Schnabel

A woman struggling with a number of emotional demons tries to make sense of her life in this independent drama from writer and director Ry Russo-Young. Shelly Brown is the 23-year-old daughter of a woman with a long history of mental illness. Shelly has unfortunately inherited some of her mother's instability, and the narrative follows her after she's released from a brief stay in a mental hospital. Shelly dreams of a career as an actress, but at auditions she delivers readings that are intense enough to scare off most casting directors. Shelly wants to bond with other young women in the arts, but her paranoia and multiple insecurities make her a difficult friend at best and few of her peers are willing to bother. And while Shelly thinks she's ready for a relationship, the manner in which she approaches men tends to result in rejections or one-night stands.

German baritone Benjamin Appl celebrates Christmas through the enduring tradition of Bach chorales and popular carols, from as far afield as Germany, Austria, America, Britain, Sweden and France. For this truly universal Christmas celebration he is accompanied by Germany's most famous children's choir, of which he was a member in his youth, the Munich Radio Orchestra and instrumentalists (including his own mother on guitar): "Christmas evokes intense memories and emotions in all of us. It takes us back to our childhood: that sense of magic and excitement, so often reawakened by the sight of a traditional Nativity scene, or the lights on a Christmas tree, or by hearing Christmas carols…It was with all these images in mind that I returned to my home town to record this album with 'my' boys’ choir. When, after more than twenty years, I found myself back among the choristers and heard the familiar sound, the emotion was very intense."

German baritone Benjamin Appl celebrates Christmas through the enduring tradition of Bach chorales and popular carols, from as far afield as Germany, Austria, America, Britain, Sweden, France and the Netherlands.

This double-CD release is a fourth volume in pianist Paavali Jumppanen’s ongoing recording cycle of the Beethoven piano sonatas. This release includes Piano Sonatas Nos. 16–18 & 24–27 – written between 1801–02 and 1809–14, and belonging to the middle period of the composer’s oeuvre.

National Socialism had devised its own notion of the value of German art and culture. This was ruthlessly put into practice when the Nazis took over power in 1933. The more than 175 "degenerate" recorded musical items in this extraordinary 10-CD box set, 'Forbidden But Not Forgotten', relate to the shocking consequences due to that "cleansing". The burning of the Reichstag (7th April) provided the pretext for the prosecution of all who held other political opinions, for the burning of books (10th May) whose authors were on the index of disfavoured and banned writers, for the law that amended entry to the civil service (7th April) that excluded all non-Aryans and led to wholesale dismissals of Jews, especially in orchestras, the administration, among singers, conductors and instrumentalists. By means of the exhibitions "Degenerate Art" (Munich, 1937) and "Degenerate Music" (Düsseldorf, 1938) art and artists who were now to have no place in Nazi Germany were pilloried.

When a magical artifact is lifted from his library, a meek librarian sets out to ensure its safe return. To do so, however, he enlists the service of a woman with exceptional martial arts skills - who becomes the enforcer in the relationship…