NEW RECORDINGS Archives - World's Leading Classical Music Platform https://theviolinchannel.com/advice/careers/out-now/new-recordings/ World's Leading Classical Music Platform Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:53:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.4 https://theviolinchannel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/the-violin-channel-favicon-01.png NEW RECORDINGS Archives - World's Leading Classical Music Platform https://theviolinchannel.com/advice/careers/out-now/new-recordings/ 32 32 Esther Yoo's New Album, "Love Symposium" https://theviolinchannel.com/esther-yoos-new-album-love-symposium/ Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:58:52 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=228763 […]

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Violinist Esther Yoo released her new album totady titled Love Symposium on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

The album's repertoire revolves around the theme of love, and the centerpiece is Leonard Bernstein's 1954 Serenade, after Plato's Symposium for violin and orchestra. The work, which consists of five movements, is a musical portrayal of Plato's Symposium, a philosophical dialogue dating from roughly 385 B.C.E in which a variety of characters discuss the meaning and essence of love.

Yoo complements Bernstein's work with shorter contributions from Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Mahler, Edward Elgar, and the songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

Yoo is joined on the album by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Long Yu.

"The inspiration was really an exploration of love in all its guises," Yoo told The Violin Channel. "We often think of love in music as something purely romantic and idealized, and I wanted to create a sound world on this album where we experience real love—the blissfully transcendent, the powerfully intoxicating, the gut-wrenchingly painful, and everything in between.

"I drew from a mix of philosophical sources and personal experiences—everything from the ideas in Plato’s Symposium to the very real, grounded love we feel for nature, family, friends, and significant others," Yoo continued. "It’s a musical portrait of the various connections that shape life, including the essential journey of learning to love oneself."

Hear the full album below:

 

Violinist Esther Yoo was the youngest prizewinner of both the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and since then, she has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and more.

Alongside pianist Zhang Zuo and cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, she is the founder of the Z.E.N. Trio, with whom she tours internationally and has released two albums on Deutsche Grammophon. Highlights of her 2025/2026 concert season include appearances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Z+ International Chamber Music Festival, and her recital debut at Seoul Arts Center. Yoo currently serves on the faculty of the Royal College of Music in London.

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Yunchan Lim's New Album, "Bach: Goldberg Variations" https://theviolinchannel.com/yunchan-lims-new-album-bach-goldberg-variations/ Fri, 06 Feb 2026 20:29:36 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=228628 […]

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Pianist Yunchan Lim has released his new album Bach: Goldberg Variations on the Decca Classics label.

The album was recorded live at Carnegie Hall in April 2025 in front of a sold-out audience. Seventy years early and only a few blocks away, pianist Glenn Gould had made his legendary recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Recording a live performance of the Goldberg Variations, an iconic cornerstone of the keyboard repertoire, had long been a goal for Lim. The first time I heard Bach’s Goldberg Variations was when I was eight years old and I discovered a box set of Glenn Gould’s Bach recordings," he explained. "When I first listened to it, I was amazed by its grandeur and beauty, and it has remained close to my heart ever since. I’ve dreamt of releasing this piece as a live album from Carnegie Hall.”

“Following Yunchan’s winning performance at the Cliburn Competition, our artistic planning team made one of our easiest decisions ever in immediately offering him a solo recital in our main hall," said Carnegie Hall Executive and Artistic Director Sir Clive Gilinson. "We knew we were listening to a very special artist at the start of what will undoubtedly be an extraordinary career, an artist who will bring inspiration to audiences worldwide for a very long time.”

Hear the full album below:

 

Pianist Yunchan Lim was the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of eighteen in 2022, and since then, he has appeared as a soloist with the Washington National, Vienna Radio, Berlin Radio, and London Symphony orchestras as well as the Royal Philharmonic, Cleveland, and Minnesota orchestras. His recordings have been released on the Steinway and Sons, Universal Music Group, and KBS labels, and since 2024, he has been an Apple Music Classical ambassador. Lim is currently a student at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he studies with Minsoo Sohn.

