Mon Ami Robot

This is a tribute to the giant of soprano saxophone, Sidney Bechet. The music is enchanting, lyrical and yet full of swing and joie de vivre. Brandon Walker and I have also written four tunes in what I would call a "modernized" Bechet style to honor the master. The rest of the tunes are period covers that once again tend to be romantic, lyrical and soulful…in the spirit of gypsy jazz and Dixieland combines but with a more modern touch.

Did Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart compose for viola da gamba? Certainly! His father Leopold Mozart bears witness to this. Joseph Fiala, the most famous viola da gamba player of the time after Carl Friedrich Abel, was Mozart‘s close friend and lived in Mozart‘s Salzburg birthplace from 1778 to 1785. Echo Klassik prize-winner Thomas Fritzsch performs on Fiala‘s 1709 Salzburg viola da gamba, which Mozart undoubtedly got to know. Together with Michael Schönheit on an original tangent piano and the ensemble Merseburger Hofmusik, gamba compositions by Mozart and Fiala can be heard for the first time.