Studio Masters

Earthside – Let The Truth Speak (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Cinematic rockers Earthside have announced the release of their highly anticipated second album, ‘Let the Truth Speak.’ It will be released on 17 November via Music Theories Recordings / Mascot Label Group, worldwide.

8 long years removed from their critically show-stopping entrance – A Dream in Static [2015] – the idealistic thinkers and feelers in Earthside found themselves in a different world entirely … or, perhaps, a world more honest and unhinged than they and many others had bargained for.

Let The Truth Speak is truly an international affair, featuring vocalists and storytellers from all walks of life and corners of the globe.

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Das Kleine Konzert & Hermann Max – Georg Philipp Telemann: A Christmas Oratorio (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

During the eighteenth century an oratorio was the dramatic setting of an action that was mostly of sacred character and was represented by several persons as well as by a choir and an orchestra. Various plot elements – even dramatic ones – determined the character of the particular composition. This also applies to the present Christmas Oratorio, which was pieced together in this form not by Telemann himself but for this new pre- sentation as a so-called pasticcio, a form that enjoyed popularity already in the eighteenth century. In this case five cantatas from Telemann’s Hamburg and Frankfurt periods form an oratorio covering the time from the Birth of Jesus to the Feast of the Epiphany. Influences from the opera are also found in many instances, given the fact that at Telemann’s time oratorios – as in this case – tended more to be sacred operas. The operatic nature of the series of works brought together here is clearly illustrated above all by the dramatic recitatives, dialogic scenes, and arias. But Telemann also integrated the choruses into the plot in their function as primarily dramatic numbers. What ultimately is beyond human understanding about the Birth of Jesus is described with powerful affects throughout the cycle. In addition, in this Christmas story Telemann demonstrates his inclination for musical pictorialness.

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Justin Benavidez – Storytellers (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Justin Benavidez - Storytellers (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Tuba virtuoso Justin Benavidez is heard in three new tuba concertos, two recent solos, and stunning transcriptions of works by Gustav Mahler and Claude Debussy. Benavidez is currently Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Florida State University and performs as principal tuba of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. In the summer he is on the faculty at the Round Top Music Festival in Texas. With his playing noted for it’s “tremendous virtuosity and stylistic versatility,” Benavidez has performed in venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He has been featured numerous times on APM’s Performance Today radio program. His debut solo album, Emblems, won Silver Medals in the Classical Album and Instrumental Solo Album categories of the Global Music Awards. The International Tuba Euphonium Association Journal described it as “an impressive and highly entertaining record” on which Benavidez “shreds with enthusiasm, exuberance, and precision.”
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Jussi Lampela Ensemble – Jussi Lampela Ensemble (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Jussi Lampela Ensemble - Jussi Lampela Ensemble (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Jussi Lampela is one of the most sought-after composers and arrangers in Finnish jazz. In 2010, he recorded the acclaimed album “Lampela X Eskola” for Helsinki’s Ricky-Tick Records with the Nonet featuring Jukka Eskola on trumpet. His other recent collaborations include projects with the UMO Jazz Orchestra, Vantaan Viihdeorkesteri, drummer Teppo Mäkynen’s new ensemble Teddy’s West Coasters, and Iiro Rantala. Lampela has also worked extensively with film scores.
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Jun Märkl – Camille Saint-Saëns : Symphonic Poems (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Jun Märkl - Camille Saint-Saëns : Symphonic Poems (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