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Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih's New Album, "Schumann & Moscheles: 1851 Cello Sonatas" https://theviolinchannel.com/steven-isserlis-and-connie-shihs-new-album-schumann-moscheles-1851-cello-sonatasv/ Tue, 03 Feb 2026 18:01:06 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=228601 […]

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Cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Connie Shih have released their new album, Schumann & Moscheles: 1851 Cello Sonatas, on the Hyperion Records label.

The album revolves around the year 1851, which is the year the Érard piano (played by Shih on the recording) won an award at the Great Exhibition in London. The album's two sonatas, Ignaz Moscheles' Cello Sonata in E Major, Op. 121, and Robert Schumann's Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 121, arranged for cello by Isserlis, were composed in the same year.

To present a more complete portrayal of the musical landscape of 1851, Isserlis and Shih interspersed the album's program with four miniatures composed during the same year by Schumann, Ferdinand David, and Charles Gounod. Remarkably, the composers and works presented on the album are deeply intertwined; Moscheles's sonata was dedicated to Schumann, while Schumann's was dedicated to David.

According to Isserlis, the inspiration between the collection of repertoire was the result of serendipitous encounters. "A few years ago, a violinist in my class at Prussia Cove played me the Schumann D minor sonata—and I fell completely in love with it," he told The Violin Channel. "What a masterpiece! Then, a couple of years later, I was looking at Moscheles’ sonata, which has always interested me, partially because it was dedicated to Schumann—and which had been warmly recommended to me by the conductor Nic McGegan, who loves it. And then it struck me that both sonatas were written in 1851—which was the same year as the Érard piano, with which Denes Varjon and I had recorded Schubert and Chopin sonatas a few years ago, had been made. So it seemed like fate—I had to make a recording dedicated to that year!"

Hear the full album below:

 

Cellist Steven Isserlis CBE appears regularly as a soloist with leading orchestras, and his current 2025/2026 season includes performances with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, he has curated series at venues such as Wigmore Hall, the 92nd St Y in New York, and the Salzburg Festival. In addition to performing, Isserlis has written two children's books, contributes to a variety of journalistic publications, and serves as the Artistic Director of the International Musicians’ Seminar at Prussia Cove.

Canadian pianist Connie Shih made her debut as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra at the age of nine, and in 1993, she won the Sylva Gelber Award for most outstanding classical artist under the age of 30. She has made chamber music appearances at Wigmore and Carnegie Halls, the Bath Music Festival, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, and the Kronberg Festival. She is on the faculty at Italy's Casalmaggiore Festival.

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Composer Kevin Puts' New Album, "Emily: No Prisoner Be" https://theviolinchannel.com/composer-kevin-puts-new-album-emily-no-prisoner-be/ Fri, 30 Jan 2026 19:22:49 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=229002 […]

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Composer Kevin Puts released his new album Emily: No Prisoner Be on the Platoon label. The album is a collaboration with mezzo-soprano Joyce Di Donato, and string trio Time For Three, which consists of violinist Nicolas Kendall, bassist Ranaan Meyer, and violinist and VC Artist Charles Yang.

Emily: No Prisoner Be presents Puts's new work of the same name, which sets poetry by Emily Dickinson to music. The twenty-four movement song cycle was co-commissioned by the Bregenzer Festspiele, Carnegie Hall, and Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley.

In addition to the work's musical element, Emily: No Prisoner Be was conceived as a live theatrical experience with immersive staging and lighting design by tenor and opera director Andrew Staples. The stage performance received its premiere in August 2025 at the Bregenzer Festspiele.

"Initially, the inspiration was very much coming from the performers," Puts told The Violin Channel. "I loved working with Joyce DiDonato on my opera The Hours at the Met and just as much, I loved collaborating with Time for Three on our concerto called Contact. The idea of bringing the four of these performers from different worlds together was a very exciting one and when I married that excitement with the astonishing poetry of Emily Dickinson, only some of which I already knew, I found myself writing songs with more fluency than perhaps I’ve ever written before. But the energy between these four performers remained at the center of my creative drive for this project.

"I will never forget how deeply satisfying it was for me to hear them at the very edge of what is possible for performers, giving everything they had to this challenging composition," Puts continued. "I am deeply grateful to the four of them and also to engineer Silas Brown—a true artist in his own right—for his expertise and patience, always going the extra mile for us in this recording."

