Sarah Jane Summers & Juhani Silvola The Smoky Smirr O Rain

This recording includes an excellent selection from Beethoven’s many settings of Irish folksongs, with imaginative new arrangements of his accompaniments, rescored for more traditional instruments than the original piano, violin and cello. His settings are interspersed with more conventional versions of Irish and Scottish folk tunes taken from other sources. These help to highlight his remarkable ingenuity, which preserves the original character of the folksongs while elevating them to a much higher level of interest.

Bozzini+ combines Montreal’s famed Quatuor Bozzini with pianist Philip Thomas and Scottish fiddler Sarah-Jane Summers in world premiere recordings of piano quintets by Bryn Harrison and Mary Bellamy and a work for string quartet, fiddle and electronics by Monty Adkins. The release is the culmination of a three-year project that included collaborative development residencies, workshops, performances, and recordings scattered between Huddersfield, Canada, Scotland, and Norway.

Sarah-Jane Morris is the British soul, jazz and r&b singer who topped the UK pop charts for a month in 1986 (with The Communards' disco version of 'Don't Leave Me This Way') and then eloquently and joyously side-stepped the mainstream ever after. Morris's magnificent soul voice and emotional power would have brought multiple Grammy awards and celebrity status to most singers with her charisma and drive. But for over 25 years of a unique career, Morris has steered by her own star, not the music industry's, and that independence has brought her a devoted audience, inspired by her belief in the power of song to change hearts and minds.