Rachel Agatha Keen

Violinist Rachel Podger has secured a name for herself as a master interpreter and performer of all things Baroque and early Classical. Her recent recordings of the complete Mozart violin sonatas thrust her career forward from her already prestigious beginnings as a member of the Palladian Ensemble and Florilegium. This Channel Classics album finds Podger in front of the innovative Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment performing two Haydn concertos written during his time in the employ of the Esterházy family, as well as the instantly recognizable Mozart Sinfonia Concertante.

"Waves" is an new album from multi-platinum, award winning pop star Rachel Platten. "Waves" is the follow up to Rachel's Gold-certified major label debut album "Wildfire", which was released in January of 2016. The first song and video released from the Waves album was "Broken Glass", a track TIME raved is "another sharply produced pop jam", and USA Today hailed as "a shimmering dance track". That song was followed is "Perfect For You" a brightly honest yet hopeful track Rachel wrote about every day insecurities she still faces. Waves is a collection of emotive and reflective pop songs, all presented in Rachel Platten's uniquely inspired way.

Biber's Mystery (or Rosary) Sonatas were originally written to be played during Mass in Salzburg. Set to be recorded in early 2015 and released shortly after by Channel Classics, Rachel will tour a programme of half of the sonatas through 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. Depicting the main stories in the life of Christ, the sonatas are extremely evocative and could be performed in a sacred space using the Stations of the Cross, and/ or include suitable lighting to enhance the performance.

After the volumes dedicated to Vivaldi's great instrumental cycles, La Stravaganza (2004), La Cetra (2012) and L’Estro armonico (2015), English violinist Rachel Podger continues her work with her Brecon Baroque ensemble to bring out this version of the Four Seasons, which is rounded off with three violin concertos. A passionate fan of the music of Vivaldi and Biber, Rachel Podger, who studied in Germany, demonstrates through her performances just how much the Red Priest's music (and her herself, following Biber) can cloak itself in the mysterious and bizarre, to the point that Vivaldi appears here as a distant descendant of the mannerists from the late Renaissance and early Baroque period. This is a particularly interesting and successful take.

These are splendid works. The combination of violin and viola is a remarkably sonorous one, and Michael Haydn's two duos are masterpieces no less accomplished than Mozart's. The team of Podger and Rogers is very well matched in terms of timbre, phrasing, and interplay between melody and accompaniment. They communicate the joy of the allegros vividly and with great spirit.

Dreamer Awake' is the fifth album from Rachel Sermanni, her first for Navigator Records (Katherine Priddy, Kitty Macfarlane, Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys, Bellowhead). Hailing from the Scottish highlands, Sermanni is an enchanting singer-songwriter, whose performance and lyrics draw from a deep well of mysticism, dreams, nature and the simple-complex experience of being human; a contemporary folk musician influenced by a wealth of genres including jazz, rock, old-time and traditional.

After winning the Instrumental category in the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2014 for Guardian Angel, Rachel and her record label Channel Classics are back with a new CD, Perla Barocca. Including works by Frescobaldi, Gabrieli, Pandolfi & Fontana amongst others, this beautiful collection of masterpieces showcases sublime examples of the early Italian Baroque. Some composers dominate the repertory; others have left behind only a handful of works. Here, they come together to convey the diverse musical landscape of such an excitingly rich and creative era, Perla Barocca.

Among the many instrumental pieces that remained incomplete at Mozart's death there were four particularly beautiful fragments for violin and piano. Timothy Jones has made multiple new completions of these fragments based on Mozart's evolving style during the 1780s, exploring the open-endedness of the fragments and the different directions the music might have taken. Rachel Podger and Christopher Glynn present the world premiere recordings, which include two completions of each Sonata fragment, enabling listeners to take alternative journeys through Mozart's material.

The world's first lullabies were simple songs sung or hummed by parents cradling their infants and rocking them to sleep. After the birth of violinist Rachel Barton Pine's first child in 2011 she could find no existing collection of classical violin lullaby scores or recordings, so she set about gathering sheet music from libraries around the world and recording her own versions with pianist Matthew Hagle. Familiar tunes and new discoveries intertwine in this sweet, timely release celebrating the beauty of new life and parenthood.