Hear the full album below:

 

Composer Kevin Puts has been a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award, and in 2024, he was named Musical America's Composer of the Year. His music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera, the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, and more. He has served on the faculty of the Peabody Institute of Music and the Juilliard School. His music is published worldwide by G. Ricordi & Co., New York.

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Pianist Hayato Sumino's New Album, "Chopin Orbit" https://theviolinchannel.com/hayato-suminos-new-album-chopin-orbit/ Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:00:03 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=227952 […]

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Pianist and composer Hayato Sumino has released his new album Chopin Orbit on the Sony Classical label.

Sumino first garnered widespread attention for his performances during the 2021 International Chopin Competition, and on this recording, he turns his attention to Chopin's music.

The album features Chopin's Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasie op. 61, Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Berceuse, and Raindrop Prelude, among others. Sumino also includes several works that resonate with Chopin's music, including pieces by Thomas Adès, Leopold Godowsky, and Leoš Janáček. Rounding out the album's program are Sumino's own compositions White Keys and Post Rain.

“For me, Chopin has always been like an idol, and his music has remained close to my heart since childhood," explains Sumino. "As I grew as a musician, I began to realize how naturally his influence found its way into my own creations. At some point I thought—why not create an album with Chopin at its center? That moment became the starting point of this project. My pieces were born out of inspiration from Chopin’s works. Sometimes I quote a motif or weave in a melody, but I never set out simply to write 'in the style of Chopin.' What I wanted was to bring together his spirit with my own modern sensibility and creativity."

"I imagine the listener roaming freely between these two closely connected worlds, old and new, whilst keeping in mind the twist that pieces composed in the 19th century were themselves considered new and different in their time to the music that had gone before, highlighting that we inhabit an ever-evolving musical space," commented Sumino on the album's variety of repertoire.

 

Listen to the full album below:

 

Also known as "Cateen," Japanese-born pianist Hayato Sumino has garnered over 2.2 million followers globally across his social media platforms, and he has performed at venues including Royal Albert Hall, the BBC Proms, the Hollywood Bowl, the K-Arena Yokohama, and Carnegie Hall.

Sumino has been the recipient of the Bernstein Award as well as multiple Opus Klassik Awards, and he has been profiled by Forbes Japan, Vogue Japan, Rolling Stone Korea, and Elle Magazine US. A prolific composer as well as performer, Sumino blends classical, jazz, film music, post-classical, and electronica styles.

His 2025/2026 concert season includes performances in California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma.

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Eldbjørg Hemsing's New Album, "Colors of Bach" https://theviolinchannel.com/eldbjorg-hemsings-new-album-colors-of-bach/ Fri, 16 Jan 2026 17:04:39 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=226702 […]

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Violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing has released her new album Colors of Bach on the Sony Classical label.

On the new recording, Hemsing uses new arrangements to reimagine J.S. Bach's music. The album presents twenty of Bach's most beloved works reinterpreted by arrangers Tim Allhoff, Jan-Peter Klöpfel, and Jarkko Riihimäki.

The three arrangers take a variety of approaches that range from new harmonic contexts to unexpected instrumentations to novel genres, but they are unified by a desire to maintain the essential artistic core of Bach's compositions.

Hemsing is joined in these arrangements by violinists Elise Båtnes, Liv Hilde Klokk-Bryhn, and Maria Carlsen, violist Ida Bryhn, cellist Louisa Tuck, bassist Kenneth Ryland, pianist Tim Allhoff, and harpsichordist Christian Kjos.

“Bach is such a genius composer that there are endless ways to look at the shapes and forms that make up his pieces," Hemsing reflects. "Every melody Bach composed contains an intriguing duality of being highly technical, yet profoundly emotional, and thus, there are endless possibilities for reinterpretation.”

“We wanted to create an opportunity for the audience to reconnect with such important pieces of history,” Eldbjørg continued.

Find the full album below:

 

 

Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing has performed internationally at venues including Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, and Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts. In addition, Hemsing is the Artistic Director of the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, the co-founder of the Hemsing Festival, and head of the Dextra Musica Foundation’s selection jury. She also serves as Artistic Director of the SPIRE initiative for young artists and is a member of the advisory board of Barratt Due’s progressive artist training program. An exclusive Sony Classical recording artist, Hemsing plays the 1707 Rivaz Baron Gutmann Stradivarius.

