Noble / Morales - Zapateado Mexicano - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Gibbons, Monteverdi and Willaert represent the high watermark of madrigal writing in England, Italy and the Netherlands respectively. Their subtle marriage of music and text has produced enduring miniature masterpieces of love lost and found and pastoral humour. And there are no shortage of distinguished contemporaries in those countries. But Spain, the home of golden-age polyphony, also had a lively tradition of madrigal composition, too little of which is known beyond native shores. This fine new recording should address that shortcoming. In fact Spain already had a flourishing culture of secular songs in the form of villancicos when Italian composers arrived at royal courts and chapels during the 16th century and bringing with them their own traditions of popular music. Mateo Flecha 'The Younger' was a Catalan, Carmelite monk who showed himself adaptable to this Italian influence in his own book of madrigals, eventually published in Venice and excerpted here. Joan Brudieu (1520-1591) was a Frenchman also living in Catalonia who published madrigals in Spanish and Catalan (both languages represented in this collection). Even less familiar is the name of Pedro Valenzuela - his dates are lost to us - but he uses a sophisticated harmonic vocabulary with acute sensitivity to text in a trio of Italian-texted madrigals. He had emigrated to Italy as a singer at St Mark's in Venice, and he was followed by Sebastián Raval, while Stefano Limido travelled in the other direction. Thus as a whole the collection illustrates a stimulating cross-fertilisation of Spanish and Italian styles in consort music. The performances are both polished and authoritative, attentive to original sources and grounded in a thorough understanding of madrigalian style. Founded by it's director José Duce Chenoll in 2010, the Amystis ensemble already has an impressive catalogue of recordings to it's nam

The entire project is both spare and impossibly rich. While this may sound like a contradiction, it has everything to do with the virtuosic musicianship of pianist Art Hirahara and Jim Tomlinson, as well as Stacey's elegant and unadorned vocal approach.The opening track, Lucky To Be Me, works as an invitation to the theme of the album and uses the open space between vocal phrases to draw us in. And, while all of the tracks are worth an unadulterated listen, I'm going to list a few of my favorites, starting with La Javanaise, which is delivered with an almost offhanded musical precision and sung in Stacey's pitch-perfect French. The surprising warmth of Stacey's lower vocal range makes A Time For Love the intimate ballad it was meant to be. Jim's tenor sax does the same, so that his playing is the ideal complement to Stacey's voice.The entire album is a joy to listen to both musically and sonically. It was lovingly recorded and mixed by Jim (yet another of his talents) at their home studio in Virginia.- Cliff GoldmacherStacey Kent is an American jazz singer in the mould of the greats, with a legion of fans, a host of honors and awards including a Grammy® nomination, album sales in excess of 2 million and more than one billion streams, and Platinum, Double-Gold, and Gold-selling albums that have reached a series of chart-topping positions.Stacey, a comparative literature graduate with a passion for music, travelled to Europe to further her studies after receiving her degree from Sarah Lawrence College in NY. Through a series of twists of fate, she found herself in London, where she enrolled in a graduate music program at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she met her future husband and musical partner, Jim Tomlinson.Kent's musical journey began with childhood piano lessons. A keen ear and true voice led her to search out opportunities to express her love of

This album features two guitar arrangements of Mexican traditional music, performed by the Aleph Duo, made up of Gustavo Camacho Gomez and Eric Trejo Santiago. Gustavo Camacho Gomez holds a Bachelor in Classical Guitar from the Superior School of Music of the INBA. He is currently studying for his Master's Degree at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, Austria. He teaches at the State School of Music of Tabasco, and is an undergraduate professor at the State Institute of Culture of the State of Tabasco. Eric Trejo Santiago holds a Bachelor in Classical Guitar from the Superior School of Music of the INBA. He is currently pursuing a master's degree at the Hochschule fur Musik InchHanns EislerInch zBerlin, where he is a beneficiary of the FONCA-CONACYT Scholarship Program for Study Abroad. Along with his classical training, he practices different currents of contemporary music, free jazz, and free improvisation. In 2010, he was part of the free improvisation quintet Synergia Ensemble with which he gave two concerts at the International University Music Festival in Belfort, France.