Anthony Harkins Meredith Mccarroll

Anthony Gomes is a familiar face to anyone following the modern blues scene. He has been carving out his own space as an unapologetically rock-influenced bluesman and songwriter since first coming to national attention in the late 1990s. He is that rare artist able to take the Zen simplicity of blues music, fuse it with the rush of rock and roll, and write memorable new songs that exist somewhere between creative geniuses Willie Dixon and Billy Gibbons. He stands his ground as a creative artist, not a derivative history lesson, and is eager to push the blues back into the mainstream.

Schumann told Wasielewski that he had composed his Violin Sonata in A minor at a time when he was 'very angry with certain people'. Whether or not that anger found its outlet in creative energy, he managed to complete the entire work within the space of less than a week. The Sonata is alone among Schumann's symphonically conceived chamber works in being cast in three movements, rather than four. The relative concision results from the fact that Schumann's middle movement takes a leaf out of Beethoven's book, and combines the functions of slow movement and scherzo. No less intensely passionate than the A minor Sonata is the Violin Sonata in D minor Op 121.

Schumann told Wasielewski that he had composed his Violin Sonata in A minor at a time when he was 'very angry with certain people'. Whether or not that anger found its outlet in creative energy, he managed to complete the entire work within the space of less than a week. The Sonata is alone among Schumann's symphonically conceived chamber works in being cast in three movements, rather than four. The relative concision results from the fact that Schumann's middle movement takes a leaf out of Beethoven's book, and combines the functions of slow movement and scherzo. No less intensely passionate than the A minor Sonata is the Violin Sonata in D minor Op 121. Although Schumann eventually dedicated it to Ferdinand David, the violinist who had been so closely associated with Mendelssohn and the Leipzig Gewandhaus (it was for David that Mendelssohn composed his famous Violin Concerto), the piece was first performed by Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann in 1853. Towards the end of that year Joachim wrote enthusiastically to his friend Arnold Wehner, Director of music at Göttingen: 'I consider it one of the finest compositions of our times in respect of its marvellous unity of feeling and its thematic significance. It overflows with noble passion, almost harsh and bitter in expression, and the last movement reminds one of the sea with its glorious waves of sound.'

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy is the debut solo album of Dutch composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen, released under the name Anthony. He sang leading vocals and played most of the instruments himself. However unlike most of his future works Lucassen doesn't play bass, with Peter Vink (future member of Lucassen's band Star One and future contributor of Lucassen's project Ayreon) playing all bass. The name of the album comes from the song "Across the Universe" (by The Beatles), one of Lucassen's favorite songs.

Make sure you have your stereo (or iPod) at a safe level of volume when you start this disc because it kicks in full throttle and rarely lets up! That is a good thing, especially if you are a fan of great guitar driven rock n’ roll. After it warms your player up for a few seconds, then crank this as it should be. New Soul Cowboys are a hard rockin’ trio based in Nashville, Tennessee. The album kicks into overdue from the first second with “Painted Horse”. IMO, you just can’t go wrong with opening a CD with a killer track about the freedom of blazing a trail on a Harley Davidson. The subtle banjo adds an interesting flavor to the song while the gang vocals will have you chanting along in no time.

Following the premiere performance of Handel's opera "Sosarme, re di Media" on 15 February 1732, Viscount Percival remarked that, the work is well received in the city, and quite rightly so, for it is one of the best I have ever heard. The intrigue-laced plot goes back to 14th century historical events, when a dispute about succession broke out between King Dionysius (Denis), his son Alfonso and King Ferdinand IV of Castile. Following the last performance of Sosarme in 1734, the work slumbered for some two hundred years until British composer, conductor and musicologist Anthony Lewis revived Handel's composition in 1954. This recording, featuring the St. Anthony Singers and St. Cecilia Orchestra and conducted by Lewis, vouches for historical authenticity last but not least thanks to an ensemble of singers well-versed in Handel's works, including counter-tenor Alfred Deller and contralto Helen Watts.

Recorded at the Institut fur Elektronische Musik und Akustik in Graz, Austria during the first week of August 2003, Anthony Braxton's (+ Duke Ellington) Concept of Freedom is a dazzling exercise in collective creativity. Braxton does not perform on this recording. Neither does Ellington, for that matter. Both men and their substantial accomplishments are honored and invoked by a quartet of skilled improvisers. These are trombonist Roland Dahinden, pianist Hildegard Kleeb, violinist Dimitris Polisoidis, and electronics artist Robert Holdrich. Kleeb, like her life partner Dahinden, has worked with Braxton's music in other contexts, most importantly perhaps her four-CD set devoted to 20 years' worth of his notated piano music which was released on the hatNOW series in 1996…