Christine Birkhoff

2022 release from two-time Tony Award winner Christine Ebersole. Featuring American classics by composers and songwriters from Jerome Kern to Joni Mitchell in original arrangements by Broadway veteran Lawrence Yurman. These recording finds Ebersole at the start of a brave new chapter, reflecting on life, love and family now that the last of her three adopted children has flown the nest. After the Ball is produced by Ebersole herself, in collaboration with Yurman.

Christine Jensen leads the Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal in two large-scale works. First off comes a composition by Jensen herself – a five-movement work that pays tribute to great jazz artists who helped fashion her own style as both composer and improviser: John Coltrane, Lee Konitz, Wayne Shorter, Kenny Wheeler, and Jan Jarczyk (her first teacher).Then we hear a suite from Gershwin’s immortal opera Porgy and Bess in an arrangement by Gil Evans. This is the suite recorded by Miles Davis and his band, conducted by Evans, and released to great acclaim in 1959. It was one of the finest collaborations between Evans and Davis, and has gone down in jazz history as a monument of orchestral jazz. All the opera’s best-known numbers are here, including Bess, you is my woman now, It ain’t necessarily so, There’s a boat that’s leaving soon for New York, and of course Summertime.

Christine & The Queens is the alt-moniker of French singer/songwriter/actress Heloise Letissier and her debut album „Chaleur Humaine“ ('Human Heat') is an impressive first outing in the Listening World. Ms. Letissier makes a pretty noise; an approachable and tuneful take on electro-pop which might also appeal to admirers of Imogen Heap. There are eleven songs in the set, some sung in her native tongue and others in English, so a dictionary comes in handy here and there. The album has been released as self-titled (Christine and the Queens) in the United States.

Longtime members of Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie have joined together to record their first-ever album as a duo. The collaboration began three years ago, when McVie rejoined Fleetwood Mac for the group’s “On With The Show” tour. The pair went in to record new material prior to rehearsals for the tour and their natural creative chemistry was reignited. Simply titled LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM/CHRISTINE McVIE, the 10-song album has been released this June, followed by a run of special U.S. concerts.

With stellar albums from Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, Selena Gomez and Grimes over the past few months, it’s been a hot stretch for the genre inaccurately but conveniently labelled “alt-pop” — and joining the group is this surprise release from France’s Christine and the Queens, who recently collaborated with two of the above artists.

Jensen writes in three dimensions, with a quiet kind of authority that makes the many elements cohere. Wayne Shorter, Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler come to mind." - DownBeat"Always a compelling writer, capable of strong lyricism combined with harmonic invention and plenty of narrative twists and turns, Jensen's music not only impresses on a first encounter, but reveals more with each and every listen."