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Launch Music International is the one-stop-shop for Classical Record Labels seeking worldwide digital and physical distribution as well as publishing, press, promotions, CD/DVD manufacturing and other services. A selection of new releases now available via the LMI Worldwide Distribution Network UNDER MILK WOOD: AN OPERA WORLD PREMIERE Music by John Metcalf Words by Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood: An Opera is the seventh opera by leading Welsh composer John Metcalf. The libretto is directly adapted from Dylan Thomas’ famous play for voices Under Milk Wood. It premiered on 3 April 2014 at the Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea. Released by Ty Cerdd Records - a new label devoted to the promotion of Welsh Music Ty Cerdd TCR013 WILD ABOUT TRANSCRIPTION... Dominic John piano BARBER: Sonata for Piano; WILD: Fantasy on Porgy and Bess; KREISLER: Praeludium & Allegro; BUSONI: Nine Variations on a Chopin Prelude; RAVEL: Sonatine “On this evidence, Dominic John has inexhaustible energy, phenomenal technique, bravura and at least four arms... astounding... cleverly programmed and well-filled disc, most listenable and highly recommended.” International Piano Magazine Willowhayne Records WHR033 BRIGHT IS THE RING OF WORDS Chris Booth-Jones baritone Igor Kennaway piano VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, BUTTERWORTH, FINZI & MOERAN An exemplary collection of some of the most beautiful English songs written in the 20th century, in which the poets and composers express internal journeys of a wide emotional range, from youthful love and its erotic pleasures to the stoic wisdom of advanced years, reflecting on the passing of time and death itself. Magpie Mag0502 DIALOGUE Mozart and Chopin Josep Colom piano Includes MOZART: Fantasy in D Minor, K. 397; Rondo in D Major, K. 485; Adagio in B Minor, K. 540; CHOPIN: Ecossaise in D Major, Op. 72, No. 1; Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, No. 4; Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34, No. 2; Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17 No. 4 and more A journey towards an imaginary encounter between Mozart and Chopin realised through the exceptional vision and artistry of Josep Colom. Eudora EUD1402 (SACD) ACCORDION SENSATIONS Paul Chamberlain accordion Feargus Hetherington violin The Maxwell Quartet PIAZZOLLA: Le Grand Tango; Asleep; Loving; Fear; WEBER: Konzertstück in F minor; SCARLATTI: Sonata in F# minor K25; Sonata in G major K455; ZOLOTARIEV: Sonata No 2 “Chamberlain [is] a provider of virtuoso showpieces.. astonishing breadth of colours and styles” Seen & Heard International - Edinburgh Fringe Review Pentland Music CD02 WIM HENDERICKX Disappearing in Light (2008) Raga III (2010) The Four Elements (2011) “A work as theatrical as subtle, with oriental accents that perfectly merge with the elaborate contemporary harmonic structure” (De Standaard) “Henderickx has woven a subtle, melodic web that beautifully brings out the text... the listener is struck by the delicate textures and the many overwhelming complex structures.” (Cutting Edge) Hermes Ensemble HMES001 “LMI have provided us with a unique solution to the problem of our international distribution. [Their] tailor-made service enables us to concentrate on the business of making records. This company knows the industry and the industry knows Launch Music International.” Mark Stone, Owner Stone Records “LMI are great to work with...[the manufacturing service is] extremely price competitive and efficient. Whenever I need a distribution solution for a particular market, they get it sorted.” “What has been consistent is Launch Music International’s efficiency, consideration and honesty; their balance of real personal care with business formality. I am excited to be a part of LMI’s developing business” John S. Cronin, Music & Media Consulting Limited Victoria Soames-Samek, Artistic Director Clarinet Classics To find out more about our digital and physical worldwide distribution and publishing services as well as manufacturing and packaging, PR and Label Management please visit www.launchmusicinternational.co.uk or contact philip@launchmusicinternational.co.uk Launch Music International LaunchMusicInt @LaunchMusicInt
