Cycle World June 2017

Composer Michael Mantler's "Comment c'est" is a song cycle for female voice and chamber orchestra, re-thinking the voice of electro-pop singer Himiko Pagnotti in an art music context. The Max Brand ensemble brings their dedication to innovative art and new forms of listening to this project, making for a powerful release dealing with a range of themes such as war, terrorism, migration, poverty and fear in the contemporary world.

A new recording of world premieres addressing a topic of our national discourse: diaspora. If There Were Water, from Philadelphias 2017 Grammy-nominated choir, The Crossing, is a testament to the expressive range of the human voice. These two strikingly diverse, yet equally compelling unaccompanied compositions were commissioned for The Crossings Month of Moderns festival and premiered in June 2017.

Few performers are more familiar with the musical language of the French composer Olivier Messiaen than the American conductor Kent Nagano. Nagano has had Messiaen's orchestral works and oratorios in his program for several decades now, and he also participated in the world premiere of Saint François d'Assise, Messiaen's only opera. During the year 1982 Nagano spent his time with Messiaen in Paris, where not only an artistic relationship but also a close personal one developed between the two musicians.

Ukrainian composer Silvestrov is known for his "metaphorical" style of music, which sounds transparent, but is technically and emotionally complex. "Music should be so transparent that one can see the bottom and that poetry shimmers through this transparency." (Valentin Silvestrov)

Embarcadero Technologies, a leading provider of software solutions for application and database development, has released an update (R1) to Embarcadero RAD Studio 10.2 Tokyo. It’s an update of Delphi 10.2 Tokyo, C++Builder 10.2 Tokyo and RAD Studio 10.2 Tokyo for active Update Subscription customers. It includes 100s of platform focused enhancements, bug fixes and features.

At around 7 p.m. on 26 May 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave the order for Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of British troops from the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk. The German forces that had attacked through the Netherlands, Belgium and the Ardennes into France on 10 May had rapidly driven to the English Channel, reaching the coast at Noyellessur-Mer on 20 May and trapping the BEF, French forces and the remnants of the Belgian army. BEF commander Lord Gort immediately began to plan for his forces to withdraw towards Dunkirk, the nearest location with good port facilities. Between 27 May and 4 June, ships from the Royal Navy, the Merchant Navy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as the famous Little Ships evacuated almost 340,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk and brought them back to Britain.

Vocalist and composer Kavita Shah makes work in deep engagement with the jazz tradition, while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. A lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR), Shah incorporates her ethnographic research on Brazilian, West African, and Indian musical traditions into her original repertoire.