Live Yanni

New age music and ancient shrines seem to work well together, as evidenced by top-selling concert CDs and videos (now DVDs) by Keiko Matsui and Yanni over the years. Kitaro's idea for a greatest-hits collection performed at the sacred Yakushiji Temple in Nara, the ancient Japanese capitol, is more about beauty and intimacy than sheer spectacle, although it would be fun to imagine this dramatic presentation in its native setting. The music on this double disc was taken from three live concerts in the summer of 2001, the first concerts ever presented in the temple proper. Not that you need the background to be swept away into the dreamy mysticism that defines Kitaro's twist on the universe, but this temple is the resting place of the ashes of Genjo Sanzo, the seventh century monk who walked the Silk Road from Japan to India, returning from India with the sacred texts that introduced Buddhism into China and Japan.

Dare to Dream is Yanni's first new material in three years and finds the new age composer fitting his unflinchingly romantic arrangements into tighter song structures. The surging synth backgrounds, insistent piano lines, and general grandiosity that mark Yanni's sound are still intact. But tracks like "Love for Life" or "Nice to Meet You" harness that famously epic energy in smaller stables. This tactic works especially well on the latter track, which is led by the wail of an electric fiddle. Elsewhere, Yanni plucks the heartstrings with "In the Mirror" and "So Long My Friend" – two weepy ballads that cascade like sheets of rain on a lonely city street. The seven-minute "You Only Live Once" becomes the only really epic piece on Dare to Dream, and it's pleasant enough.

Stunning performance in front of a huge audience at the open air Odeon of Herodes Atticus, as Charles Lloyd, uniquely-expressive saxophonist, and Maria Farantouri, Greece’s voice of resistance, come together. Friends for some years, this is their first recorded collaboration. Lloyd’s brilliant quartet is on hand - with Jason Moran in especially creative mode - augmented by lyra player Socratis Sinopoulos and second pianist Takis Frazio in a marvelous programme that includes songs by Mikis Theoedorakis, suites of Greek traditional music, Eleni Karaindrou’s “Journey to Kythera” and Lloyd originals including his classic “Dream Weaver”. “Athens Concert” is a major event, a very special live album indeed.