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RECORDINGS & EVENTS A special eight-page section for readers in the US and Canada talks to... Patrick Dupré Quigley Seraphic Fire’s Artistic Director on his choir and its latest recording The subtitle of your new disc is ‘A Century of American Choral Music’ – there must have been music you couldn’t include… So much, yes – from Elliott Carter and Walter Piston to the younger generation. For every one young American composer featured on this disc there were at least another 10 that we could have included. It became clear, for example, that we could easily make an entire disc of young female American composers who aren’t heard as much as they should be. How did you come across young composers Jake Runestad and Colin Britt? I have to admit, I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to scrolling through Facebook and social media when I have some spare time; these composers are very active on social media and in a lot of instances they sought us out and connected with us. I’m glad they did! Samuel Barber is right in the middle of the programme – is he still a central figure for American composers, in stylistic terms? Absolutely. Even though there was a sense for some time that Barber was becoming a European composer, his Reincarnations has become an absolute touchstone for American composers and an idea of what an American sound and style in vocal music actually is – particularly in how it responds to text. Thanks for noticing that we’ve placed the Barber at the centre of the programme; it certainly is, in both a literal and figurative sense, as the programme both builds up to it and moves on from it. But there’s also vital context in the two traditional Shaker hymns we include here. This is music that is woven into America – a tradition those young composers and our singers are very familiar with. Tell us about those singers…how do you achieve such extraordinary accuracy and blend within the ensemble? I think of Seraphic Fire as a sort of all-star choir for the United States, so although we’re rooted in South Florida, our members come from all over the USA. We work very hard on blend through vowel sounds, particularly at the upper end of the register, and I’m very keen to sing with ‘just intonation’, so low fourths and low thirds, like how a string quartet might think about its tuning. It really makes a difference to the sound. But more importantly, our singers take that away and back to their own ensembles and classes, as many of them are singing teachers and have their own choirs. I’d like to think we’re propagating a true national school of singing just through the way we perform ourselves. I D O S AI A S DI R U : P H O T O G R A P H Y JS Bach . Beethoven ‘Mostly Transcriptions, Vol 2’ JS Bach Preludes and Fugues – BWV532 (transcr Busoni); BWV543 (transcr Liszt, S462). Violin Sonata No 5, BWV1018 – Adagio (transcr Siloti). Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV639/177 (transcr Busoni) Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte, Op 98 (transcr Liszt, S469). Piano Sonata No 111 Tien Hsieh pf MSR Classics F MS1531 (71’ • DDD) The young Taiwaneseborn pianist Tien Hsieh continues her series of piano transcriptions for MSR Classics with music by Bach and Beethoven as heard gramophone.co.uk by pianistic titans Busoni, Liszt and Siloti, plus one original piece by their fellow titan Beethoven. As a multiple prize-winner and already an experienced concert artist, Hsieh has her commanding way with Busoni and Liszt transcriptions of Bach’s Preludes in D major and A minor, while she changes course easily and uses a ‘less is more’ philosophy to discover the full range of physical beauty in Siloti’s adoring framing of the Adagio from Bach’s Fifth Violin Sonata. She particularly excels in Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte, its first recording in 10 years, 14 minutes of music that has been lost amid the profusion and popularity of Liszt’s Schubert transcriptions. Hsieh catches spontaneously and joyously Beethoven’s own open-hearted sweetness and nobility, and in doing so conveys a very real sense of poetry being transformed into music. It is a greater challenge to merge the dimensions of size and intimacy that Beethoven’s Sonata Op 111 suggest and which truly compelling performances require. Hsieh begins with a miraculous, time-stretching phrasing of the opening bars, then is mostly content to lay out precisely the structural lines, applying great amplitude and warmth of phrasing, and letting the music unfold without haste – until, that is, a thrilling upsurge of movement into the chains of trills towards the end. The sound is full-range and natural. Laurence Vittes Harman ‘After JSB-RS’ After Schumanna – I; II. 371b. Concertinoc. Der Tag mit seinem Lichtd GRAMOPHONE APRIL 2015 I

