Sierra Aria

Tommy Emmanuel, four-time winner of Australia's Best Guitarist award, has helped bring the art of rock guitar down under to a higher awareness over his two-decade-long career by bringing a sense of jazz improvisation into a mix that also includes blues, country, rock, classical, and Spanish music. After years as a popular sideman and ace songwriter, the two-time ARIA (Aussie Grammys equivalent) award winner launched his solo career in 1988 with Up from Down Under. Several releases have followed, most notably 1993's critically acclaimed The Journey, which hit high on Gavin and Radio & Records NAC airplay charts.

Director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams have forged a remarkable partnership over the past 20 years, one that's evolved in recent years into a very practical balance of art and commerce. The Spielberg/Williams team followed the blockbuster Jurassic Park with the risk-taking Schindler's List, the bloated Jurassic sequel The Lost World with the moralistic Amistad. Williams admirably rises to the challenge again, underplaying the volatile emotions involved and utilizing African rhythmic and modal influences with surprising subtlety. The choral touches of the title and wordless aria of "Cinque's Theme" bring to mind similar stylistic flourishes by Morricone–and that's high praise.

This internationally renowned early music group specializes in the powerfully gripping music of the Sephardic romances passed on by an oral tradition, as well as the court and sacred music of the early sixteenth century (Juan del Encina, Juan de Anchieta, Antonio de Cabezón, etc.) and the more complex polyphony belonging to the later part of that same period. The Accentus Ensemble itself was founded in Vienna in 1988.