The reputation of Camille Saint-Saëns is recovering from decades of self-serving modernist depredations, and it’s becoming clear that much of his prolific output contains gems that are on a plane with his comparative handful of popular works. Here the popular one is the final Danse Macabre, Op. 40, but the rest of the program is so strong that the delightful Halloweener has the flavor of an encore. The program doesn’t even consist entirely of symphonic poems. Two of the best finds are the adjacent Serenade and Rigaudon, Op. 93, Nos. 1 and 2, perfectly formed apotheoses of Baroque genres that embody the neoclassic idea well in advance of its actual beginnings (sample these, which are not commonly played). The symphonic poems themselves are fun and evocative enough that you might have a shot at guessing them without titles or other guidance. Two deal with the young Hercules, and make you wish Saint-Saëns had written an opera on this theme. The glittering Phaéton, Op. 39, serves as an overture to match the closing Danse Macabre and lays out the sufficiently silky tones of the Orchestre National de Lille with its German conductor, Jun Märkl. A thoroughly enjoyable three-quarters of an hour of music.
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Jung Jaeil – psalms (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Jung Jaeil - psalms (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Jung Jae Il’s intensely personal new album translates his love of biblical psalm into music, acting as a spiritual salve for our turbulent times. Revisiting the rich string textures of his acclaimed Parasite and Squid Game soundtracks, the composer adds massed choir, a cappella vocal effects, and solo vocals, plus judiciously employed electronics. Overtones of Bach and Handel resonate through “memorare,” named after a prayer to the Virgin Mary. In dynamic contrast, the staccato synth-percussive effects heard in “his days are like a passing shadow II” strike a more experimental note. Throughout, Jung Jae Il conjures a compelling sense of mood, alternately despairing, hopeful, and apprehensive.
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Julius Asal – Prokofiev: Piano Works (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Julius Asal - Prokofiev: Piano Works (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

“This album is not only a confession and result of my great admiration for the music of Sergei Prokofiev, it also reflects an intense examination of one of the most multifaceted and versatile artists of the 20th century. My chosen program spans around three decades of his compositional works, in which hope and fate, innocence and abyss, directly intertwine and contrast each other. At the heart of this recording is the ballet Romeo and Juliet, based on the play by William Shakespeare. In addition to a total of three orchestral suites, the composer also created a suite for piano containing ten selected transcriptions from the orchestral version. This version, for the first time, includes six other pieces from Romeo and Juliet, which I arranged for the piano in 2020. They add other famous themes to the original piano suite as well as about half of it’s original duration. Apart from dealing with the orchestral score, which is in principle true to the original, new correlations arise occasionally through the linking of thematic material from different acts. The idea was, in particular, to bring about a cumulation of the musical characters by consciously reusing individual motifs based on the original and thus to create a new arc of tension in the piano suite.”
– Julius Asal
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Julija Hartig – Dark Velvet (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Julija Hartig - Dark Velvet (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

This album can be seen as an autobiographical story. It is a reflection of Julija Hartig’s Yugoslav and Dutch identity described in 10 pieces by 8 composers. All of these pieces have their unique musical language and way of expressing thoughts and feelings. From pure honest most tender love to the unearthly sounds in search of answers. Some of them speak about deep sorrow of loss, passionate greed for love and life, brutally distorted decomposed beauty or simply pure wild untamed joy. One thing that is common to all of them is that they were written or arranged for Julija Hartig with a deep understanding of her way of playing which is always intense, honest and expressive. She loves them all like my children and enjoy watching them grow. In addition to the selection of already composed music from 1990 on, three new works were written for her, especially as a part of this project.
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Julie Roset, Millenium Orchestra, Leonardo García Alarcón – Handel: Salve Regina (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

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Julie Roset, Millenium Orchestra, Leonardo García Alarcón - Handel: Salve Regina (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download

Julie Roset, Millenium Orchestra, Leonardo García Alarcón – Handel: Salve Regina (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:13:54 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Ricercar

Julie Roset, a young French soprano from Avignon, immediately attracted attention with her first recital for Ricercar (Nun danket alle Gott with Clematis) and went on to record a recital of works by Sigismondo d’India with Mariana Flores that met with great critical acclaim. In this new recording she tackles several of Handel’s masterpieces on religious themes: his Salve Regina , Gloria and the motet Silete venti were all composed at the time when the young Handel had been inspired to new heights by his discovery of Roman musical life.
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Copenhagen Phil & Toshiyuki Kamioka – Strauss (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

With its Chief Conductor Toshiyuki Kamioka at the helm, the Copenhagen Philharmonic performs three of Richard Strauss’s most sparkling scores: the Oboe Concerto, with soloist Andreas Fosdal, the First Horn Concerto, played by Jakob Keiding, and the suite from Der Bürger als Edelmann. Strauss’s Oboe Concerto is in three seamless movements: a pastoral opening with ornate oboe lines leads into a radiant slow movement and virtuoso finale. Strauss’s famous horn-playing father inspired his First Horn Concerto, which reveals his evident relish for the horn’s uninhibited, bucolic character as it cuts through the orchestral colours. Strauss’s music for Der Bürger als Edelmann (based on the 17th-century Molière-Lully collaboration Le bourgeois gentilhomme) is an early instance of neoclassicism, originally composed to be performed immediately before his opera Ariadne auf Naxos. The result is a quintessentially Straussian confection, combining lyricism and good humour.

