London Grammatica

Melodious and charming, The Cunning Little Vixen is a work rooted in Czech history and folk music; a sentimental journey through the cycles of life. For Sir Simon Rattle, it's a deeply personal and emotional work. "It's the piece that made me want to become an opera conductor… and still one of the pieces that reduces me to tears more easily than any other," says the LSO's Music Director. Recorded with an outstanding cast during semi-staged performances, this recording is the second in an LSO Live series showcasing acclaimed collaborations between Rattle and the celebrated stage director Peter Sellars. Towering fanfares open Janácek's Sinfonietta, an ode to the composer's hometown of Brno in the now Czech Republic. It's a portrait composed for a national celebration of Slavic culture, with Janácek's love of musical tradition evident in dancing strings and celebratory brass.

International award-winning composer, Amanda Lee Falkenberg has composed a dynamic new work that merges music and science. The seven-movement symphony dramatizes past, present and future moon explorations, and highlights discoveries that have been made in our search for other worlds that could possibly sustain life. Through the persuasive and powerful forces of music, the symphony offers Earthlings a chance to contemplate who and where we are in the universe. In 42 minutes they will be taken on an emotional journey, marveling at the wonders of these moons, the beauty of our planet, and possibly even experience their own perspective shift as crew-mates aboard this spaceship we cruise, Earth. This is the story of THE MOONS SYMPHONY.

London Brew is inspired by the legendary Miles Davis’ album, Bitches Brew. Recorded in December 2020 at The Church Studios in London, this three-day recording session brings together 12 London based artists, collectively known as “London Brew”: Benji B, Raven Bush, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, Tom Herbert, Shabaka Hutchings, Nikolaj Torp Larsen, Dave Okumu, Nick Ramm, Dan See, Tom Skinner and Martin Terefe. Produced by Martin Terefe and Executive Producer Bruce Lampcov, these original recordings celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Bitches Brew. Available as a 2-LP set, 2-CD & digitally.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! was first performed in 1943, and was a significant turning point in the history of musical theatre. It was the first musical to put drama and plot to the fore, portrayed by rounded, believable characters. It swept aside traditions that had their roots in vaudeville – star turns, comic sketches, and endless lines of high-kicking chorus girls. Oklahoma! does feature dance, but in the hands of the choreographer, Agnes de Mille, this was idiomatic to the plot, and revolutionary in terms of the fifteen-minute dream-sequence ballet at the close of Act I. The first collaboration between composer and writer, the show was a hit, running for more than five years on Broadway, and paving the way for their masterpieces to come.

One of the first of the blissed-out rave acts to storm the charts, and also one of the longest lasting, the Future Sound of London deserved a good singles compilation, and fortunately they get one with the Virgin retrospective Teachings from the Electronic Brain. Their highest moments were virtually always their singles, and short-form tracks offer a much easier path to understanding the music of Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain than their occasionally bloated LPs. Teachings from the Electronic Brain neglects nothing of real value, beginning with their first chart hit ("Papua New Guinea") and grabbing the best tracks from their albums Accelerator ("Expander"), Lifeforms (the title track), the live-in-the-studio ISDN ("Far-Out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman," "Smokin' Japanese Babe"), and Dead Cities ("We Have Explosive"). Best of all, licensing requirements prevented the addition of material from 2002's half-baked The Isness.