David Grant

Of the three Bang on a Can founder composers, David Lang’s music has always been the glassiest, the sparest, and for some listeners the most precious. In recent years, his aesthetic has become leaner still, paring down already simple material to gaunt extremes in something approaching neo-plainchant. The national anthems (note the lower case; nothing vainglorious here ) takes fragments of text from the anthems of all 193 United Nations member states and unfolds at speaking speed, with plenty of room for breaths between phrases and plenty of clarity to the words. It has the feel of sad and eerie intoning. The Los Angeles choir clinches the right sound for Lang – unflinching, spellbound – while the Calder Quartet gives sleek accompaniment. Also on the disc is a new choral version of Lang’s little match girl passion, the piece originally for four voices that won him the Pulitzer prize in 2008 and which, in the mouths of many, becomes a sort of collective prayer in the congregational tradition of Bach’s chorales.

Pianist/composer and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow Helen Sung celebrates the work of influential women composers on her latest album Quartet+, crafting new arrangements of tunes by Geri Allen, Carla Bley, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland and Toshiko Akiyoshi while carrying the tradition forward with her own stunning new works. Co-produced by violin master Regina Carter, the album pairs Sung’s quartet with the strings of the GRAMMY® Award-winning Harlem Quartet in an inventive meld of jazz and classical influences.

Pianist/composer and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow Helen Sung celebrates the work of influential women composers on her latest album Quartet+, crafting new arrangements of tunes by Geri Allen, Carla Bley, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland and Toshiko Akiyoshi while carrying the tradition forward with her own stunning new works. Co-produced by violin master Regina Carter, the album pairs Sung’s quartet with the strings of the GRAMMY® Award-winning Harlem Quartet in an inventive meld of jazz and classical influences.

Une intégrale de la musique pour guitare de Robert de Visée, par le guitariste canadien David Jacques, spécialiste en musique ancienne, sur une guitare cinq chœurs Claude Guibord, d’après un model Stradivarius de 1700.

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING The classical guitarist player, David Jacques, recorded several CDs for the XXI-21 label. He is garner of many nominations, prizes and distinctions. This Cd features several pieces composed and updated by the Sieur de la Grange, with the method of playing the basso continuo. Repertoire: A. Carré from Livre de pièces de guitarre et de musique. The only available copy, at the Bibliothèque de Paris, bears a handwritten date ca.1720. It was published in Paris and dedicated to Charlotte-Elisabeth of Bavaria, also called the Palatine Princess, second wife of Philippe de France, Duke of Orléans, and brother of Louis XIV (1652-1722). It is she who will say of Louis XIV that he played the guitar better than a master. The book s title suggests that Carré wasn t the only author of the works contained in this compendium. Certain pieces are associated to, among others, Francesco Corbetta the famous Italian guitarist and composer who dominated the guitar world during the 17th century.

Showing no signs of growing old and clamping down, Eddy Grant boldly titles his 2006 release Reparation, a call for restitution for the transatlantic slave trade. Fittingly, the title cut is the album's key track, with Grant urgently crying out for answers over a frantic, synthetic soca beat while crunching guitars remind everyone that this is the man who cranked out the glorious rock-reggae-dance blends "Electric Avenue" and "Living on the Front Line." Of course, he's also the man who wrote and recorded "Baby Come Back" and "Romancing the Stone," sunny and light tracks of which the easygoing "Everything Irie" brings reminders.

In My Wildest Dreams is a 1992 album by keyboardist Tom Grant featuring David Grant and Wayne Braithwaite. My Wildest Dreams is a sunny fusion date whose fantasies are more in the nature of pastel reveries than wild' noirish nightmares.