On November 18, Naxos releases Gian Carlo Menotti’s beloved 1951 Christmas classic Amahl and the Night Visitors, paired with My Christmas (1987), a short choral work with a libretto by the composer (Naxos 8669019). This recording features the Nashville Symphony, led by Alastair Willis; members of the Nashville Symphony and Chicago Symphony choruses, led by directors George Mabry and Duain Wolfe; and soloists Ike Hawkersmith (Amahl), Kirsten Gunlogson (Mother), Dean Anthony (King Kaspar), Todd Thomas (King Melchior), Kevin Short (King Balthazar), and Bart LeFan (Page to the Kings). This recording marks the third in two months featuring the Nashville Symphony; the other releases are Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (Naxos 8570716) and John Corigliano’s A Dylan Thomas Trilogy (Naxos 8559394).Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera written for television, enjoys over 500 performances annually around the world and is immensely popular with amateur groups. A disabled boy, Amahl, and his mother encounter the three Kings who seek the newborn Jesus. After deciding to give his crutch to the Christ Child, Amahl is miraculously healed, and he joyfully accompanies the Magi to Bethlehem to give thanks. Sung in English, the opera is a humorous and poignant Christmas classic, beloved by audiences of all ages.

No post-war opera has enjoyed exposure comparable to Amahl and the Night Visitors, commissioned by NBC and first televised on Christmas Eve in 1951. Although it was subsequently staged at Bloomington in February 1952, conducted by Thomas Schippers, with whom Menotti enjoyed a long working relationship, the opera’s television potential has been explored in a number of subsequent presentations. Between 1951 and 1966, it was shown each year on NBC on or around Christmas Eve. In 1963, it was remade by NBC with an all-new cast, a production shown for the next three years. Then, in 1978, NBC filmed another new production, partly on location in the Holy Land. Meanwhile, the BBC commissioned two versions of its own, the first broadcast in December 1955, with the second following four years later. Menotti himself directed another filmed version as late as 1996. All of these productions attest to the appeal that Menotti’s unassuming stage work has exerted over audiences for almost six decades.

On October 28, Naxos released its fourth recording featuring the acclaimed Baroque music ensemble Opera Lafayette, performing Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide. Led by Artistic Director Ryan Brown, the cast features mezzo-soprano Stephanie Houtzeel in the title role, supported by Robert Getchell, François Loup, William Sharp, and others. Opera Lafayette’s recordings for Naxos include Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice (2005), Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone (2006), and Rameau Operatic Arias (2007).

Armide was the zenith of Lully’s long and fruitful career as the most powerful musician at the court of Louis XIV and the first major composer of French opera. Though not his final composition, Armide was his last complete tragédie en musique and the last work he wrote in collaboration with librettist Philippe Quinault. It was an instant and enduring success: a crowd-pleaser at its initial production and a perennial favorite of audiences and critics in the 18th century.

OPERA LAFAYETTE is a period-instrument ensemble dedicated to performances of 17th- and 18th-century operas, particularly of the French repertoire. Founded in 1995 in Washington, D.C. by Artistic Director Ryan Brown, Opera Lafayette has earned critical acclaim and a loyal following for its performances and recordings with international singers renowned for their interpretations of Baroque and Classical operas. The Washington Post called the ensemble “one of the most intellectually exciting fixtures of the Washington music world.” Of their recording of Rameau Operatic Arias with tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, England’s OPERA magazine wrote: “The period-instrument orchestra of the Washington-based Opera Lafayette … in its decade-long existence has done so much to further the cause of 18th-century French Opera.” Upcoming recordings by Opera Lafayette include Rebel and Francoeur’s Zélindor, roi des Sylphes (2009), and Le Déserteur, to be recorded in February 2009.

On October 28, Naxos released The Christopher Nupen Films’ new documentary, Vladimir Ashkenazy: Master Musician. Nupen, dubbed “king of the music documentary” by Gramophone and a three-time winner at Midem in Cannes (2005, 2006, and 2008), has put together a revealing portrait of the Russian-born pianist and conductor. The film includes Vladimir Ashkenazy: The Vital Juices Are Russian (1968); a montage of Nupen’s composer films with Ashkenazy as conductor; and a performance segment featuring Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations, released for the first time on this disc. Additionally, the DVD features a short interview with Ashkenazy.

