Ganna Gryniva Quintet - Dykyi Lys - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

This from Shelest Piano Duo presents pieces for piano solo and piano four hands by Ukranian composers written between the late 19th and 21st centuries. Having established themselves as solo artists, while garnering prizes and awards along the way, the Ukrainian born husband and wife Shelest Piano Duo brings to the performance stage inventive programs of not only solo repertoire, but four hand music. First Prize winners of Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, the Duo made their Carnegie Hall debut in 2011 and appeared at the venue annually since. Their debut album InchTutti, orchestral arrangements for piano four handsInch has been broadcasted at over 100 radio stations in North America. Anna and Dmitri reside in New York City.

Erased Tapes first introduced Lubomyr Melnyk and his unique continuous music technique to a wider audience with Corollaries (ERATP 048 CD/LP), an album produced by Peter Broderick in 2013. Now he returns with a 24-minute mini-album entitled Evertina. Featuring three newly-composed solo piano pieces, the long-form EP showcases another side to Lubomyr Melnyk - his more gentle and melodic work. In 2012 Lubomyr's ears began to notice the remarkable tonal depth of upright pianos. To Lubomyr the upright piano sound is like a natural forest of microcosmic colors. InchEvertinaInch and InchAwaitingInch were created on a middle-aged upright piano at a friend's home in New York in October 2012 - just before Hurricane Sandy hit the city. Some children were listening to Lubomyr as he played in a hotel lobby in Cologne and InchButterflyInch is the piece that he made for them. It was recorded on a battered grand piano somewhere in Switzerland in late 2013, with the lid closed down to soften the effect. InchThe piano for me has so many different faces, so many personalities and wonders, it is like life itself, ever-changing yet always holding to a permanence of beauty. Like butterflies that never fly in a straight line but always carry their loveliness with them in their multi-angled paths. I want people to hear these pieces, that are always hidden from the world. I keep them locked away in a quiet place, far from the concert hall. Why do I do that? I guess it is because they are so easy to play, so effortless, I can do them while sleeping. Whereas my more demanding abilities on the piano come out in the forceful nature of continuous playing. There, the new ground is being broken and a new door is being opened for the world. But that does not mean that I am bound by nature or by god to do only continuous music. My heart moves into these pieces just as it moves into the continuous mod

All Rossini's qualities as a musical giant are to be found in concentrated form in the famous overtures. The sheer vitality of the music is astounding, and the wealth of thematic material ensures that each is remarkable in it's own different way. The Rossini anniversary of 2018 presented an opportunity to shed new light on these familiar works, but in a form that the composer himself would have recognised. This long-established mandolin quintet took a mix of old and newly commissioned arrangements and toured them across Italy to great success before making the present recording. The quintet takes it's name from the mandolin virtuoso Giuseppe Anedda (1912-97) who popularised the instrument throughout his native Italy with his own ensemble and established for it a place in classical concert halls and modern works beyond the 'early music revival' of the 50s and 60s. He took part in pioneering recordings of Vivaldi and early performances of Stravinsky's Agon. This all-Italian quintet (comprising a pair of mandolins, a mandola, guitar and double bass) was founded in Anedda's memory in 2003 to carry on his work. It's members are all soloists and teachers in their own right. They commissioned Michele Di Filippo to arrange the first four overtures on this album L'Italiana in Algeri (1813), Il Viaggio a Reims (1825), La Cenerentola (1817) and La Scala di Seta (1812). The other four overtures are from Il Signor Bruschino (1813), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816), Tancredi (1813) and La Gazza Ladra (1817), for which the quintet performs from transcriptions made and published in the first half of the 20th century by Mario Macchioci and Enrico Marucelli. All the arrangements preserve the heady excitement of the famous 'Rossini crescendo' as well as the chamber-like dialogue between wind and strings in the original scores.