Sterling Rail Classifieds From July 2015

Lindsey Stirling brings her futurist world of electronic big beats fused with violin, dance, and animation to London s Forum Theatre. Filmed live during her Shatter Me World Tour, the 90 minute live show features her smash single Shatter Me along with several other tracks from her sophomore album which debuted at #2 on Billboard s Top 200 album chart.

Max Richter’s landmark 8.5 hour work SLEEP in an abrdiged 90 min. version. The SLEEP project explores new ways for music and consciousness to interact, a “personal lullaby for a frenetic world…a manifesto for a slower pace of existence.”

Filmed at London's Forum Theater in 2014, Live from London is electronic violinist, dancer, and YouTube sensation Lindsey Stirling's first concert DVD/CD. Filmed and recorded during her 2014 tour in support of her second studio album Shatter Me, which reached number two on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, the 16-track collection features dynamic performances of some of Stirling's most resonant classical-pop confections, including "All of Me," "Crystallize," "Beyond the Veil," and "Stars Align."

The New Seasons referred to in the title here are the so-called American Four Seasons, the Violin Concerto No. 2 of Philip Glass, which has even less of a connection to Vivaldi's model than do Astor Piazzolla's Buenos Aires Four Seasons and other works that take Vivaldi as a point of reference. The work is in eight sections, but which ones are supposed to represent which season is left up to the listener. It's really a typical but unusually effective example of late-period Glass, with the composer's usual textures intact but lots of harmonic motion. Part of the interest here lies in hearing Latvian violinist and conductor Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica, long champions of minimalism's Baltic branch, tackle a work by one of the leaders of Western minimalism. The American Four Seasons get a treatment that's a bit rougher than usual, but then Kremer turns around (after a Pärt girls' choir interlude) and delivers pristinely smooth, glassy textures in Giya Kancheli's Ex contrario. The program closes with a fascinating little melody by Japanese rock musician and film composer Shigeru Umebayashi, a daring and effective choice.