Chen: Imaginative Reflections

As a pianist growing up in Shanghai, Junyan Chen played a significant amount of works by Chinese composers, which led her to strongly identify with living composers who explored their cultural identity through music. The four composers presented here brilliantly absorb other genres and art forms, reflecting their lives: the Turkish folk ballad, jazz, Russian poetry and African dance. Fazil Say’s Black Earth and Eleanor Alberga’s It’s Time both draw on their heritage, weaving together improvisation and complex rhythms. Sofia Gubaidulina’s mighty Piano Sonata is brimming with jazz and Russian Orthodox music.

On this CD Jorg Halubek and his Ensemble "Il Gusto Barocco" attempt a reconstruction of three of Bach's organ concertos that today are primarily treated as harpsichord concertos. How thrilling must it have sounded when Johann Sebastian Bach at the organ engaged in a contest of virtuosity with an entire orchestra. The present recording offers a tangible and imaginative impression of it.

Rui Chen chinese pop female singer. Chen Rui's voice is very unique, slightly hoarse, vicissitudes of life with a touch of sadness, but also magnetic.

Homecoming is a set of recollections of people, places, times and experiences. It is a response to the anxieties and concerns that were created by the global pandemic, but it also reflects some of the creative and artistic possibilities that can arise during times of instability and solitude.

This addition to the Steinway Classics series features evocative performances by pianist Sean Chen of Ravel’s much loved Le tombeau de Couperin and the captivating Sonatine.

Chopin, Piano Concertos No. 1 and 2, performed by pianist Sa Chen and the Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Lawrence Foster, conductor (Pentatone Classics). Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra followers will remember Sa Chen from a year ago. In October 2007, she joined the orchestra for an unusual work, a piano concerto by Clara Schumann. Chen looks about 12 on her album cover here, but she's 29. She is a promising pianist.

The Rascher Saxophone Quartet here present a disc of works specifically composed for them. They are joined by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Robin Engelen in the orchestra's first appearance on BIS. With Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in mind, Sally Beamish uses features of Baroque music but also elements from traditional Scottish music.