Podcast: Jonathan Leshnoff. Recent orchestral works.

Raymond Bisha introduces Naxos’ fifth album devoted to the music of leading American composer, Jonathan Leshnoff, who was GRAMMY-nominated for his album Violins of Hope (Naxos 8.559809) and is amongst the most frequently performed of living composers. The themes of this mixed programme of his recent works are remembrance, memorialisation and hopefulness. The soloist in Read More …

Mix of the Month, May

The New on Naxos monthly releases always comprise an eclectic body of works, with something old challenged by something new, and an occasional knockout discovery for good measure. For this month’s survey, however, I’m going to limit the overview to works written during the last century. So, out go works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Liszt, Dvořák, Read More …

Podcast: A fervent expression of hope. Jonathan Leshnoff’s Fourth Symphony.

Complementing the artist line-up of Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony on this recording are the Violins of Hope, a poignant collection of restored instruments that survived the Holocaust. Jonathan Leshnoff wrote his Symphony No. 4 with this unique set of orchestral voices in mind; Raymond Bisha introduces the performance and the background to its Read More …

Supernatural. Super music.

Imagine a bygone era when an existence without religion and superstition would be unthinkable, in which the souls of the departed were believed to exist among the living as a matter of course. In our lives today, surrounded by technology and cosseted by commerce, such powerfully held beliefs exist only in barely acknowledged vestiges of Read More …