The Vital Juices Are Russian was shot in 1968 when Ashkenazy moved with his wife and son from London to Iceland. The title refers to a statement about the composer’s Russian-ness that he makes during the film. Mr. Nupen comments: “The portrait film was made at an important turning point in Vladimir Ashkenazy’s life and career, a time when everything was changing, much to do and much being done. Some piquancy was added by the fact that our young hero felt that he was struggling to come to terms with the great traditions of the West, because, as he says in the film, he felt inadequately prepared. At that time, the idea that he might, somewhere in the distant future, become an internationally-recognized conductor was not even on the horizon.”

Since the original film was made, Ashkenazy-possibly the most frequently-recorded pianist in history, with a discography of 56 pages-has also become an international conductor. The DVD includes a montage of sequences from Nupen’s composer films featuring Ashkenazy at the podium. Next is a short but revealing interview with the composer on music and musical gifts and, finally, a segment on Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations, which Ashkenazy discusses at length. The film concludes with a complete performance of the piece, filmed live at a public concert in Lugano.

Ashkenazy won the Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians Prize at age 18 and later won the Tchaikovsky competition. That was only the start, however; his career has continued to rise steadily from then until now. In 2007, he celebrated his 70th birthday, an event that inspired worldwide press celebrations and an eight-disc boxed set of CDs from Decca; the final disc is an 80-minute conversation between Ashkenazy and Christopher Nupen.

Christopher Nupen is the recent recipient of myriad awards, including DVD of the Month from both Classic FM and Gramophone; three German Record Critics’ Awards; the Diapason d’Or (France); and, most recently, the DVD of the Year Award (documentary category) from Midem at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes for Jacqueline du Pré - A Celebration. This is Nupen’s third Midem DVD of the Year Award in four years, an unprecedented achievement; it is the top international classical DVD prize awarded by the institution. Founded in 1968, Christopher Nupen’s company Allegro Films has produced significant documentaries on Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Kissin, Nathan Milstein, Franz Schubert, Andrés Segovia, Jean Sibelius, and Pinchas Zukerman. Through close relationships with these artists, Allegro Films has produced a series of intimate portraits recognized as classics, with a longevity rarely achieved in television programming.

 David Oistrakh, Artist of the People? (Medici 3073178) is the latest film by acclaimed French filmmaker and violinist Bruno Monsaingeon (Glenn Gould Hereafter; Nadia Boulanger: Mademoiselle). One of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, David Oistrakh (1908-1974) was largely self-taught, yet he became the true founder and undisputed master of the Soviet school of violin-playing, the most prestigious school of our times. The film includes rare archival footage (on and offstage) gathered over many years by Monsaingeon, whose fascination with Oistrakh dates back to his childhood. In addition to performances by David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sviatoslav Richter, Igor Oistrakh and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (among others), the filmmaker spoke at length with Menuhin, Rostropovich, and the violinist’s son Igor.

Some of the stories related by Rostropovich and Menuhin chillingly reveal the exceptionally troubled circumstances in which Oistrakh lived. Despite being Jewish, Oistrakh refused to leave Soviet Russia even when emigration may have been possible. The interviews shed light on a man who, like his contemporary Dimitri Shostakovich, found ways to survive during the dark years of Stalin.

Because of the political climate of the time-Stalinism and the Second World War-Oistrakh’s career in Western Europe, America, and Japan blossomed relatively late. It was not until 1953 that he began to make regular appearances in the West, by which time he was already 45 years old-though his legendary reputation had already made him the subject of endless speculation throughout the Western musical world. His first proper international tours instantly confirmed the legend, and from then until his death in Amsterdam in 1974, he pursued a varied career in the concert hall, as a soloist and conductor, and as a teacher. Oistrakh’s genius inspired numerous composers to write for him. He premiered sonatas and concertos by Prokofiev, Khachaturian and Shostakovich, among others, and performed these works all over the world.

 Tony Palmer writes: “There are always dates which resonate forever in our lives … for me that date is May 30, 1962. By chance, I had been taken to Coventry Cathedral by a friend, John Culshaw, to hear a ‘big new choral piece’ by Benjamin Britten, whose entire works Culshaw was in the process of committing to disc by Decca.” The work to which Palmer refers, of course, is Britten’s War Requiem, one of the most important works to come out of the later half of the 20th century. Palmer went on to make a film in 1967 about the opening of the original Snape Concert Hall called Britten & His Festival. Britten was so taken with that film that after his death, his longtime partner Sir Peter Pears asked Palmer to make another, more substantive film in his memory.

