Structure Magazine From June 2014

Following its nomination for a Gramophone Early Music Award in 2014, Contrapunctus releases an album of motets from the Baldwin Tudor partbooks, on the theme of mortality. Conducted by Owen Rees, the album includes Sheppard’s epic Media vita and other Tudor gems by Byrd, Parsons, Mundy, Taverner, Gerarde and Tallis, with Contrapunctus’s own reconstructions of the missing tenor parts.

For their fourth Fuga Libera-project, the Russian orchestra Musica Viva recorded one very famous, and one forgotten piece by Antonín Dvorak. The well-known piece is the Serenade for Strings in E major, written by Dvorak in 1875. It is believed that Dvorak took up this small orchestral genre because it was less demanding than the symphony, but allowed for the provision of pleasure and entertainment. The other piece is the Cello Concerto in A major. Unlike its brother, the B minor Concerto Op.104, this concerto has been more than overlooked. It was left un-orchestrated by Dvorak, existing only in piano-score form. It was only after his death that a few composers orchestrated this dazzling piece of music. Cello virtuoso Alexander Rudin, and Musica Viva let us taste from this magnificent forgotten treasure…

“Get The Blessing’s set moves back and forth between mellow to intense, but it’s never indulgent. What makes Get The Blessing such a formidable live act is that their music, no matter how obscure, never fails to entertain. The audience remain enthralled throughout, the accessibility of their music being the key.” - Drunken Werewolf

Heaven Up Here is the second album by the English post-punk band Echo & the Bunnymen, released on 30 May 1981. In June 1981, Heaven Up Here became Echo & the Bunnymen's first Top 10 release when it reached number 10 on the UK Albums Chart. A generally well received album by fans in the United Kingdom and by critics, Heaven Up Here won the "Best Dressed LP" and "Best Album" awards at the 1981 NME Awards. The album has also been listed at number 471 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.