Greg Dember - I Don't Know I Think I Fell from the Sky - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In January 1973, the Theater Bern put Rossini's early opera buffa InchL'equivoco stravaganteInch on the program in a German text version created for Bern, thus creating a veritable theatrical sensation. The work was performed fifteen times and even had to be included in the 1973/74 schedule - unusual for a municipal theater that did not maintain a so-called repertory business like large opera houses. Responsible for the great success, which caused surprise throughout the German-speaking world, was a perfectly coordinated ensemble under the direction of the phenomenal general music director EWALD KÖRNER. The performance was recorded in stereo by Swiss Radio DRS in the Bern studio after the season. It is thanks to this circumstance that the InchBerner versionInch of the rather lesser-known buffa can now be presented on 2 albums, thanks to the research of RELIEF, in excellent sound quality, with an exemplary booklet and the libretto of the Berner performance.

Due to his taking to the piano at age three, Geoffrey Keezer worked early with such legends of jazz as Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown and Art Blakey, becoming the last pianist - and one of the youngest at age 18 - to join Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

Viol consort Fretwork and mezzo soprano Helen Charlston explore the more reflective and sombre Christmas celebrations of Elizabethan England, in a collection of works by William Byrd, Anthony Holborne, Orlando Gibbons and Martin Peerson. With celebrations confined strictly to the 12 days from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, the preceding Advent was regarded as a time of religious introspection, with music composed to mark both fasting and feasting. Byrd's consort songs for voice and 5 viols encompass this range, from the joyous Out of the Orient Crystal Skies - ending with an exuberant 'Falantidingdido', a word whose meaning is lost to history - to his Lullaby, a 'song of sadnes and pietie' that became one of Byrd's most enduringly famous songs. In 2021, Fretwork celebrates it's 35th anniversary. In the past three and a half decades they have explored the core repertory of great English consort music, from Taverner to Purcell, and made classic recordings against which others are judged. In addition to this, Fretwork have become known as pioneers of contemporary music for viols, having commissioned over 40 new works. Acclaimed for her musical interpretation, presence and Inchwarmly distinctive toneInch (The Telegraph), Helen Charlston is quickly cementing herself as a key performer in the next generation of British singers. Helen won first prize in the 2018 Handel Singing Competition and was a finalist in the Hurn Court Opera Competition, and the Grange Festival International Singing Competition.