其処カラ何ガ見エルカ Eastern Youth

From the avant-garde folk/jazz of Poland’s Chłopcy Kontra Basia to Serbia’s ‘King of Apocalyptical Cabaret’ Boris Kovač, the music of Eastern Europe is as diverse as the geography it represents. This Rough Guide showcases today’s artists who preserve valuable traditions whilst enabling the music to evolve in new and unexpected ways.

Mary Elizabeth Bowden, praised for her “splendid, brilliant” artistry (Gramophone), celebrates the narrative power of the trumpet with Storyteller: Contemporary Concertos for Trumpet. Bowden is joined by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and conductor Allen Tinkham in a collection of new concertos that redefine the trumpet’s voice in modern classical music.

This whopping 30-CD box set gathers together the best of Trojan's three-disc box set series. Included are the Ska, DJ, Dub, Instrumentals, Jamaican Superstars, Lovers, Producer Series, Rocksteady, Roots, and Tribute to Bob Marley volumes, each of which can be found under Trojan Box Set for their individual reviews. What's lacking here is a booklet with additional notes and information; the bulk seems to demand some extra coverage and care, yet all that's here are the original notes of each volume – only as much text as can fit on the back of the CD sleeves. From a music standpoint, however, this box is excellent; a truly diverse and comprehensive collection. Of the 500 songs, less than ten reappear on another volume, so you get a more-than-satisfying amount of music spanning the history of the Trojan label.

At times albums are born out of an explosion of creativity. At other times they are a sort of musical distillation of ingredients, carefully selected and combined to create a tasteful and sensitive sonorous balance. Ones and Zeros is a successful mixture of musical colours. A project that has evolved over years, lending itself to the contributions of musicians of very different musical and cultural backgrounds, each one leaving their own very personal touch on the project. Ones and Zeros is the second solo album of Saro Cosentino. Already active on the electronic and musical fronts, with Ones and Zeros, Saro has widened his musical boundaries to encompass a fuller and more organic conception.

One of Armenia’s best bands of the period of jazz fever in the beginning of the 60’s was the quartet formed at the Institute of Languages after Brusov and led by Levon Malkhasyan. The band performed during youth parties in Yerevan, toured around the Soviet Union and participated in All-Union jazz festivals. In Voronezh the band won the Grand Prix, while Levon Malkhasyan was named the best pianist of the festival.

This disc of orchestral showpieces features four of the five members of the Mighty Handful, a group of Russian composers who, during the second half of the 19th century, collaborated to create a distinct national style. The recorded works illustrate different aspects of their endeavors - both in terms of the musical means they employ and their subject matter.

The Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulovic has attempted to broaden the appeal of classical music through his charismatic image and innovative programming concepts. He has founded two ensembles of his own to aid in the realization of his ideas. Radulovic was born in Nis, Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia, on October 18, 1985. He took up the violin in 1992, and by 1996 he had won a Belgrade Youth Award. The following year he won the Talent 1997 prize from Serbia's Ministry of Education, and that was followed by a series of youth awards around Eastern Europe and in France. Radulovic enrolled at age 13 at the Hochscule für Musik Saar in Germany, returned to Serbia for further study at the University of the Arts in Belgrade, and moved to Paris in 2000 for more work at the Conservatoire Nationale in Paris. Radulovic has also taken master classes with Yehudi Menuhin, among others. He won the top prize at the Joseph Joachim International Competition in Germany in 2003, and he was named Discovery of the Year at France's Victoires awards in 2005.

Ones and Zeros Reloaded is the latest release from Italian musician/composer Saro Cosentino, a guy who has been actively involved in many projects over the years since the 1970's. What you have here is a sampling of some of the best tunes from his Ones and Zeros album, with the inclusion of a new single "Real Life", a catchy ambient/pop/prog tune featuring the soaring vocals of Karen Eden…