Valmont Milos Forman (1989)

Happily, it is not the responsibility of this review to address in detail the train wreck that was the 1979 film adaptation of the stage musical Hair. A complete misfire conceived by a screenwriter, Michael Weller, and a director, Czech expatriate Milos Forman, who did not seem to have the slightest familiarity with hippies, the '60s, America, or even Broadway, the movie was miscast with supposedly bankable young film stars of the day (Treat Williams, John Savage, Beverly d'Angelo), and the essentially plotless libretto of the stage version was replaced by a contrived Hollywood script in a textbook example of how not to do an adaptation.

Three years after suffering a devastating hand injury, Milos returns with a new album, Sound of Silence. The album features meditative solo guitar works alongside a selection of pop and jazz hits curated by Milos himself. Songs by artists ranging from Simon & Garfunkel and Leonard Cohen to Nora Jones have been reimagined in stunning new settings for guitar and other instruments. Guest artists include saxophonist Jess Gillam as well as Hang player Manu Delago (regular collaborator of Bjork).

For his third album on Mercury Classics/Deutsche Grammophon, international chart-topping classical guitarist Miloš Karadaglić takes the world-famous Concierto de Aranjuez as the starting point for a journey across the Spanish landscape, paying tribute to the great composers and musicians who placed the modern classical guitar firmly on the international stage.

A decade after MILOŠ took the globe by storm with his sensational debut album, Mediterráneo, the world’s favourite guitarist presents a dazzling new album featuring two world premiere guitar concertos written specially for him. The Forest was written by legendary Canadian film composer Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and more recently Pieces of a Woman). The premiere of Ink Dark Moon by the multi-disciplinary British US-based composer Joby Talbot at the 2018 BBC Proms marked MILOŠ' return to the stage following his injury.

…The King's Consort under the direction of Robert King perform the Overture-Suites from the Second and Third Productions of Telemann's anthology…I find the new issue delightful, both musically and from a performance standpoint. The players capture the spirit of the Overture-Suite in D major (Second Production) with pleasing tempos, crisp articulation, taut rhythms and fine ensemble. The trumpet has an important role in this Suite and here it is played with finesse by Crispian Steele-Perkins—resonant, authoritative but never overbearing. Oboes are kept busy, too, as indeed is the leader, Roy Goodman who gives a lively account of the several concertante passages for violin. His presence has contributed much to the ultimate success of this project.