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VC Artist Stella Chen's New Album, "Beethoven & Barber: Violin Concertos" https://theviolinchannel.com/vc-artist-stella-chens-new-album-beethoven-barber-violin-concertos/ Fri, 16 Jan 2026 14:09:41 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=228086 […]

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VC Artist violinist Stella Chen has released her new album Beethoven & Barber: Violin Concertos on the Platoon Records label. The album features Chen's performances of Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61, paired with Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, Op. 14.

Chen performs alongside the orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, which is led by conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow. 

The album is dedicated to Adam Abeshouse, an engineer and record producer who collaborated with Chen on her 2023 debut album Stella x Schubert. Abeshouse passed away in October 2024.

While the two concerti featured on the album were composed over one hundred years apart and represent dramatically different musical languages, they are united by several factors, including the simple beauty of their second themes and the deeply subjective, human nature of their interpretive possibilities.

Recording Beethoven's work, which Chen described as "my dream concerto since I was a girl," coincided with another significant turning point in Chen's career. After recording the Beethoven concerto on the 1708 "Huggins" Stradivarius, which Chen has played since 2019, passed the instrument on to the Nippon Foundation, from which it was on loan. Her performance of the Barber concerto is the first with her new partner, the 1720 "General Kyd" Stradivarius, with which she was connected by The Violin Channel founder Geoffrey John Davies.

 

"They say the Beethoven Violin Concerto takes time to love—it isn’t always a young violinist’s first infatuation," wrote Chen in the album's liner notes. "But even at eighteen, it was, for me, the ultimate ideal: a marriage of compositional perfection and devastating beauty. Learning it was both a privilege and a daunting responsibility, for I couldn’t shake the feeling that its quiet profundity belonged to a future version of myself—one I had not yet become.

"Years later, my relationship with both the Beethoven and Barber concertos has deepened in ways I could never have imagined. I now dwell blissfully within them, knowing this connection will continue to evolve throughout my life. This album is a time capsule—a portrait of this moment, of how these works speak to me now, and of the immense love and care that brought them into being."

Hear the full album below:

 

VC Artist Stella Chen won First Prize at the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Competition and was a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2020. She has appeared as a soloist with the ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. An avid chamber musician, she appears regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and has performed at festivals including the Moritzburg Festival, Ravinia, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Perlman Music Program, and Music@Menlo. The inaugural recipient of Harvard University's Robert Levin Award, Chen is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School.

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VC Artist Pianist Aristo Sham's New Album, "Timeline" https://theviolinchannel.com/vc-artist-aristo-shams-new-album-timeline/ Mon, 12 Jan 2026 17:49:42 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=228390 […]

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Pianist and VC Artist Aristo Sham has recently released his new album titled Timeline. The disc is made up of repertoire Sham played on the international tour he undertook after winning the 2025 Van Cliburn International Competition.

The disc opens with J. S. Bach's Toccata in C Minor, and this is followed by a number of Busoni-Bach transcriptions, including Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 645, the Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor BWV 1004, and the Brahms-Busoni set of 6 Chorale Preludes. These are rounded out with Busoni's Variations on a Chopin Prelude in C minor and Grieg's Holberg Suite.

 

 

The winner of the Gold Medal and the Audience Award at the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Sham has performed across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Major highlights including appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under Edo de Waart, English Chamber Orchestra under the late Sir Raymond Leppard, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and Minnesota Orchestra.

Sham studied a joint degree program at Harvard and the New England Conservatory, studying with Victor Rosenbaum. He went on to the Ingesund School of Music in Sweden to study with Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist before returning to the States to earn an artist diploma at The Juilliard School with Robert McDonald and Orli Shaham.

He has recently signed with Universal Music Hong Kong.

"I am so excited to enter a new artistic arena through my partnership with Universal Music, and infinitely grateful to be entrusted with sharing my voice and visions in music, art and life, to a wider audience through the medium of recordings, hopefully contributing to new and profound experiences where we may push the frontiers of what we can do with art," Sham said. 