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Julie Park – Bowen: Viola Concerto & Phantasy (The Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Julie Park - Bowen: Viola Concerto & Phantasy (The Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Julie Park, notably the first violist to receive a Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Scholarship, now makes her debut on Linn with a programme of works by York Bowen. Together with her duo pianist Michel Xie, they perform the Viola Concerto in C minor, Op. 25, and the Phantasy in F major, Op. 54. Both dedicated to viola virtuoso Lionel Tertis, these pieces successfully exhibit the compositional developments from the composer’s early years to his more mature style. Composed in 1907, the Concerto mirrors Bowen’s youthfulness and energy, whereas the Phantasy, dated 1918, delves into a deeper, more mature Romanticism.
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Julie Doiron, Dany Placard – Julie & Dany (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Julie Doiron, Dany Placard - Julie & Dany (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Julie Doiron and Dany Placard have announced a new collaborative album titled Julie & Dany. It’s due out April 29 via Simone Records.

“‘Mayo’ is a day like many days in our little house in New Brunswick,” said Doiron in a statement. “And while it seems we are just singing of things like mayonnaise and carrots, we are mostly singing of the ups and downs and all the moments in between.”

Spanning 11 tracks in total, Julie & Dany was written and recorded between Doiron and Placard’s homes in Quebec and New Brunswick during Canada’s mandatory stay-at-home orders. The real-life couple wanted to capture their love and desire to be with one another while enduring the monotony of pandemic life.

Doiron’s last album, I Thought of You, came out in 2021. And, in 2019, she released a collaborative LP with Mount Eerie called Lost Wisdom Pt. 2, a sequel to their 2008 record Lost Wisdom.
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Julian Velasco, Winston Choi – As We Are (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Julian Velasco, Winston Choi - As We Are (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Saxophonist Julian Velasco headlines an inventive, virtuosic, and diverse album of contemporary classical works for soprano, alto, and tenor sax as winner of Cedille Records’ first Emerging Artist Competition, a juried event celebrating the independent classical label’s 30th anniversary of championing Windy City artists of world-class talent.

For his first-ever album as a featured soloist, Velasco has assembled a program he says reflects “the different musical aspects of my life at this moment” while paying tribute to “the unique and wonderful people with whom I have been lucky enough to surround myself.”
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Julian & Roman Wasserfuhr – Mosaic (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 2, 2023 · Comments off

Julian & Roman Wasserfuhr - Mosaic (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

For their new album “Mosaic”, their first in four years, the German brothers Julian (trumpet) and Roman (piano) Wasserfuhr have put together their personal, international dream band and written music with each special member in mind. The result is music in which all these masterful players put their skills in the service of melody, groove and atmosphere.
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Julian Lloyd Webber, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Hans-Peter Hofmann – Vivaldi: Concertos for 2 Cellos (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Julian Lloyd Webber, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Hans-Peter Hofmann - Vivaldi: Concertos for 2 Cellos (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Julian Lloyd Webber, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Hans-Peter Hofmann – Vivaldi: Concertos for 2 Cellos (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:38 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos

The first arranger of Vivaldi’s concertos was Vivaldi himself, and Julian Lloyd Webber’s new versions in this recording reflect the composer’s pragmatic attitude and zest for experiment. Vivaldi’s Concerto in G minor RV 531 is his only original concerto for two cellos. Alongside this appear works both popular and recently discovered, the mercurial moods of the cellos representing instruments from mandolins to hunting horns. Piazzolla’s Milonga displays all of his most distinctive hallmarks. Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber’s acclaimed album A Tale of Two Cellos can be found on Naxos 8573251. This release follows Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber’s highly successful album A Tale of Two Cellos (8573251), with its two cellos “beautifully played and blended together” (Gramophone) and considered a thing of “rare beauty” by The Strad. This recording of Vivaldi concertos will have poignant associations and special value for Julian’s many fans, as he has since been forced to withdraw from performing due to injury. Vivaldi’s ever popular music dressed anew by such an internationally outstanding artist is a guarantee of global interest and very substantial sales.
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