Child Composers

This album features Christmas music for the piano in a timeless journey through the decades and centuries. These songs have been through a remarkable evolution over the course of several centuries, with the changes they have undergone reflecting the shifting musical styles and cultural influences that prevailed in various times.

This album features Christmas music for the piano in a timeless journey through the decades and centuries. These songs have been through a remarkable evolution over the course of several centuries, with the changes they have undergone reflecting the shifting musical styles and cultural influences that prevailed in various times.

Originally released by Philips Classics on VHS and Laserdisc in 1991, the 13-part Mozart on Tour series chronicles the journeys of the child, adolescent and adult Mozart across Europe, in what was ultimately to prove a futile pursuit of fame and fortune.

"She Said" is the culmination of a year-long programme at the National Youth Jazz Orchestra to remix the gender balance in jazz, the album features collaborations with leading artists including legendary vocalist Norma Winstone, trumpeter/composers Yazz Ahmed and Laura Jurd, pianist Nikki Iles and saxophonist Josephine Davies.

Critics and fans alike have fallen in love with the film Philomena as well as its captivating score by Alexandre Desplat, which is now nominated for Best Original Score at the 2014 Academy Awards. Philomena is an emotional story inspired by true events, tinged with both tragedy and comedy, about two very different people who join forces for a remarkable journey. They are seeking to uncover the truth behind a heart-breaking story that has remained amystery for half a century. Legendary Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench (Skyfall, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Shakespeare in Love) stars in the title role as Philomena Lee along side one of Britain's leading comics Steve Coogan (The Look of Love) as Martin Sixsmith, with two-time Oscar nominated Stephen Frears directing. Accompanying the film's remarkablestory of Philomena's extraordinary search for her long lost son, is composer Alexandre Desplat's emotionally riveting score which evokes the compelling narrative of human love and loss that ultimately celebrates life, showing thatthere is laughter even in the darkest places. Desplat's wide usage of instruments gives the film its emotional resonance with both enchantment and a beautifully touching heart.

After fifteen years of playing mostly ‘groundbreaking’, modern music, slowly but surely more Romantic composers entered Calefax’s repertoire. This album is the Romantic Anthology that was bound to happen, filled with voluptuous nineteenth-century compositions.

On Remembering, the Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg continues his collaborations with two of the foremost Nordic composers: Per Nørgård and Kaija Saariaho. Praised internationally for his performances of the modern cello concerto, Kullberg regards the concerto form as the encounter of an individual soloist with the sound world of a composer. With living composers this approach often results in an unusual degree of collaboration, as the works gathered here bear witness to.

Riemuitkaamme! is an imaginative and unconventional selection of choral music associated with Christmas as it is celebrated in Finland. Several of the pieces are by Finnish composers – Sibelius, Rautavaara and Madetoja, to name a few – while others have become part of the Christmas traditions of the country despite their international background. Among these Berlioz’ The Shepherds’ Farewell and Tchaikovsky’s Christ, when a Child… are quite late additions compared to the medieval hymns Puer natus in Bethlehem, Ecce novum gaudium and Angelus emittitur.

Explore classical music, learn about composers, and enjoy engaging stories and animations. For parents with small kids.