 

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Cellist Inbal Megiddo's New Album, “Bach's Cello Suites” https://theviolinchannel.com/cellist-inbal-megiddos-album-bachs-cello-suites/ Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:26:58 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=224158 […]

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Cellist Inbal Megiddo has released her complete recording of J.S. Bach’s Six Cello Suites on Atoll Records.

The core of the project is the profound personal connection Megiddo has forged with the works over time. She writes that, "like life itself, the Suites reveal new facets with each return, changing as we change, growing as we go. In this way, they become not just music to perform but companions on life’s path.”

She notes that through “carefully crafted arpeggios, strategic placement of notes, and clever voice-leading, Bach creates the illusion that the listener is hearing multiple instruments.”

 

 

 

Cellist Inbal Megiddo studied with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, where she earned her graduate and undergraduate degrees. She was also mentored by Mstislav Rostropovich. She is a founding member of the Te Kōki Trio and previously served as principal cellist of the West Eastern Divan Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim.

Beyond her work with Bach, Megiddo is committed to promoting and performing the music of underpresented composers, and has two recordings planned for 2026 on the Atoll label: an album of works by Clara Schumann and an album of "Forbidden Composers" who were silenced by the Nazis.

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Violinist Gil Shaham’s Latest Album, "Premieres” https://theviolinchannel.com/gil-shahams-latest-album-premieres/ Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:30:08 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=227600 […]

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Released on Canary Classics, violinist Gil Shaham's latest album, "Premieres," was recorded with conductor Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now.

This album features violin concertos written for and premiered by Shaham. 

 

Recorded at the Fisher Center at Bard, the album documents three concertos composed between 2013 and 2025. Scott Wheeler’s Birds of America (2025), commissioned by Bard College for The Orchestra Now, opens the release. Cast in three movements, the work incorporates references to birdsong and to earlier musical depictions of birds, alongside extended violin techniques developed in consultation with Shaham. Wheeler explained that “a chance encounter [with a woodpecker] inspired me to start the third movement … with taps on the body of the violin.”

Avner Dorman’s Nigunim (Violin Concerto No. 2), originally written as a violin sonata, appears here in its revised orchestral form. The four-movement work draws on shared melodic traits found across Jewish musical traditions, as well as rhythmic influences from Georgian and Balkan folk music.

Bright Sheng’s Let Fly (2013), written for Shaham and premiered with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, concludes the album with a concerto in three connected movements inspired in part by Chinese folk-song traditions.

 

International soloist Gil Shaham has made concerto appearances with major orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Israel Philharmonic, alongside recital and chamber performances at leading venues and festivals worldwide. A Grammy Award winner and recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, he has recorded more than two dozen albums, many on his own Canary Classics label, and is particularly associated with projects such as the 1930s Violin Concertos series and recordings of Bach’s solo works. Born in Illinois and raised in Israel, Shaham studied at the Juilliard School and Columbia University and performs on a 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius.

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate-level orchestra founded in 2015 by Bard College and led by music director Leon Botstein. Comprising musicians from leading conservatories worldwide, the ensemble performs regularly at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fisher Center at Bard.  TŌN has released recordings on labels including Hyperion, AVIE, and Sorel Classics and appears frequently on national broadcasts such as Performance Today.

 

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Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra & VC Artist Nikki Chooi's New Album, "A Hero's Life" https://theviolinchannel.com/vc-artist-nikki-choois-new-album-a-heros-life/ Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:11:02 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=227638 […]

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Released on Benu Fleuve Records label, "A Hero's Life" includes the world-premiere recording of Behzad Ranjbaran’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra paired with Richard Strauss’s tone poem Ein Heldenleben,

VC Artist Nikki Chooi is featured as a soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor JoAnn Falletta.

Recorded live at Kleinhans Music Hall in the spring of 2025, the album's selection of repertoire highlights the ancient Persian colors that characterize Ranjbaran’s concerto alongside the sweeping programmatic narrative of Strauss’s heroic orchestral work.