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Launch Music International is the one-stop-shop for Classical Record Labels seeking worldwide digital and physical distribution as well as publishing, press, promotions,

CD/DVD manufacturing and other services.

A selection of new releases now available via the LMI Worldwide Distribution Network

UNDER MILK WOOD: AN OPERA WORLD PREMIERE Music by John Metcalf Words by Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood: An Opera is the seventh opera by leading Welsh composer John Metcalf. The libretto is directly adapted from Dylan Thomas’ famous play for voices Under Milk Wood. It premiered on 3 April 2014 at the Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea. Released by Ty Cerdd Records - a new label devoted to the promotion of Welsh Music

Ty Cerdd TCR013

WILD ABOUT TRANSCRIPTION... Dominic John piano BARBER: Sonata for Piano; WILD: Fantasy on Porgy and Bess; KREISLER: Praeludium & Allegro; BUSONI: Nine Variations on a Chopin Prelude; RAVEL: Sonatine “On this evidence, Dominic John has inexhaustible energy, phenomenal technique, bravura and at least four arms... astounding... cleverly programmed and well-filled disc, most listenable and highly recommended.” International Piano Magazine

Willowhayne Records WHR033

BRIGHT IS THE RING OF WORDS Chris Booth-Jones baritone Igor Kennaway piano VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, BUTTERWORTH, FINZI & MOERAN An exemplary collection of some of the most beautiful English songs written in the 20th century, in which the poets and composers express internal journeys of a wide emotional range, from youthful love and its erotic pleasures to the stoic wisdom of advanced years, reflecting on the passing of time and death itself.

Magpie Mag0502

DIALOGUE Mozart and Chopin Josep Colom piano Includes MOZART: Fantasy in D Minor, K. 397; Rondo in D Major, K. 485; Adagio in B Minor, K. 540; CHOPIN: Ecossaise in D Major, Op. 72, No. 1; Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, No. 4; Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34, No. 2; Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17 No. 4 and more A journey towards an imaginary encounter between Mozart and Chopin realised through the exceptional vision and artistry of Josep Colom.

Eudora EUD1402 (SACD)

ACCORDION SENSATIONS Paul Chamberlain accordion Feargus Hetherington violin The Maxwell Quartet PIAZZOLLA: Le Grand Tango; Asleep; Loving; Fear; WEBER: Konzertstück in F minor; SCARLATTI: Sonata in F# minor K25; Sonata in G major K455; ZOLOTARIEV: Sonata No 2 “Chamberlain [is] a provider of virtuoso showpieces.. astonishing breadth of colours and styles” Seen & Heard International - Edinburgh Fringe Review

Pentland Music CD02

WIM HENDERICKX Disappearing in Light (2008) Raga III (2010) The Four Elements (2011) “A work as theatrical as subtle, with oriental accents that perfectly merge with the elaborate contemporary harmonic structure” (De Standaard) “Henderickx has woven a subtle, melodic web that beautifully brings out the text... the listener is struck by the delicate textures and the many overwhelming complex structures.” (Cutting Edge)

Hermes Ensemble HMES001

“LMI have provided us with a unique solution to the problem of our international distribution. [Their] tailor-made service enables us to concentrate on the business of making records. This company knows the industry and the industry knows Launch Music International.”

Mark Stone, Owner Stone Records

“LMI are great to work with...[the manufacturing service is] extremely price competitive and efficient. Whenever I need a distribution solution for a particular market, they get it sorted.”

“What has been consistent is Launch Music International’s efficiency, consideration and honesty; their balance of real personal care with business formality. I am excited to be a part of LMI’s developing business”

John S. Cronin, Music & Media Consulting Limited

Victoria Soames-Samek, Artistic Director Clarinet Classics

To find out more about our digital and physical worldwide distribution and publishing services as well as manufacturing and packaging, PR and Label Management please visit www.launchmusicinternational.co.uk or contact philip@launchmusicinternational.co.uk

Launch Music International LaunchMusicInt @LaunchMusicInt

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