Seamus Milne

New York based saxophonist/composer SEAMUS BLAKE is recognized as one of the finest exponents of contemporary jazz. His music is known for its sophistication, bold improvisations and “sheer swagger". John Scofield, who hired Seamus for his “Quiet Band,” called him “extraordinary, a total saxophonist.” Throughout his 24 year career, Seamus has garnered critical praise for his masterful playing, his fine compositional skills and for his facility as a leader.

Two of Britain’s leading exponents of French song, the acclaimed sopranos Lorna Anderson and Lisa Milne, join Malcolm Martineau for the second volume of Hyperion’s overview of Debussy’s haunting, mercurial songs. The French composer’s output in this genre extended throughout his life and he was always inspired by poetry—from his first adolescent attempts to set Paul Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes (which he later revised) to the Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé, written five years before his death. All inhabit a universe of shifting colours and impressions, from the sensual, perfumed ‘flutes and flesh’ of the Chansons de Bilitis to the Proses lyriques, which foreshadow the dreamlike atmosphere of Pelléas et Mélisande.