"This album represents a deeply personal journey for me, bridging ancient musical traditions and late-Romantic grandeur through the voice of the violin," Chooi says. "Bringing Behzad Ranjbaran's concerto to life in its world-premiere recording, alongside Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, with JoAnn Falletta and my colleagues in the Buffalo Philharmonic, has been an experience I will always cherish."

Purchase the album here.

 

VC Artist Nikki Chooi has been a recipient of prizes at the Queen Elisabeth and Tchaikovsky Competitions, and he was awarded 1st Prize Winner of the Montreal Symphony's ManuLife Competition, the Klein International Strings Competition, and the Michael Hill International Violin Competition. Currently the concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, Chooi has also appeared as guest concertmaster of ensembles including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Met Opera Orchestra. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School, Chooi's teachers included Joseph Silverstein, Ida Kavafian, and Donald Weilerstein.

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Quatuor Elmire’s New Album, “Beyond the Limits” https://theviolinchannel.com/quatuor-elmires-new-album-beyond-the-limits/ Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:40:18 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=227514 […]

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The Quatuor Elmire has just released their latest double album, Beyond the Limits, on Scala Music. The recording marks the ensemble’s debut for the label.

 

The album features three of Beethoven’s String Quartets, Op. 59.

In addition to the musical works, the recording includes a spoken reading of Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, performed by the quartet members, to provide historical context to the period in which the works were composed.

The Elmire Quartet, formed in 2017, is composed of violinists David Petrlík and Yoan Brakha, violist Hortense Fourrier, and cellist Rémi Carlon. The ensemble has received Second Prize at the Geneva International Music Competition along with the Étrillard Foundation Special Prize for Outstanding Artistic Project, and is also a laureate of the Carl Nielsen International Music Competition. The quartet has appeared at major venues including the Philharmonie de Paris, Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, and the Grange au Lac in Évian. The Elmire Quartet is artist-in-residence at the Singer-Polignac Foundation and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, and is supported by ProQuartet, Spedidam, and the Banque Populaire Foundation.

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Composer Gabriela Ortiz's New Album, "Yanga" https://theviolinchannel.com/gabriela-ortizs-new-album-yanga/ Fri, 19 Dec 2025 16:41:00 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=227559 […]

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Released on the Platoon label, composer Gabriela Ortiz has released her new album entitled Yanga.

The album features the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and pianist Joanne Pearce Martin.

The centerpiece of the recording is the titular work Yanga, which was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a companion piece to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

The piece's title is an homage to Gaspar Yanga, a sixteenth-century African prince who was captured and enslaved in Mexico before escaping and leading a series of daring raids that earned concessions from Spanish colonial settlements. Ortiz's composition for orchestra and chorus uses both traditional African instruments alongside text by the Spanish writer Santiago Martín Bermúdez to pay tribute to Yanga's legacy as a symbol of the Mexican struggle for independence.

Also included on the album are Seis piezas a Violeta, Ortiz's 2023 work for string orchestra and piano which honors Chilean singer-songwriter and folklorist Violeta Parra, and Dzonot, a cello concerto inspired by Mayan and Mexican traditions and performed by cellist Alisa Weilerstein.

"Her music is so evocative and colorful and very engaging," says Weilerstein of Ortiz's work. "And Dzonot is certainly no different. It's so vivid, with these vibrant colors. I you listen to her speak about music and art, you discover she's obsessed with water. She feels a deep connection with environmental elements, and especially those that are endangered. You can hear the water rippling in this piece. You can almost see the colors, the reflections of light."

"Dzonot is a wonderful example of music of our time that evokes an entire world in sound--it's really quite remarkable," continues Weilerstein.

Hear the full album below:

 

Mexican-born composer Gabriela Ortiz has received accolades including the Bellas Artes Gold Medal, Mexico's National Prize for Arts and Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fulbright-García Robles Fellowship. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards and two Latin Grammy Awards. Ortiz is the founder of Los Folkloristas, an ensemble dedicated to the indigenous and traditional music of Mexico, and she is currently the composer-in-residence at the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Carnegie Hall.

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Cellist Emanuel Gruber's New Album "Beethoven: Music for Cello and Piano" https://theviolinchannel.com/emanuel-grubers-new-album-beethoven-music-for-cello-and-piano/ Fri, 19 Dec 2025 09:01:14 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=227566 […]

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Cellist Emanuel Gruber has released his new album Beethoven: Music for Cello and Piano on the Bridge Records label.

