New Album Review: Canadian Brass Takes Flight

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The Canadian Brass has been on the scene for over forty years and the formula for their success hasn’t changed much. You can always count on them to program a couple of barn-burning showpieces, a few Baroque tunes, a smattering of chestnuts and a ragtime or jazz rave-up. Canadian Brass Takes Flight proves that nearly a half-century of a good thing can continue to be a good thing.

Canadian Brass Takes Flight is what Daniel Guss calls in his effusive liner notes, “a kind of state of the union address by the group.” A cynic might say that means the overlying concept behind the dozen and a half selections is to serve as a showcase for what this talented quintet can do. If you think of Canadian Brass Takes Flight as a brilliantly played and smartly packaged greatest hits album you will not be disappointed.

New Album Review: The Sixteen - Exclusive Sampler

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Is there any choral ensemble with as broad a command of repertoire as the Sixteen? The Sixteen’s mastery of nearly 500 years of choral music is presented on this specially priced Ariama exclusive sampler featuring music from England, Germany, Italy, Spain and France.

This eclectic collection is a superb exploration of musical styles and a tribute to the Sixteen’s versatility.

New Album Review: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: A Tribute

This must have been a very difficult album to produce. The consistent brilliance of mezzo-soprano’s Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s Harmonia Mundi recordings certainly must have made the practical task of selecting recordings, by an artist who never sung an unfelt note in her life, a challenge. Then there’s the emotional weight of assessing the career of an artist whose life was tragically brief. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for producer Robina G. Young to put this beautiful album together, but she has made a great one and we are grateful.

All-Star Composer Lineup!

A mid-July favorite, Major League Baseball’s All-Star game is a showcase for the game’s best. But what if there were an all-star game for composers? Who would make the team and what would be the batting order? We selected a composer all-star team and some of their best works, and made some pretty nifty composer baseball cards to go with them...

See the all-star lineup and check out the cards!