Alejandro Sanz Mtv Unplugger

Born in New York in 1946, Swiss-American lutenist Hopkinson Smith graduated from Harvard with Honors in Music in 1972. His instrumental studies took him to Europe where he worked with Emilio Pujol, a great pedagogue in the highest Catalan artistic tradition, and with the Swiss lutenist, Eugen Dombois, whose sense of organic unity between performer, instrument, and historical period has had lasting effects on him. He has been involved in numerous chamber music projects and was one of the founding members of the ensemble Hespèrion XX. Since the mid-80’s, he has focused almost exclusively on the solo repertoires for early plucked instrument, producing a series of prize-winning recordings for Astrée and Naïve, which feature Spanish music for vihuela and baroque guitar, French lute music of the Renaissance and baroque, English and Italian music of the 16th early 17th century and music from the German high baroque.

Motéma Music, now celebrating its 20th year as one of the world’s premier jazz/world labels, will release FlamenKora, a self-titled debut album from a new trio that unites West African Mande music with authentic Spanish flamenco guitar and American and Euro jazz trumpet to create a transglobal collaboration unlike any other. FlamenKora features German-born, New York-based trumpeter Volker Goetze, Senegalese-born, Paris-based kora master and vocalist Ali Boulo Santo Cissoko, and the rising Madrid flamenco guitar sensation, Alejandro Moreno. Following a series of sold-out shows in Europe, FlamenKora will introduce their cross-genre global music to the masses with their Motéma release on Friday, June 9th, 2023.

When trumpeter Henry Moderlak came across a magnificent volume of sheet music entitled L’orgue baroque espagnol, which contained Spanish organ works from the 17th century, he made an interesting discovery: many of the motifs in the musical text reminded him of the trumpet literature of the time. Titles such as Piezas de Clarines referred to the special clarino stop of Spanish organs, which was used in instruments on the Iberian Peninsula in the 17th century: With horizontally arranged pipes, the so-called Spanish trumpets protruded from the organ case into the room and imitated the natural trumpet in shape and sound. What was striking, however, was that the passages in question used the ambitus and range of real natural trumpets – and could therefore actually be transferred to the trumpet: The idea for the «Proyecto Clarin» was born.

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787) was born in Köthen, a small German city, where his father, played viola da gamba and cello in the court orchestra. In 1723 Abel senior became director of the orchestra, when the previous director, Johann Sebastian Bach, moved to Leipzig. That the young Abel later attended the Leipzig Thomasschule and was taught there by Bach is not finally confirmed. What is known, however, is that he joined Johann Adolph Hasse's court orchestra in Dresden on Bach's recommendation in 1748, where he remained for nine years. On Bach's recommendation in 1748 he was able to join Johann Adolph Hasse's court orchestra at Dresden, where he remained for fifteen years.