 Benjamin Britten: A Time There Was (1979) is as much a love story as it is a biography. Pears’ commentary and conversation provide the central focus for the film, which also includes numerous musical excerpts from Britten’s operas and other works and features artists who include Leonard Bernstein, Kathleen Ferrier, Dame Janet Baker, Sviatoslav Richter (another Russian champion of Britten’s music), Julian Bream, Peter Glossop, John Shirley-Quirk, and others. The film also highlights the more personal side of the composer, with commentary from Britten’s housekeeper Miss Hudson, Rita Thompson (who nursed him through his final illness), his copyist and musical confidants Imogen Holst and Rosamund Strode, and the Mayer family who housed Britten and Peter Pears when the two left England in 1938 in objection to the war.

Palmer says, “I could never repay my debt to him, but I hoped (and hope) the film would enable others to share something of this strange, haunted man, and his enduring power for us. Humphrey Carpenter once played the Young Person’s Guide on his program In Tune on Radio3. Following the tumultuous fugue at the end, there was a long pause, and eventually Humphrey said: ‘That, ladies and gentlemen, is pure genius.’ Yes, it is.”‘

“The key is to create a situation where the director sees his film coming together the way he envisioned it as your piece of the puzzle is put in - that’s how you get a pass-off for a cue….So the process of scoring a film should be the process of breathing life into it.”
- James Guymon

It’s the night before Christmas and Gabe Snow, a tabloid writer haunted by the Ghosts of Christmas past, is investigating a Yule Tide conspiracy. Gabe knows that Flight 1225 was brought down one foggy Christmas Eve, by a flying creature with a “glowing nose”. Now, a bloodsucking Vampire - Santa Claus - has put Gabe on his list and unleashed the demonic fury of the North Pole. An army of zombie elves, who have no interest in Toys or pointy hats or dentistry, are about to turn Gabe’s white Christmas blood red…

On October 28, ERM Media released the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Two Front Teeth with a score composed, orchestrated and conducted by James Guymon. Two Front Teeth, released in October of 2007 has enjoyed critical success at many festivals including Horrorfest UK, Spooky Movie Film Festival, and the Utopia Film Festival and has had feature showings at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival. Written by Jamie Nash (Altered and Seventh Moon) and co-directed and co-produced by Nash and David Sckrabulis, Two Front Teeth is destined to become a horror cult classic.

James Guymon is an award-winning composer for film and the concert stage. He studied composition with Robert Ian Winstin, New Mexican composer Michael Mauldin, and commercial composer Ben Carson. Guymon’s first film of critical acclaim was Jacques Thelemaque’s Transaction (2005), which won the prestigious Grand Prix du Jury Prize at the 2006 Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in the experimental category. This was the first time an American film had ever won the top prize in the experimental category, and the first time in ten years an American Film had won either of the two Grand Prix du Jury Awards. Transaction was also an official selection of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, London Film Festival, Los Angeles International Film Festival, Santa Fe Film Festival, and a BAFTA award winner at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

To find out more about the Two Front Teeth Original Motion Picture Soundtrack visit http://www.myspace.com/twofrontteethoriginalsoundtrack

On October 28, PentaTone Classics released the debut recording of Sa Chen, marking the beginning of a long-term exclusive contract between PentaTone and the acclaimed Chinese pianist. The SA-CD recording features her performing the two Chopin piano concertos accompanied by the Gulbenkian Orchestra, led by conductor Lawrence Foster. Also included are a bonus PAL-format DVD featuring footage of the recording session of the second movement of Piano Concerto No. 1 and an interview with Ms. Chen by Gramophone’s James Jolly.

Of Ms. Chen’s recent performance of the two Chopin concertos with the Plano Symphony, Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News wrote: “In both Chopin concertos she was as surely attuned to the honeyed romanticism as to the glitters and grand rhetorical gestures.” Ms. Chen’s Hollywood Bowl debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in August also brought accolades for the young pianist. Rick Schultz of the Los Angeles Times commented: “The pianist’s chamber music-like dialogues with clarinet and violins, which dominated the eventful opening Allegro, created a memorable poetic intimacy. In Schumann’s nuanced Intermezzo and exuberant finale, the pianist’s sparkling tone was probably as natural-sounding as it could be in an outdoor setting.”

