Douglas John Hall

This 10-CD box set of British orchestral music brings together a mouth-watering selection from the enterprising series of discs that the English conductor Douglas Bostock has made with various orchestras for the Classico label.
Important British composers are certainly featured - there are CDs devoted to Elgar, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Bax and Arnold - but this imaginative collection also includes many surprises, just waiting to be discovered, such as symphonies by Frederic Cowen and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Alan Bush and Ruth Gipps, concertos for orchestra by Edward Gregson, Alun Hoddinott and John McCabe, plus a host of smaller works. The recordings here, many world premieres, date from 1998 to 2005.

John Oates is having a full-circle moment after leveraging a canny mix of new-wave soul to reach multi-platinum heights with Daryl Hall in the '80s. His sixth solo album is titled Reunion, but if anything it's a homecoming with Oates' former self. This is the John Oates from before Hall and Oates, the one who wrote two songs and co-wrote four others on 1972's jangly Whole Oats. You may associate him with flashy MTV videos, but the first things we heard from Oates featured pedal steel. His similarly rootsy turn as a solo artist has echoes in the past.

Orkest de Volharding is one of the longest established European new music ensembles, created in 1972 by composers Louis Andriessen and Willem Breuker to perform one work, Andriessen's piece De Volharding. Its sister ensemble, Hoketus, has long fallen by the wayside, but Orkest de Volharding (literally the Perseverance Orchestra) presses on in a prodigious outpouring of concerts and recordings. They remain little known in the United States, despite having recorded works of Andriessen, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Torke for major labels distributed in America.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi - Live At Darbar Hall (2007) {Kosmic Music KMD 529 - Indian Classical Vocal}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 363 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 153 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 27 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2007 Kosmic Music | KMD 529
Indian Music / World Music / Indian Classical / Hindustani Vocal / Raga

When I was about 14 years old in 1988, I heard Pandit Bhimsen Joshi voice very first time in my life in an Indian National Integration song called 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara'. The moment I heard his voice, I felt like my spine was shaking with an ultimate bliss and I still have the same feeling whenever I listen to his voice. In my opinion and experience, he has Khayal's greatest male voice. Although 'Pandit Bhimsen Joshi' born in Karnataka (South India), he achieved greatest success in North Indian Classical Music.

This imaginatively-curated, generously-filled Christmas package is sure to find favor during this and future holiday seasons. Why? Because it packs in every conceivable carol, tune, choral work or song in timeless performances from the greatest artists in the world: singers of immense communicative gifts including Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti to name but four. It truly offers something of every Christmas mind, spirit, and looks fantastic.