EydÃs Evensen is a classical and new-age pianist who finds inspiration from Iceland’s stunning nature and climate. Her mesmerizing debut album Bylur was a calming contemporary classical diary of her life to date – “So many ups and downs. All of my joy, darkness, happiness, heartbreak, and melancholia,” is how she described it – a more literal journey inspires new EP Frost; through one of her homeland’s winters. “It’s such a hard thing to go through, this darkness,” she explains, “but the rising of the sun earlier and earlier as spring nears is hugely important for Icelanders.”
Opening the EP is [...]
Markus Burger is a German-born concert pianist, composer, and educator based in Los Angeles, California. Burger is a full-time music professor at Fullerton College and a lecturer for the graduate jazz piano and composition program at San Diego State University. In August 2019, Burger spent two afternoons in Vienna, the music capital of Europe, recording in the Bösendorfer piano showroom, courtesy of Ferdinand Bräu. Burger is releasing The Vienna Sessions, a sixteen-track album from the session via Challenge Records. Burger says, “I have been a fan of Bösendorfer pianos since studying at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany, [...]
Arabella Steinbacher is a multiple award-winning violinists that has recorded Mozart’s violin concertos starting in 2014 with the Festival Strings Lucerne and its leader Daniel Dodds. With the release of Mozart: Violin Concertos, they complete the cycle by presenting Mozart’s enchanting Violin Concertos 1 and 2 plus his Adagio in E Major and Rondos in C Major and B-flat Major. Also noted is that Steinbacher plays the cadenzas by Wolfgang Schneiderhan, who co-founded the Festival Strings Lucerne in 1956. Another exciting aspect of this album is that she plays on the “Ex Benno Walter” Strad from 1718. This [...]
Maya Beiser is a cellist, arranger, and producer who is bringing together a group of avant-garde cellists to create a multi-layered sound sculpture to discover innovative dimensions in some of Philip Glass’s most potent and achingly beautiful works. Her new album is Maya Beiser x Philip Glass, which was recorded at Hudson Hall in 2021. The album has multi-cello arrangements of Glass’ piano Etudes Nos. 2 and 5, Mad Rush, Music in Similar Motion, and selections from Naqoyqatsi, part of Glass’s Qatsi Trilogy with filmmaker Godfrey Reggio.
Beiser explains the album, “In making this album, I searched for layers [...]
