Bela Hamvas

We’re pleased to announce Throw Down Your Heart: The Complete Africa Sessions, a new comprehensive film and music set documenting Béla Fleck’s transcontinental exploration of the banjo’s roots. The Complete Africa Sessions, out March 27, compiles the 2008 documentary film Throw Down Your Heart; its soundtrack, Tales From the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3; and the outtakes collection Throw Down Your Heart: Africa Sessions Part 2, Unreleased Tracks. Plus, it includes a brand-new album with kora master Toumani Diabaté entitled The Ripple Effect (also available to purchase individually on 180-gram, 2-LP vinyl).

We’re pleased to announce Throw Down Your Heart: The Complete Africa Sessions, a new comprehensive film and music set documenting Béla Fleck’s transcontinental exploration of the banjo’s roots. The Complete Africa Sessions, out March 27, compiles the 2008 documentary film Throw Down Your Heart; its soundtrack, Tales From the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3; and the outtakes collection Throw Down Your Heart: Africa Sessions Part 2, Unreleased Tracks. Plus, it includes a brand-new album with kora master Toumani Diabaté entitled The Ripple Effect (also available to purchase individually on 180-gram, 2-LP vinyl).

My Bluegrass Heart is a studio album by American banjo player Béla Fleck, third of the trilogy, which starts with 1988's album Drive and continues with 1999's album The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2. The album features guest appearances from Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, Bryan Sutton, Billy Strings, Chris Thile, Noam Pikelny, Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, Tony Trischka, Michael Cleveland and David Grisman.

The Végh Quartet was not only one of the finest string quartets from mid-twentieth century Europe, but its style was never subjected to radical change over the years from personnel changes because the four original players remained members for 38 of the 40 years of the ensemble's existence. Its style evolved in subtle ways, of course, but its essential character endured until 1978: the quartet was Central European in its sound, with a bit more prominence given to the cello in order to build tonal qualities from the bottom upward. The Végh Quartet was best known for its cycles – two each – of the Beethoven and Bartók quartets. It also performed and recorded many of the Haydn quartets, as well as numerous other staples of the repertory by Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, and Debussy. For a group that disbanded in 1980, its recordings are still quite popular, with major efforts available in varied reissues from Music & Arts, Archipel, Naïve, and Orfeo.

Neither too nationalist nor too internationalist, this 1995 recording of Béla Bartók's two violin concertos featuring Thomas Zehetmair with Ivan Fischer leading the Budapest Festival Orchestra is just right. Austrian-born Zehetmair has a fabulous technique, a warm but focused tone, and lively sense of rhythm, all of which make him an ideal Bartók player. His interpretations are less about showing off then about digging in, and his performances are more about the music than they are about the musician. Hungarian conductor Fischer and his Hungarian orchestra are not only up for the music in a technical sense, they are also down with the music in an emotional sense, and their accompaniments ground Zehetmair's coolly flamboyant performances. Captured in white-hot sound that is almost too vivid for its own good, these performances deserve to stand among the finest ever recorded.

Drive is an album by American banjoist Béla Fleck. The album was produced toward the end of Fleck's New Grass Revival career and before the Flecktones were formed and included an all-star list of bluegrass performers. This album is a touchstone of modern acoustic music, and has since influenced almost every bluegrasser looking to break new ground. Bela would go on to do many fantastic things in a wide variety of genres, but in his bluegrass endeavors, this has to be consider among the best.