Anthony Lazaro

Up 2 Zero is the latest album from blues artist Anthony Gomes. Channeling his inner Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, and Jimi Hendrix, Gomes gives this album a great variety of old and new sounding blues. Even though so many greats have passed, blues lovers are lucky to have Anthony Gomes as a new voice to sing and play honest blues. This album is a definite must hear.

The three works on this enterprising release showcase a genuinely American composer, Anthony Paul De Ritis (b. 1968), ...whose music lies rooted in its determination to meld science with humanity. To do so, De Ritis draws on the resources of his acoustic-electronic laboratory and applies them with a healthy enthusiasm for engaging tunes and harmonies, lively beat and a love of Technicolor.

Gennady Rozhdestvensky is the guest conductor who…"drew ravishing playing from this most ravishing of Tchaikovsky's ballet scores." (Guardian) Though the original scenario for The Nutcracker was considered to be fatally flawed, this magical work has survived to become one of the firmest favorites in the ballet repertory. This production by Artistic Director of Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, Peter Wright, with the help of Tchaikovsky ballet expert, Roland John Wiley attempts to rescue from far-flung archives surviving evidence of the original Ivanov/Sergueyev staging, combined with some captivating modern stage effects. Starring Lesley Collier as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Anthony Dowell as the Prince. With Julie Rose, Guy Niblett, Michael Coleman, Jonathan Cope.

If you can get over the confusion in their numbering, Johann Christian Bach's works are well worth exploring. The "London Bach" was a very influential composer early in the Classical period, highly regarded by Mozart himself and rising to the position of music master to the Queen of England before dying in poverty at the age of 46…

By Molly the Cat