Already a star in China, the Chongqing native first studied at the Sichum Conservatory and the Shenzhen School of Arts. From 1994-2001, she studied with Professor Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London and later continued her studies with Professor Arie Vardie at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover. Ms. Chen gave her first major performance at age 16 at the Leeds International Piano Competition, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and broadcast live on BBC Television. As the youngest contestant in the final round, she won fourth place and captivated British audiences. That successful performance marked the beginning of her international career. Since then, Ms. Chen has won a number of prestigious awards, including the overall fourth prize at the 14th Annual Chopin Piano Competition and the Crystal award at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Ms. Chen performs regularly throughout Europe, Asia, and the U.S. with celebrated conductors like Leonard Slatkin, Edo de Waart, and James Conlon. In August, she participated in the Piano Extravanganza as part of the cultural events surrounding the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

“Ordinarily, when composing a piece, first I plan its shape. But I’d already completed half of A Dylan Thomas Trilogy before I realized what it should be-a memory play in the form of an oratorio-and it was only 40 years after I first encountered Thomas’s poetry that I completed it. It has been a long and serendipitous journey. Thomas’s poems have reappeared in my life precisely when they have felt most autobiographical, and just when I needed to write exactly the music they have evoked.”
-John Corigliano

On October 28, Naxos releases the world-premiere recording of John Corigliano’s A Dylan Thomas Trilogy (Naxos 8559394), performed by the Nashville Symphony and its Music Advisor Leonard Slatkin. Also featured are the Nashville Symphony Chorus (George Mabry, Chorus Director), renowned British baritone Sir Thomas Allen, Canadian tenor John Tessier, and boy soprano Ty Jackson.

The genesis of this work began in 1959, when the composer, then a senior at Columbia University, first encountered Thomas’ poetry. He called it a “revelation” and composed the first of several settings in the following year using the text of Fern Hill. (The original version was for mezzo-soprano, chorus, and orchestra, but as the work morphed to reflect “the three stages of man,” Corigliano recast the mezzo-soprano solo for boy soprano.) In 1969, Charles Wadsworth of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center asked Corigliano to write a work for the Society’s opening season. He returned to Dylan Thomas, this time setting the bittersweet Poem in October, inspired by the poet’s 30th birthday. This time, the narrator’s voice was that of a tenor, accompanied by flute, oboe, clarinet, string quartet, and harpsichord.

In 1975, Corigliano again revisited Thomas’ poems while dealing with complex professional and personal issues. His discovery of Poem on his Birthday, in which the poet’s 35th year “is not celebrated but ‘spurned,” was an eerie reflection of his own struggles. Unlike the bel canto vocalism of Fern Hill and Poem in October, Poem on his Birthday needed to reflect the character’s midlife crisis. Scored for a baritone and full orchestra and chorus, Corigliano incorporates a broad spectrum of musical styles, “dreaming up an array of sounds (sea winds, bird calls, ghost cries) deciding on their precise shape first, their notation later.” In 1976, the newly-complete Dylan Thomas Trilogy received its premiere in Washington National Cathedral.

Twenty years later, and more at peace with his life, Corigliano asked Maestro Leonard Slatkin if he could finish the trilogy, which no longer felt complete. For the composer the oratorio was about a man “interpreting … his future through his past”; Fern Hill and Poem in October, therefore, needed to be recast to appear as memories rather than actual events. Additionally, Corigliano needed another work to frame the quasi-operatic oratorio, and eventually settled on Author’s Prologue, Thomas’s introduction to Collected Poems. The newly recast oratorio begins with baritone, chorus, and orchestra, presenting the first 51 lines of text from Author’s Prologue (Part I). Fern Hill, scored for chamber choir, orchestra, and boy soprano, follows. The baritone soloist then reappears with the chorus in Part II of Author’s Prologue, preparing the audience for the pastoral Poem in October (also rescored for chamber orchestra). The work concludes with Poem on his Birthday.

