Hope,Jonathan - Gloucester Experience - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Hard Quartet is a band. But what is a band? A band, perhaps, can be thought of as a body, a corpus, in which physically discrete lifeforms comprise a chimera that shrieks with one voice. In this particular band, which is one of millions in the world today, four players selflessly merge, become musical, and emit rock 'n' roll that is familiar but new, warm but icy, melodic but Sphinx-like in it's seductive and subtle riddles... essentially, The Hard Quartet has leveled, cultivated, and made rich an entirely new steppe in the ecosystem of guitar-bass-drums-voice agriculture.

In the latest in Willowhayne Records' acclaimed Experience series, organist John Hosking is joined by soprano Olivia Hunt, violinist Xander Croft and harpist Bethan Griffiths in a varied programme from St Asaph Cathedral. With two world premiere recordings of the music of John Hosking, the recording also includes music by J. S. Bach, Léon Boellmann, Lili Boulanger (her beautiful Pie Jesu) and Sigfrid Karg-Elert's Symphonic Chorale 'Nun ruhen alle Wälder.' John Hosking is Director of Music at Holy Trinity, Southport, following fourteen years as Assistant Director of music at St. Asaph Cathedral. He is also one of the organists for the BBC's Daily Service. A student at the Royal College of Music, John became Organ Scholar of Westminster Abbey in 1996 and is the only person to ever hold this post for a period of three years. During this time, John played the organ for many Royal and State occasions, broadcast for the BBC and played twenty solo recitals in the Abbey.

Jonathan Nott - Schubert Epilog [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/12/2005