, expressive soprano conveys vulnerability with a balance of shimmering tone and unaffected diction.  Both Strickling and her superbly emotive pianist Joy Schreier ring every nuance out of these Continue Reading →

The Absolute Sound Super LP List 2020

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Jonathan Valin’s famous resource for vinyl lovers, the Super LP List in The Absolute Sound, honored Yarlung’s Janaki String Trio release on 45RPM vinyl from executive producer Elliot Midwood in 2016.  Jonathan praises this Janaki disc for its particularly natural sound.  Since 2016, the Super LP list has added these additional Yarlung titles: Ciaramella Dances from executive producer Elliot Midwood Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina Smoke & Mirrors percussion ensemble from executive producers David & Margie Barry Sophisticated Lady Jazz Quartet from executive producers Ann & Bill Harmsen Sasha Cooke’s If You Love For Beauty from executive producer Jim Mulally Thank you to the superb musicians, lacquer engineers and pressing plants who have made this success possible.  We appreciate it! –Bob Attiyeh, producer

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 →

Classics Today Review: “Sasha Cooke’s Captivating Orchestral Songs”

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Yarlung| Amazon | NativeDSD | HDTracks | iTunes  Excerpts from a review on Classics Today of Sasha Cooke — “If You Love for Beauty” — by David Vernier American mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke… has a voice of substance, lustrous and silver-toned, especially rich and vibrant in the lower register, with the assured technique of one who has the goods and just knows what to do with her gift…. She characterizes the mood, various colors, and moments of rising intensity, or more “dreamy” or reflective passages in the Chausson Poème particularly well, expertly abbetted on all counts by a very fine orchestra and its sensitive music director Yehuda Gilad. Cooke’s voice has the size and expressive range to sustain focus on and interest in whatever she is doing, in true collaboration with an orchestra that’s sizable and exceptionally colorful in its own right. Throughout the Chausson, and also in the Mahler (excellent solo horn and Continue Reading →

Executive Producers – Yarlung Records

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Sponsorship, philanthropy and guidance from underwriters have always been critical to the success of music and the performing arts.  The choragoi, wealthy citizens of Athens, helped produce and pay for classical performances in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.   Before them, the pharaohs sponsored the arts in ancient Egypt.  Lorenzo de Medici and his Renaissance family were not the first patrons of the arts in western culture, and as long as the arts flourish, it will be visionary people who finance them and make them possible. Countess Yoko Nagae Ceschina, “Fairy Godmother to the New York Philharmonic,” died last month.  I appreciated this loving tribute in the New York Times. It is our executive producers who sponsor and make music possible at Yarlung Records.  They are our fairy godmothers and fairy godfathers, our modern Medicis, who work with us and support our musicians every year. Please join our executive producers Continue Reading →

The Absolute Sound – Yarlung Records Makes A Splash

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Yarlung Records Makes A Splash By Jeff Wilson   |  Aug 13th, 2014 Categories: Jazz, Classical One of the pleasures of experiencing a second golden age of audio is witnessing all the ways record labels keep evolving. Take, for example, Yarlung Records, a California- based company that, when it was launched in 2005, was just one more small label in the increasingly sink-or-swim music industry. Almost ten years later Yarlung remains, in the words of owner Bob Attiyeh (uh-TEA-yuh), “too small to fail,” yet its list of accomplishments points to the success a label can achieve when it combines carefully-chosen performances with superb-sounding recordings. Case in point: In 2010 Yarlung won a Grammy for Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina, a recording that also earned a spot on the list of top forty best-sounding recordings TAS compiled in Issue 234. A big part of Yarlung’s success comes from its Continue Reading →