The just released Medici Arts DVD - Martha Argerich: Evening Talks has been featured in the August 3rd edition of the New York Times. Click the image below to read the entire story.

Tags: Classical Music, Martha Argerich, Medici Arts, Naxos, piano

The web magazine New Music Box has featured a video discussion with composer Gloria Coates that is certainly a must see. Click on the image below to view it.

Tags: Classical Music, Gloria Coates, Naxos, new music box

Zum ersten Juli eröffnet Naxos ein neues Logistikzentrum für den nationalen und internationalen Versand und bündelt damit den Vertriebsbereich wieder unter einem Firmendach. Damit wird Naxos Global Logistics (NGL) in Kirchheim vor den Toren Münchens zum Dreh- und Angelpunkt der deutschen und globalen Vertriebsaktivitäten des weltweit agierenden Unternehmens.

Ab Juli sollen von Kirchheim aus alle Tonträger von NGL distribuiert werden. Als Geschäftsführer gab Naxos-Deutschland-Chef Chris Voll Mohamed El Wakil bekannt, der bislang als kaufmännischer Direktor für die Naxos Deutschland Musik & Video Vertriebs-GmbH tätig war: “Ich freue mich, dass mit Herrn El Wakil ein langjähriges Mitglied der Naxos-Familie für diese verantwortungsvolle Position gefunden werden konnte. Herr El Wakil bringt durch seine Erfahrung und sein Know-how alle Voraussetzungen für diese Leitungsfunktion mit.”

Zudem betonte Voll die Vorteile des neuen Logistikzentrums: “Damit tragen wir der nach wie vor ungebrochenen Nachfrage nach dem physischen Tonträger im Bereich Klassik Rechnung und können die Abwicklung und den Service sowohl für den deutschen Handel als auch für unsere internationalen Vertriebspartner optimieren.” Für den Handel in Deutschland ändere sich außer den Telefonnummern, Faxnummern und einem “noch besseren Service” nichts, so Voll. Mohamed El Wakil lobt die günstige Lage des Vertriebsstützpunkts. “Das neue Logistikzentrum in München-Kirchheim ist perfekt an die Infrastruktur wie Autobahn und Flughafen angebunden und bietet somit auch hinsichtlich der örtlichen Gegebenheiten optimale Bedingungen für einen reibungslosen logistischen Ablauf. Ich freue mich sehr auf diese neue Aufgabe.”

Außerdem sei das neue Vertriebszentrum so dimensioniert, dass auch für weitere Vertriebe und Labels sowohl die deutsche Logistik als auch der weltweite Export abgewickelt werden könne, und biete daher eine optimale Grundlage für die Expansion der Aktivitäten im nationalen und internationalen Bereich.

NGL Naxos Global Logistics

NGL Naxos Global Logistics GmbH Hürderstraße 4 85551 Kirchheim GERMANY

Telefon +49 (0) 89/9 07 74 99-0 Fax +49 (0) 89/9 07 74 99-10 E-Mail info@naxos-gl.com

 

 

Tags: Chris Voll, German, internationaler Versand, Logistikzentrum, München, nationaler Versand, Naxos, NAXOS DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, Naxos Deutschland Musik & Video Vertriebs-GmbH, Naxos Global Logistics, NGL, NXD, Tonträger, Vertriebszentrum

For those of you who are fans of violinist Philippe Quint he will be interviewed on the television program Night Talk that airs on Bloomberg Television this evening (05.29.08) at 10 PM ET. http://www.bloomberg.com/tvradio/tv/

Tags: Naxos, Philippe, Quint, violin

20th Century Guitar – The Art of Modern Guitar
Friedemann Wuttke, guitarist
Compositions by Wedlich, Brouwer, and Domeniconi

Guitarist Friedemann Wuttke has performed compositions from all periods of music in his concerts and recordings; from the earliest guitar arrangements through Classical and modern contemporary works.  Wuttke’s newest album 20th Century Guitar, features some of the most beloved guitar composers of our time including Ulrich Wedlich, Leo Brouwer, and Carlo Domeniconi.

Stuttgart guitarist and composer Ulrich Wedlich’s Sonata für Gitarre conjures a meditative state in the listener. Its music appears to hover in the gray area between a popular and serious guitar work.  Cuban-born and self-taught composer Leo Brouwer is perhaps the most important representative of 20th Century Guitar music on the recording. His Concerto Elegiaco for Guitar and Orchestra gives the impression of a large, lush, Romantic era orchestra.  In reality, the piece is scored for strings and 2 percussionists; one playing kettle drums, the other playing a drum, tom tom, marimba, and glockenspiel.  Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba for Guitar (named for a saint-like hermit who lived in the South of Turkey) uses solely the guitar to create a magical sea adventure for the listener with sounds that fashion a world that seems to extend beyond human horizons.

