Chloris

Daniel Hope's new double album Belle Époque, initially released as a Limited Deluxe Edition, combines popular and rare repertoire, which was written in the equally named "golden" period between the Franco-Prussian War and the beginning of World War I in 1914 in major European music nations.

The Lebanese-American Karim Sulayman joins the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for this album of works by Reynaldo Hahn.

Praised by BBC Music magazine for his ‘lucid, velvety tenor and pop-star charisma’, the Lebanese-American Karim Sulayman has garnered international attention as a sophisticated and versatile artist. He joins the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for this album of works by Reynaldo Hahn. The founder members Tom Poster and Elena Urioste write: ‘Kaleidoscope has championed many unjustly neglected composers, but in the case of Reynaldo Hahn the neglect seems particularly puzzling to us. is music is immediately approachable, soaringly beautiful, and speaks directly to the heart; audiences, on the rare occasions that they get to hear it, seem to adore it. His life story is fascinating, too: born in Caracas, to a Jewish-German father and a Catholic- Venezuelan mother of Spanish / Basque origin, the handsome and urbane Hahn charmed high-society Paris, enjoying great success as composer, conductor, singer, writer-lecturer, and music critic. The Piano Quintet had been on our programming wish list for some time: it was lauded as Hahn’s greatest work at its 1922 première, and the powerful intensity of its first two movements in particular acts as a firm rejoinder to those who criticised Hahn as a lightweight salon composer. By the time he finished his Piano Quartet, in 1946, Hahn was a man out of place in the world; this is music which bears no trace of modernism, instead looking back nostalgically to Hahn’s heyday in la belle époque.

Kiki de Montparnasse was immortalised by Man Ray, showing the suggestive curves of a woman's back and the two violin soundholes painted directly onto her skin, making this female body the most irresistible of musical instruments.

Since her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007, Kathleen Kim’s international profile has continued to rise with consistent critical acclaim reflecting the excitement she generates at many of the world’s premiere opera houses and concert halls.

Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (he disliked the name Cecil so was known as Armstrong) was a prolific and versatile composer of the first half of the twentieth century. He studied under Sir Adrian Boult and Ralph Vaughan Williams. His contemporaries were Herbert Howells, Sir Arthur Bliss and Sir Arnold Bax. Known principally for his solo songs Gibbs also wrote music for the stage, sacred works, three symphonies and a substantial amount of chamber music. He gained wide recognition during the early part of his life. He continued to compose and conduct up until his death in May 1960.

The woodwind quintet Reeds in Motion is a special ensemble in many aspects. The exclusive instrumentation alone - oboe, saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and bassoon - is not commonplace. They are all instruments that are made to sound with a single or double reed and thus form an extremely homogeneous and changeable body of sound.

Kiki de Montparnasse was immortalised by Man Ray, showing the suggestive curves of a woman's back and the two violin soundholes painted directly onto her skin, making this female body the most irresistible of musical instruments.