The recording, which also features pianist Arnon Erez, presents Ludwig van Beethoven's five sonatas for cello and piano, which were composed between 1796 and 1815. In addition, the album's program includes three sets of variations: Twelve Variations on a theme of Handel's "Judas Maccabeus," WoO 45, Twelve Variations on a theme from Mozart's "The Magic Flute," Op. 66, and Seven Variations on a theme from Mozart's "The Magic Flute," WoO 46.

"It is fortunate for cellists that Beethoven wrote five sonatas and three sets of variations," writes Gruber. "These pages of chamber music, some of the finest chamber music ever written, bring in the cello as equal partner to the piano."

"Beethoven wrote in his letters that whoever immersed himself in his music would be elevated to a place beyond suffering," Gruber continues. "Arnon and I hope that our interpretation will transport you, the listener, beyond daily cares to a place of aesthetic pleasure."

 

 

Cellist Emanuel Gruber is a professor of cello and chamber music at East Carolina University's School of Music, and since last July, was named the school's Hardy Distinguished Professor in String Pedagogy. Before joining the faculty in 2004, he served as principal cellist of the Israel Chamber Orchestra in Tel-Aviv, and played with the Sequoia String Quartet in Los Angeles, Camerata Clarinet Trio, Tel Aviv Piano Quartet, and the Israel Cello Ensemble. Emanuel was awarded the Pablo Casals Prize by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and was a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Auditions.

Arnon Erez has performed at venues including Beethoven Halle, Vienna's Musikverein, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, and Carnegie Hall, and he has performed as a soloist with ensembles including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Along with violinist Hagai Shaham, he was a winner of the 1990 Munich ARD International Duo Competition. A graduate of Tel Aviv University, Erez is currently a professor at Tel Aviv University's Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, where he heads the department of chamber music.

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VC Artist Calidore String Quartet's New Album, "The Complete Beethoven String Quartets" https://theviolinchannel.com/vc-artist-calidore-string-quartets-new-album-the-complete-beethoven-string-quartets/ Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:38:50 +0000 https://theviolinchannel.com/?p=225522 […]

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VC Artist Calidore String Quartet has released their new album "The Complete Beethoven String Quartets" on the Signum Classics label.

The release completes the ensemble's full recording cycle of Ludwig van Beethoven's sixteen string quartets, which were released in reverse chronological order beginning in February of 2023. In the 2024/2025 season, the Calidore String Quartet--consisting of violinists Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violist Jeremy Berry, and cellist Estelle Choi--became the fourth quartet to perform the complete Beethoven cycle live with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. 

This box set, encompassing the Calidore Quartet's performances of Beethoven's complete string quartet output, represents the ensemble's fifteen years of development together. “Our interpretation speaks to the influences of our teachers and the great traditions associated with this repertoire, but also to that of our own generation, style, and experience," explained Myers. "These works remain so powerful for audiences today because of how they touch on the kinds of emotions and questions we all continue to wrestle with—identity, love, loss, and the search for meaning."

The quartet's shared musical evolution has continued even during the process of assembling the recording cycle, according to Myers. "Since recording and performing the cycle at Lincoln Center, our perspective has shifted; we’ve grown not only as musicians but as people. With time and new experiences, we’ve found different layers in the music, new connections to our world, and new ways of expressing what it means to us now. Each performance becomes a chance to honor the tradition we come from, but also to share a version of the music that feels fresh, immediate, and deeply connected to today.”

Hear the full album below:

 

Founded in 2010 at The Colburn School, the Calidore String Quartet has won top prizes at the ARD Munich, Hamburg, Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs competitions, and they have received honors such as the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. The ensemble has performed at festivals and concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, and Music@Menlo. Currently the Distinguished String Quartet-in--Residence at the University of Delaware, the Calidore Quartet has previously held residencies at the University of Toronto, University of Michigan, and Stony Brook University. The ensemble's forthcoming recording project, to be released in 2026, is an all-American collection of string quartet music featuring music by Barber, Marsalis, Korngold, and John Williams.

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