Avishai Cohen & Jonathan Avishai Playing The Room

In the end it’s all about connection. The connection with your inner self, the connection between the musicians on stage, and, of course, the connection between the band and its audience. For the last twenty five years, legendary bassist, singer and composer Avishai Cohen has grown to be one of the heavyweights of contemporary jazz, with a catalogue to rival those of even the most legendary in the field of jazz… and beyond. He became a name of concert hall stature around the world and headlined the best festivals any artist could dream of.

From the brooding opening title track to the closing Chet Baker homage, "I Fall in Love Too Easily," Dark Nights unapologetically embraces the heart of jazz. Every aspect of the album from the cover photo, to Cohen's precise trumpet inflections, to the trio's dedication to immediacy and collective improvisation (and even the album's forays into electronic affects) is saturated with the emblematic textures, rhythms, and imagery of jazz. This is achieved with professionalism, creativity, and skill, without a wit of irony or cliché, while avoiding both navel-gazing insularity and crowd-pleasing revivalism.

"Brightlight" Cohen showcases his multifaceted talents alongside a stellar ensemble of musicians. Among these are some of the brightest young talents, including drummer Roni Kaspi, pianist Guy Moskovich, his working core trio as the centre on many of the titles and joined by saxophonist Yuval Drabkin among others, infusing the music with a sense of spontaneity and drive.

The Israeli Jazz Orchestra was founded 14 years ago to play Avi Lebovich Music and since it has been creating new music, recording & performing nonstop in Israel & throughout the world. The Orchestra gathers Israel's top musicians into one creative and fruitful environment of composers, arrangers and unique instrumentalists. The Orchestra's performance is a thrilling and hypnotizing event, there’s never a dull moment with 13 virtuoso musicians on stage showing off their abilities.

In the summer of 1717, after performing his Water Music during a royal cruise on the Thames, Handel began composing for James Brydges (1674-1744), who became the first Duke of Chandos and created the Cannons Concert at his estate in Cannons (near Edgware), with ten instrumentalists and three singers.

In the summer of 1717, after performing his Water Music during a royal cruise on the Thames, Handel began composing for James Brydges (1674-1744), who became the first Duke of Chandos and created the Cannons Concert at his estate in Cannons (near Edgware), with ten instrumentalists and three singers. Handel composed eleven anthems and a Te Deum for him from August 1717 onwards, as well as transposing and revising As pants the hart (HWV 251b). O sing unto the Lord a new song (HWV 249b) is an adaptation of an anthem written three years earlier for the Chapel Royal. The anthem Have mercy upon me, O God (HWV 248) was composed in 1717 and is a paraphrase of the Miserere. The Alleluia of Let God arise (HWV 256a) prefigures the famous Hallelujah chorus from Messiah (1741). Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen now revive these four Chandos anthems composed for Cannons with eight singers and eleven excellent instrumentalists.

In their very first recording together, pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin and the Violons du Roy present Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s piano concertos No. 22 and No. 24 that are replete with passionate outbursts, startling contrasts, rich orchestration and overt emotional fervor. Charles Richard-Hamelin, Silver medalist and winner of the Krystian Zimerman award at the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2015, impresses with his extremely refined playing and the Violons du Roy, under the direction of Jonathan Cohen, offer grandiose performances imbued with dignity and grace.

From his perch, sax virtuoso Jonathan Hulting-Cohen has a bird’s eye view of the musical landscape stretching out to the horizon…