John Corigliano, among the most honored composers in the United States, was awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Symphony No. 2. In March 2000, his third film score, for The Red Violin, won the Academy Award (”Oscar.”) Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, an impassioned response to the AIDS crisis, won the 1991 Grawemeyer Award for Best New Orchestral Composition; the Chicago Symphony’s recording of it won Grammy® Awards for Best New Composition and Best Orchestral Performance, and it has been played by over 150 different orchestras. A Distinguished Professor of Music at the City University of New York, Corigliano was named in 1991 to the faculty of The Juilliard School and to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an organization of American’s most prominent artists, sculptors, architects, writers, and composers. Commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera, where it premiered in December 1991, Corigliano’s “grand opera buffa,” The Ghosts of Versailles, sold out two Met engagements in 1991 and 1994, as well as its 1995 production at the Chicago Lyric Opera. It is due for another Met revival in the ‘09-’10 season. Corigliano’s recent works include 2004’s Circus Maximus: Symphony No. 3, for multiple wind ensembles, and Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (‘The Red Violin’), released by Sony in December 2007, with Marin Alsop leading soloist Joshua Bell and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Corigliano’s catalogue includes three symphonies, seven concerti (for violin, flute, clarinet, oboe, guitar, percussion, and piano), numerous shorter works for orchestra, and an extensive catalogue of chamber works, recorded on major labels. His music is published exclusively by G. Schirmer, Inc.

Leonard Slatkin was appointed Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2008, after completing his 12th and final season as Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra. The distinguished American conductor continues as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Advisor to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and Conductor Laureate of the Saint Louis Symphony, of which he was Music Director for 17 seasons. He has served as Festival Director of the Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Festival (1990-1999), Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra (1997-2000), Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2000-2004), and Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (2004-2007). Mr. Slatkin’s many recordings have won seven Grammy® awards. He is the recipient of honors that include the 2003 National Medal of Arts, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Gold Baton for service to American music, ASCAP awards with both the National and Saint Louis symphonies, honorary doctorates from Juilliard, Indiana University, and the University of Missouri, and the Declaration of Honour in Silver from the Austrian ambassador to the U.S. for outstanding contributions to cultural relations.

Sir Thomas Allen is an established star of the great opera houses of the world. At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden-where, in 2006, he celebrated the 35th anniversary of his début with the company-he has sung over 40 roles. In 2006, he also celebrated the 25th anniversary of his début at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. A regular guest at the world’s great opera houses, he is particularly acclaimed for his Billy Budd, Pelléas, Eugene Onegin, Ulisse, and Beckmesser, as well as the great Mozart roles of Count Almaviva, Don Alfonso, Papageno, Guglielmo, and Don Giovanni. Equally renowned on the concert stage, Sir Allen has appeared with many of the world’s great orchestras and conductors. He has recorded with distinguished names rhat include Solti, Levine, Marriner, Haitink, Rattle, Sawallisch and Muti. In the New Year’s Honours of 1989, he was created a Commander of the British Empire, and in the 1999 Queen’s Birthday Honours, he was made a Knight Bachelor.

On the international stages of opera, concert, and recital, Canadian tenor John Tessier has gained attention and praise for the beauty and honesty of his voice and his refined style and artistic versatility in the lyric tenor repertoire. He has performed with the major orchestras of Canada and the U.S., as well as in opera house throughout Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

12-year-old Ty Jackson has performed with the Nashville Symphony on numerous occasions, including a recent recording of George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess. He is a member of the Nashville Boy Choir at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

Led by Music Advisor Leonard Slatkin, incoming Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero, and President and CEO Alan D. Valentine, the Grammy® Award-winning Nashville Symphony has a growing international reputation for its recordings and innovative programming. With 140 performances annually, the 84-member ensemble is an arts leader in Nashville and beyond, offering a broad range of pops and jazz concerts, special events, children’s concerts, and community outreach programs.

For over 40 years, the Nashville Symphony Chorus has regularly presented significant works from the classical choral repertoire, from Baroque music to contemporary. During George Mabry’s 10-year tenure as Chorus Director, the Chorus has also been featured in three CDs: Celebration in Song, a collection of sacred music recorded in 2000; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, recorded on the Naxos label (8.557060) in 2003; and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, released on Decca in 2006. A further Nashville Symphony recording with the Chorus is in progress with Naxos: Gian Carlo Menotti’s My Christmas, a cantata with male chorus to be coupled with Menotti’s popular opera Amahl and the Night Visitors.