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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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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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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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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Music listening has previously been shown to lower blood pressure. This study, which was led by Vanessa C. Pope, sought to enhance that understanding by investigating whether individuals with high and normal blood pressure respond to music differently, and whether the loudness or tempo of the music plays a role in these differences.

40 subjects took part, half with high blood pressure and half with normal blood pressure. The participants listened to eight different pieces of Western classical music (with a 5-minute silent period between listenings), which had been adjusted to have different amounts of loudness, as well as faster and slower tempi.

While loudness was found to have a minimal impact on the listener, the effect of the different tempi was significant. The sped-up music was found to decrease blood-pressure variability for both groups — a finding that the researchers described as "unexpected," since it is often assumed that slower music will be more relaxing for the listener.

The researchers noted that the study only examined blood-pressure variability for "acute events" (i.e. short-term listening), and therefore, there is further scope for examining the effects of music on blood-pressure variability in the long term.

However, they speculate that the short-term physiological activation effect of music may help to explain music’s long-term cardiovascular benefits.

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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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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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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.

 

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"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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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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The primary duties of the position involve teaching and supervising viola students at the bachelor's and master's degree levels in accordance with the institution's current curricula. Both individual and group instruction will be offered, and systematic planning, execution, and evaluation are expected.

In addition to these teaching components, other responsibilities associated with the role include administrative tasks related to departmental academic activities and engaging in academic and artistic collaboration among colleagues.

The successful candidate for this position is expected to take initiative in planning and leading seminars and courses, both individually and in collaboration with other teachers in the subject area. The candidate will also participate in the preparation and execution of the Academy's entrance auditions and final examinations.

Candidates should submit their applications along with their curriculum vitae, certificates, and diplomas by January 11, 2026, here.

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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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First round video auditions are due along with applications by January 11, 2026. Live auditions will be held on February 28 and March 2, 2026.

At this time, the LSO is not able to accept applications from candidates from Visa National countries due to recent changes to visitor visa restrictions.

Apply or find more information here. 

Established in 1904, the LSO is currently led by Music Director Sir Antonio Pappano. The orchestra has held major artistic residencies in Paris, Tokyo, and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, plus toured the US and Asia. Its own record label LSO Live, which marks its 25th anniversary this season, comprises a catalogue of over 200 acclaimed recordings.

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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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It combines a free-floating shoulder rest with a flexible chin rest that can be individually adjusted in height and inclination.

Combined, the system allows for enhanced sound development and vibration of the instrument.

The system is pre-mounted and easy to attach to either a 3/4 or 4/4 violin.

Weighing 99 grams and made out of anti-allergenic materials, it is around 25% lighter than conventional combinations of shoulder rest and chin rest.

The shoulder rest can be flexibly adjusted at two points for optimum support and comfort, while the arm and padding can be easily removed and reattached.

"The Wittner shoulder rest and the Wittner chin rests are constructed to work and being combined easily together," Patrick Schönherr from Witter told The Violi Channel. "All parts are technically and material wise coordinated with each other. So it was obvious to offer a ready to play combination."

"Mount it on the violin and try out some positions. You will shortly find the best position for you," he added

Watch the video below to learn more about the new system:

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Interested applicants are asked to submit their artistic curriculum vitae to The Warsaw Philharmonic Office, room 109, by mail to ul. Jasna 5, 00-950 Warszawa, Poland, or by email to przesluchania@filharmonia.pl.

More details regarding auditions and the application process are available here.

Established in 1900, the Warsaw Philharmonic is based in the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall in Poland. Since the 2024/2025 season, the orchestra has been under the direction of Music and Artistic Director Krzysztof Urbański. In addition to the orchestra's regularly programmed concerts and recording projects, the ensemble spearheads a variety of educational and outreach programs for children.

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