Svetlana Andreeva - Air - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Giya Kancheli, one of Georgia's most eminent composers, became increasingly famous after the advent of glasnost in the Soviet Union, when his works, not least his seven symphonies, were heard internationally. Around the year 2000 Kancheli shifted away from the opulence of these pieces and moved towards a more restrained, introspective vein, which is exemplified by the three works on this album. Elements of folk and traditional music can be glimpsed in the abstract Ex contrario, while Middelheim is striking for it's overlapping succession of episodes. Tsutisopeli was Kancheli's final score.

Pianist Swetlana Meermann-Muret takes us on a journey through the heights and depths of the Russian soul in her new GENUIN . The prizewinner of international competitions devotes herself to gems of piano literature-the rarely recorded miniatures by Anatoly Lyadov and Anton Arensky. Lyadov's Preludes, in particular, are more than just precursors of well-known works by Rachmaninoff and Scriabin! Swetlana Meermann-Muret, a native Russian pianist, devotes herself to these treasures with an attention to detail and a warm sound. Moving testimonies of a lost culture!

For more than thirty years there had not been an individual prizewinner in the discipline of horn at the German Music Competition, that is, until Tillmann Höfs came from Hamburg in 2017. He won the hearts of the audience and literally blew the jury against the wall. His qualities, technical superiority, and great musical genius also distinguish his GENUIN debut album, which was produced in the Primavera series in cooperation with the German Music Council. Höfs shows the entire breadth of his youthful, slim yet festive horn playing with works by Richard Strauss, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paul Hindemith and Jörg Widmann. Outstanding repertoire and interpretation! Tillmann Hofs grew up in a family of musicians and had already learned to play the trumpet as a very young child. It was on this instrument that he won first prize at the national level in the competition InchJugend musizeiertInch and scholarships from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the German public service broadcaster NDR, among other awards. In 2011, he switched to the horn and again won the InchJugend musiziertInch National Prize along with several special prizes. Since 2015 he has been studying at the Berlin University of the Arts with Christian-Friedrich Dallmann.