Dall Ameri Caruso

Echoes of Nature features two world premiere symphonic song cycles by Lucía Caruso & Pedro H. da Silva recorded live from Shakespeare’s church in Stratford-upon-Avon. The album features soprano Laetitia Grimaldi and composers Lucía Caruso on piano and celesta, and Pedro H. da Silva on Portuguese guitar, joined by the Royal Shakespeare Company music director Bruce O’Neil conducting the Orchestra & Choir of the Swan.

Away from the planned career paths, in areas where the love of music does not have to mix with necessities, real talents sometimes turn into mature musicians through many detours. Who else but jazz singer and cultural manager Herb Stangl could passionately keep the venerable tradition of the American Songbook alive for over 30 years? Who else could consistently develop over many years with different formations the oversized stage personality of a Hansi Caruso, now Herb Caruso, which is completely modeled on the way of life of this American era.

The center of the city of Naples is a labyrinth of narrow streets, frequently called “vico”. In Vincenzo Caruso’s definition, a vico is “a narrow street – an alley that winds between large Italian historic buildings”. Unless one knows the map by heart, it is practically impossible not to get lost in that intricate web of minuscule openings between old buildings. It is also fascinating to lose oneself, vico after vico, savouring the unmistakable and unique colours, sounds, scents and impressions of a city like no other. If one would feel the need for a further, imaginary vico after so many actual ones, the pianist and composer of this Da Vinci Classics album, Vincenzo Caruso, created a new, hidden vico just for his listeners. He called it Vico Novecento, and drew it, in an imagined map, as a line connecting the Conservatory of Naples (San Pietro a Majella) to a publishing company, Casa Musicale Simeoli, opposite it. Caruso explains: “I imagine a frequent coming and going of composers, teachers of the conservatory, who in a few steps were in the sheet music shop to check that their works had been printed correctly”.

Echoes of Nature features two world premiere symphonic song cycles by Lucía Caruso & Pedro H. da Silva recorded live from Shakespeare’s church in Stratford-upon-Avon. The album features soprano Laetitia Grimaldi and composers Lucía Caruso on piano and celesta, and Pedro H. da Silva on Portuguese guitar, joined by the Royal Shakespeare Company music director Bruce O’Neil conducting the Orchestra & Choir of the Swan.

Imaginary Animals releases the new programme Transclassical Concertos, recorded with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields at the Abbey Road Studios in London, conducted by Royal Shakespeare Company music director Bruce O’Neil. It is centred around Pedro H. da Silva’s first Portuguese guitar concerto in history and Lucia Caruso's piano concerto "Light and Wind".