Alexis Dawydoff

Alexis Ffrench isn’t afraid of fusing his music with weighty issues. For years, the pioneering pianist has used his music to highlight mental health, discuss diversity and challenge the classical world to be more inclusive. Truth, his latest album, is his most powerful and political to date, and also his most optimistic. “I imagined what the world would look like if everybody had the opportunity to ask themselves the questions ‘who am I?’ and ‘what is my purpose in the world?’ and what we, as a human race, could create and change together.” Featuring Alexis’ signature piano and orchestra sound, alongside rare collaborations including the searingly soulful One Look with his friend Leona Lewis, Truth captures Alexis’ hopes for the future and his belief that change is already upon us.

An opera of adventurous and lavish scope, Rameau’s magical Achante et Céphise receives its world premiere recording – 270 years after its staged premiere at the Académie royale de musique in celebration of the birth of Louis XV’s grandson. The first French opera to feature clarinets, it offers a rich sequence of choruses, ballets and virtuoso ariettes and opens with a celebratory overture which includes a graphic musical depiction of a fireworks display. Alexis Kossenko conducts tenor Cyrille Dubois and soprano Sabine Devieilhe in the title roles, Les Ambassadeurs – the orchestra he founded in 2010 – and the choral singers of Les Chantres du CMBV (Centre de musique baroque de Versailles).