Fancy 30 Years of Fancy & His Music Productions (2015)

Although all of the quartet's original members with the exception of violist Josef Kluson have moved on since its 1972 founding, the Prazák Quartet has maintained many of its original traditions. For starters, the Prazák Quartet has long distinguished itself as an ensemble almost obsessed with technical precision. From its earliest recordings to the present, intonation, articulation, balance, phrasing, and even the matching of vibrato have been among its trademarks. All of these technical proficiencies have never come at the expense of musical integrity. Quite the contrary, in fact; the performances are typically quite passionate and musically sating.

Brilliant Classics is proud to bring to the market this unique 6-CD Set dedicated to the original music for solo guitar of the Paraguayan composer Agustin Barrios Mangore (1885 - 1944). Barrios is still revered in Paraguay, where he is seen as one of the greatest musicians of all time by many. John Williams has said of Barrios: "As a guitarist/composer, Barrios is the best of the lot, regardless of era. His music is better formed, it's more poetic, it's more everything! And it's more of all those things in a timeless way”.

During the years in which Bernard Foccroulle was successively director of the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, he never ceased to devote himself to his instrument, the organ, regularly making recordings, giving numerous concerts and several premieres. The compositions on this recording range over that thirty-year cycle, from the 1991 premiere of Jonathan Harvey’s Fantasia in Strasbourg to that of Betsy Jolas’s Musique d’autres jours, a piece combining organ with cello that was premiered in Paris in February 2021 during the Présences Festival. His collaboration with the cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton also resulted in a new composition by Bernard Foccroulle for this organ-cello duo!

As one of the leading lights of New Orleans music, Dr. John deserves a splashy, star-studded celebration – which is precisely what producer Don Was assembled on May 3, 2014 at New Orleans' Saenger Theatre. Was led a house band featuring drummer Kenny Aronoff, trombonist Sarah Morrow, keyboardist Chuck Leavell, guitarist Brian Stoltz, and pianist John Gros, then invited a host of rockers, blues musicians, and Big Easy legends to the party…