Dirt Sports From February 2014

Roots band Birds of Chicago formed in 2012 as a collaboration between Chicago's JT Nero (JT & the Clouds) and Vancouver's Allison Russell (Po' Girl). Although both singer/songwriters were actively leading their own projects, their combined efforts were convincing enough to make a go of it and they set about recording their debut. Though a talented songwriter in her own right, a big part of the Birds of Chicago sound came from the material Nero had written specifically for Russell to interpret, and it was their combined voices that won over fans on 2012's self-titled Birds of Chicago LP.

Suzi Quatro is a performer as famous for her image as her music; Quatro was rock & roll's prototypical Bad Girl, the woman in the leather jumpsuit with the enormous bass guitar (well, it looked enormous, given that Quatro is only five feet tall), looking sexy but ferocious as she banged out her glam rock hits in her '70s glory days. Quatro is a woman who titled one of her albums Your Mamma Won't Like Me for a reason. But there's more to Suzi Quatro than all that, and she seems determined to show off the full range of her 50-year career in music on the box set The Girl from Detroit City. Quatro is a rocker but she's also a showbiz lifer, and the music spread over these four discs is the work of someone up to do a little bit of everything, and along with Chapman/Chinn thunderboomers like "Can the Can," "49 Crash," and "Daytona Demon," you also get vintage garage rock (three numbers from Quatro's first band, the Pleasure Seekers, including the gloriously snotty "What a Way to Die"), easygoing pop numbers like "Stumblin' In" (her hit duet with Chris Norman of Smokie)…

Following releases by Set Fire to Flames, Sylvain Chauveau, and Max Richter himself, Songs from Before is the fifth release on FatCat's 130701 imprint, established as a creative outlet for music of a more orchestrated, instrumental variety. Following 2004's critically acclaimed the Blue Notebooks, Songs… provides a further refined, perhaps even subtler take on Max's narrative landscape, beautifully recorded and cinematic in scope.

The founding of the Berliner Philharmoniker on the first of May in 1882 is annually celebrated with a concert in a European city of cultural significance. For this newly released EUROPAKONZERT Blu-ray Disc all recordings were lovingly restored and converted to High Definition video. Maestro Zubin Mehta was awarded the Presidential Medal of Distinction for his unique contribution to Israeli culture. Sarah Chang has not only received the Royal Philharmonic Award for Young Artist and the Gramophone Award among others, but she was also the youngest person to receive the Hollywood Bowl’s Hall of Fame award. The concert took place at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

The Berliner Philharmoniker’s European Concert, held each year on 1 May, is invariably an international highlight. Performing in 2008 in Moscow's renowned Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle presented outstanding performances of works by Beethoven, Stravinsky and Bruch, whose Violin Concerto featured one of today’s most fascinating artists, the Russian violinist Vadim Repin.

The founding of the Berliner Philharmoniker on the first of May in 1882 is annually celebrated with a concert in aEuropean city of cultural significance. For this newly released EUROPAKONZERT Blu-ray Disc all recordings werelovingly restored and converted to High Definition video. Daniel Barenboim performs here as both conductor and soloist on the piano. 1997 The concert takes place at the spectacular Palace of Versailles in Paris , center of French political power until theFrench Revolution and famous backdrop for movies as Midnight in Paris, Dangerous Liasons and Jeffernson in Paris.