Benjamin Ring

Celebrated tenor Mark Padmore joins the Britten Sinfonia in some of the most beautiful English music for voice and orchestra. The centrepiece is Britten's magical evocation of twilight and nightfall, the 'Serenade' (with Stephen Bell, horn). In Gerald Finzi's war-time cycle 'Dies natalis', the ecstatic mood reflects a child's wide-eyed wonder at the world. Britten's poignant 'Nocturne' completes the programme.

Psychedelic Archaeology is a series developed to unearth psychedelic audio gems from the 60's that have never been reissued since their original release. This series is a group effort specifically designed for distribution to U-SPACES members through trade. Since this is a relatively low budget affair, a master CD is burned from cassette copies of the songs. The sound quality is amazingly good however, (with a little EQ magic) but the vinyl snaps, pops and crackles are still audible. The master CD's are distributed to a few people who volunteer to be branches, and in turn distribute the CD's to even more people… all through trade. Initially, each CD will have a distribution of approximately 50-75.

The La Scala Rheingold in May 2010 inaugurated Guy Cassiers Ring-Cycle and introduces a completely new paradigm to this work. While before him Patrice Chéreau had laid his focus on a historical analysis from 1870 to 1930 Germany, Guy Cassiers’ Ring unfolds “from our own present-day moment; it [takes] place in ‘the now’, the Jetztzeit (Walter Benjamin), placing our present and our future into the context of the promises and curses that we have inherited from history … The Cassiers Ring shows how the globalized moment of 2010 continues to build on the Wagnerian vocabularies of 1870.” (Michael Steinberg)

New Zealander Teddy Tahu Rhodes is one of the most prominent lyric baritones to have established a place on the international operatic stage in the first decade of the 21st century. This collection of late Romantic and early modern British song cycles seems like it would be an ideal repertoire for the singer. Rhodes has a pleasant, warm voice that he deploys with a variety of colors, and his top is resonant and ringing. These are very fine performances and are likely to appeal to fans of operatic bel canto singing. Material as folk-like as most of this is, though, is most effective when it is presented with more of a degree of artlessness, and Rhodes tends to over-sing, treating it operatically.