Boulanger

Dutch violinist Merel Vercammen and Russian pianist Dina Ivanova release a new album of works for violin and piano by the Boulanger sisters, Bernstein, Bacewicz, and Piazzolla on 30 April 2021 on the immersive TRPTK label. The album ‘The Boulanger legacy’ brings to light the versatility of legendary conductor, pianist and composer Nadia Boulanger in her role as a teacher and mentor through the lens of her pupils’ compositions for violin, and with three pieces by her sister Lili Boulanger, whose work Nadia championed throughout her life.

William Youn's first orchestral album for Sony Classical in cooperation with Deutschlandradio Berlin is dedicated entirely to the exuberant flair of fin-de-siècle Paris with rare repertoire by Reynaldo Hahn, Nadia Boulanger and Gabriel Fauré - a musical excursion into the salons of the Belle Époque full of dazzling rediscoveries.

Il a été surnommé « Le pilote de Casey » et le parcours de ce criminel notoire est hors du commun. Plusieurs Québécois se souviennent de Raymond Boulanger pour ce clin d’oeil lancé aux policiers qui l’ont arrêté à Casey, en Haute-Mauricie, alors qu’il venait de se poser aux commandes d’un avion transportant 4 000 kilos de cocaïne, après avoir échappé à deux chasseurs de l’armée canadienne. Maintenant en libération conditionnelle, il s’est confié au journaliste Daniel Renaud, qui en a tiré un livre qui se lit comme un récit d’aventures. …

An emblematic figure of her time, Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) taught and inspired several generations of musicians, from Igor Stravinsky to Quincy Jones. Her musical and pedagogical philosophy, demanding yet highly stimulating, influenced the entire twentieth century. Astrig Siranossian, a rising star of the cello who now joins Alpha for several recordings, is fascinated by this musical personality whom everyone respectfully called ‘Mademoiselle’. She met some of her most illustrious students, including the late Michel Legrand, and Daniel Barenboim who has agreed to accompany her in a piece on the album. With the pianist Nathanaël Gouin, she has devised a very eclectic programme, including the three pieces for cello and piano written by Nadia Boulanger in 1915, three years before the death of her sister Lili.

The four saxophonists of the Quatuor Zahir set the scene for this second recording, which brings together the emblematic composers of twentieth-century France and their masterpieces. Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte and Trois Chansons, Nadia Boulanger's Trois Pièces, Poulenc's Chemins de l'amour, Charles d'Orléans's Trois Chansons, Debussy's Petite Suite and Rêverie all take on the warm timbres of their instruments in these arrangements for saxophone quartet, revealing new colours. They are echoed by two premières, Graciane Finzi's Petite Suite and Fabien Waksman's Les Lunes galantes, conceived as a fifth movement to Debussy's Petite Suite. Here the Quatuor Zahir is reaffirming its commitment to creation, its virtuosity too, but above all the singularity of its unique musical identity.