Eliane Eliane (2019)

Love Stories is an orchestral album, revealing Elias’ mastery and preeminence as a multifaceted artist – a vocalist, pianist, arranger, composer, lyricist and producer. Sung almost entirely in English, the album features three original compositions plus seven superb arrangements of pieces from bossa nova’s golden age, including songs made famous by Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Colin Marston is an American musician and recording engineer residing in New York City. He runs Menegroth, The Thousand Caves Recording Studio in Queens, New York and has recorded, mixed and mastered artists including Mivos Quartet, Anthony Braxton, Lydia Lunch, Mary Halvorson, Jon Irabagon, Judith Berkson, Oneida/People of the North, Rhys Chatham, Elliott Sharp, Weasel Walter, Peter Evans, John Zorn, Brian Chase, Kid Millions, Mick Barr, M Lamar, Kelly Moran, No Neck Blues Band, Defeated Sanity, Yo La Tengo, Orthrelm, Revenge, Kayo Dot, Jarboe, Origin, Panopticon, Liturgy, Artificial Brain, Pyrrhon, Deiphago and Unearthly Trance as well as his own bands. Marston is a no-less prolific musician and musical innovator. His four most active bands include Behold the Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Krallice and the 2008 reunion lineup of Gorguts. He is also involved in the more experimental projects Indricothere, Byla, Hathenter, Encenathrakh, Glyptoglossio, Containor, Catatonic Effigy, Mossenek and Overishins.

Violinist Sylvia Huang, a prizewinner at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2019, and Éliane Reyes, the renowned virtuoso pianist, present a new disc bubbling with elegance and femininity. Linked by a keen musical rapport and an irrepressible friendship, they declare their love for Belgian Romantic music, embodied by two emblematic composers: Eugène Ysaÿe, a natural musical companion whom every violinist has encountered or dreamt about, and Guillaume Lekeu, a dazzling musical genius taken from us all too soon. This recording reveals some skilfully chosen gems by Ysaÿe, including two unpublished early pieces, the Mazurka de concert and the Grande Valse de concert (the latter a world premiere). Lekeu is represented by the sublime Sonata for piano and violin, dedicated to Eugène Ysaÿe; the musicians had the opportunity to consult, with an almost fervent enthusiasm, the original manuscript in Verviers, the birthplace of both the composer and Éliane Reyes. A radiant disc, overwhelming in its sincerity.

He was born in Cologne, but it was in Paris that Jacques Offenbach achieved fame. A special feature of this 30-CD collection are star-studded recordings in both French and German of his most celebrated operettas – works that overflow with joie de vivre and satirical wit – and of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, an opera that daringly fuses fantasy, comedy and tragedy. It also includes irresistibly stylish performances of such tempting rarities as Les Brigands, Pomme d’Api, Monsieur Choufleuri and Mesdames de la Halle.

Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination. Recorded at Berkeley, California's famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first - a three-part suite where Davachi's piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress - recalls Eduard Artemiev's majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. "Perfumes I-III" employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike…

With 2021's sparkling duets album Mirror Mirror, pianist Eliane Elias joins two of her biggest influences, legendary jazz keyboardist Chick Corea and acclaimed Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés. Co-produced by Elias, her husband bassist Marc Johnson, and longtime collaborator Steve Rodby, Mirror Mirror is a bold contrast to the Brazilian-born artist's more vocal-centric albums like 2019's Love Stories and 2017's Latin Grammy-winning Dance of Time. Here, she spotlights her deep jazz, classical, and Afro-Latin musical roots as she spars in friendly musical conversation with these two piano masters: literally going head-to-head with Corea and Valdés as she recorded each track live in the studio facing her guests. Adding to the album's timely atmosphere is the loss of Corea, who passed away in 2021 soon after the album was recorded. Mirror Mirror is an album of effortless virtuosity rife with a vibrant, in-the-moment energy.