Pati Yang

For his debut on Warner Classics, Samoan tenor Pene Pati matches favourite showpiece arias with rarer operatic gems in a programme of Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Meyerbeer, Gounod and Benjamin Godard. Pati has been called “a revelation … stunning for his generosity of voice, top notes of apparently invincible power, and alluring timbre,“ (Forum Opéra) and praised for his “gleaming, sensuous stream of sound” (San Francisco Chronicle). A singer of glowing lyricism who establishes an immediate rapport with his audience, Pati hopes that the album will leave listeners with a sense of “warmth, tenderness, and the sincerity of storytelling. To me, this is the essence of opera and the reason why I sing.” He is joined by conductor Emmanuel Villaume and the Orchestre national Bordeaux Aquitaine.

Taking its title, Nessun Dorma, from the greatest tenor hit of them all, Pene Pati’s second album balances favourite numbers with operatic rarities – two of them in world premiere recordings. In addition to Puccini, the Italian composers are Verdi, Donizetti, Mascagni and Mercadante, while the French school is represented by Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Massenet, Halévy and Guiraud. Joining the Samoan tenor on the album are his soprano wife, Amina Edris, his tenor brother Amitai Pati, conductor Emmanuel Villaume, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Choeur de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Taking its title, Nessun Dorma, from the greatest tenor hit of them all, Pene Pati’s second album balances favourite numbers with operatic rarities – two of them in world premiere recordings. In addition to Puccini, the Italian composers are Verdi, Donizetti, Mascagni and Mercadante, while the French school is represented by Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Massenet, Halévy and Guiraud. Joining the Samoan tenor on the album are his soprano wife, Amina Edris, his tenor brother Amitai Pati, conductor Emmanuel Villaume, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Choeur de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Taking its title, Nessun Dorma, from the greatest tenor hit of them all, Pene Pati’s second album balances favourite numbers with operatic rarities – two of them in world premiere recordings. In addition to Puccini, the Italian composers are Verdi, Donizetti, Mascagni and Mercadante, while the French school is represented by Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Massenet, Halévy and Guiraud. Joining the Samoan tenor on the album are his soprano wife, Amina Edris, his tenor brother Amitai Pati, conductor Emmanuel Villaume, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Choeur de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Acclaimed Chinese guitarist Xuefei Yang releases a new double-album - Sketches of China - featuring a unique collection of works ranging from the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD) to the 21st Century, many of which are world premiere recordings. For this album, Xuefei has sought out and arranged poignantly beautiful traditional melodies, commissioned new works from leading Chinese composers and collaborated with colleagues who are the musical superstars in her native land.

Violonist MI-Sa Yang and pianist Adam Laloum present a program that mirrors four composers of different sensitivities who, in their confrontation with the second Vienna School's radical theories, have each sought in a genuine, personal way, to provide an alternative solution to the problems raised by the evolution of the musical language.

Prokofiev first became fascinated by the violin upon hearing the playing of his private teacher, Reinhold Glière. A dozen years later Prokofiev wrote his Violin Concerto No. 1 – a work of contrasting open-hearted lyricism and whimsical playfulness that features a wild central Scherzo with dazzling technical gymnastics. By contrast, the Violin Concerto No. 2 is emotionally reserved and sardonic with an inspired plaintive and long-arching slow movement. Composed to an official Soviet commission for an ensemble piece to be played by talented child violinists in unison, the witty and upbeat Sonata for Solo Violin can also be played by a single performer.

Yang has won numerous prizes in music competitions including the Stotsenberg International Classical Guitar Competition, the San Francisco International Guitar Competition and the Young Concert Artist International competition in the United States, and the Darwin International Guitar Competition in Australia. She was awarded first prize in the Ivor Mairants Guitar Award by the City of London's Worshipful Company of Musicians, and won the Dorothy Grinstead Prize for a recital at Fairfield Hall, Croydon.

After the devastation of World War I, young, hopeful, gifted composers trooped into the French capital. In 1925, the publisher Michel Dillard coined the term École de Paris (‘Paris School’) for the foreign composers then living there, especially Hungary’s Tibor Harsányi (1898–1954), Poland’s Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986), Czechoslovakia’s Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959), Russia’s Alexander Tcherepnin (1899–1977), and Romania’s Marcel Mihalovici (1898–1985), whose works he specialised in disseminating. All five composers featured in this album came to Paris from Eastern Europe and all, with the exception of Martinů, died there. They initially attempted to translate the essence of folk music from their homelands, using standard musical notation to express idiomatic subtleties that were difficult to capture. The programme includes the world premiere recordings of Harsányi’s Rhapsodie and Sonate Pour Violoncelle et Piano, and Mihalovici’s Sonate dans le caractère d’une scène lyrique.