Since 1992, Friedemann Wuttke has exclusively pursued his concert and recording career. He appears regularly at international music events and festivals and participates in numerous radio and television recordings. Wuttke has traveled the world as a concert guitarist and has performed with many important ensembles and orchestras.

Cello Fiesta!
Kremerata Baltica, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Giorgi Kharadze
Compositions by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Vaja Azarashvili, Ginastera, and Chick Corea
“Recommended” By Gidon Kremer

Cello Fiesta! is a unique recording by the orchestra-in-residence of the Kronberg Academy, Kremerata Baltica, and two Kronberg Academy Cello Masters: Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Giorgi Kharadze.  Hecker (Winner of the 2005 International Rostropovich Cello Competition) and Kharadze (Winner of the International Pablo Caslas Cello Competition) perform repertoire from three centuries while incorporating a range of musical colors and historical styles.  Gidon Kremer, founder of the Kremerata Baltica, has compared Hecker and Kharadze to the likes of the great cellist Pablo Casals and has also said that they are “musicians who will secure the future of the new generation of cellists”.

The recording opens with Haydn’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in C major, followed by the inspired Pezzo Capriccioso in B minor, which was composed by Tchaikovsky in less than one week.  These pieces pave the way for a variety of pieces from the 20th century, including the single movement Concerto for Cello and Orchestra by the revered Georgian composer Vaja Azarashvili.  Written for his good friend Pablo Casals, Argentinian Ginastera’s Glosses sobre temes de Pau Casals (Op 46) is colorful and provocative.  Chick Corea’s La Fiesta, arranged for 2 celli, strings and percussion, appropriately serves as the finale of the recording.

Tags: Brouwer, Cello Fiesta!, Chick Corea, Domeniconi, Ginastera, Giorgi Kharadze, Haydn, Kremerata Baltica, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Naxos, NaxosDirect, Profil, Tchaikovsky, Vaja Azarashvili, Wedlich, Wuttke

LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 • Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

In anticipation of the upcoming Bernstein 90th birthday celebration, Naxos releases Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. Leonard Bernstein came to Tanglewood as a student under Sergei Koussevitzky in the summer of 1940. Two summers later, Bernstein was appointed as the assistant to Maestro Koussevitzky at Tanglewood. Bernstein continued to return to Tanglewood almost every summer for 50 years to teach and conduct. This performance from August of 1972 speaks to Bernstein’s passion for conducting, his love affair with Tanglewood, and his hometown Boston Symphony Orchestra’s fondness for him.

Bernstein remarked of this performance of Brahms Symphonies 2 & 4, “Every time I return to Tanglewood I’m filled with nostalgia, but this summer of 1972 I’ve had a particularly vivid memory of Koussevitzky conducting the Brahms symphonies he loved so deeply.”

A bonus film shows Leonard Bernstein talking about his relationship to Tanglewood, his early career there and of the festival’s very special culture. The DVD also features Bernstein in conversation with his students in the summer of 1972, when the material for this wonderful portrait of Leonard Bernstein was recorded.

BEETHOVEN STRING QUARTETS

Juilliard String Quartet

Op. 18 No. 4 • Op. 59 “Rasumovsky” No. 1 • Op. 13

Now celebrating its 62nd anniversary, the Julliard String Quartet was founded in 1946 to champion the cause of chamber music through pedagogy and public performance. Known for its unprecedented affinity for experimentation, the quartet has won 4 Grammy® Awards and has been String Quartet-in-Residence at the Library of Congress since 1962. Thirty years into its long history, and equipped with founding member Robert Mann on 1st violin, veteran members Earl Carlyss (2nd violin) and Samuel Rhodes (viola), and cellist Joel Krosnick, the ensemble was filmed performing these Beethoven quartets.

This unique documentation of a 1975 concert is performed in an acoustically spectacular former Augustinian Monastery in Bavaria and includes Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 4 in C minor (1799), a stellar example of Beethoven’s early works; the mid-period String Quartet No. 7 in F major, which was completed 7 years later and is regarded as one of Beethoven’s finest chamber works; and finally the last large-scale piece written by the composer, String Quartet No. 14 (Op. 131), which is considered to be one of his greatest works in any the genre.

Tags: Beethoven, Bernstein, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Brahms, BSO, EuroArts, Juilliard String Quartet, Naxos, NaxosDirect, Rasumovsky