a Feast of Folklore

Leoš Janáček and the generation younger Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky were major 20th-century composers markedly influenced by folk music, bringing it to bear in their own creations. Their works feature on the remarkable new album Village Stories of the world-renowned Prague Philharmonic Choir, led by Lukáš Vasilek. Stravinsky’s Les noces, Janáček’s Nursery Rhymes and Bartók’s Village Scenes are brought back to life on new recordings. Vasilek invited to the studio superb soloists, including the soprano Kateřina Kněžíková, the mezzo-soprano Jana Hrochová, the tenor Boris Stepanov and the baritone Jiří Brückler, as well as the outstanding pianists Zoltán Fejérvári and Kirill Gerstein, the Zemlinsky Quartet and the Belfiato Quintet. Supraphon will release the album on 27 October 2023 on CD and in digital formats.

Danilo Perez is one of our finest contemporary jazz pianists and educators. Most recently, he has recorded and toured extensively with the ground-breaking Wayne Shorter Quartet. Residing in the Boston area, Perez maintains close ties with his native Panama and has initiated jazz education and festival programs there. In this album, devoted to his cultural origins, he becomes the creator of a multi-dimensional musical suite in celebration of the 500th anniversary of Spanish explorer Balboa crossing the Isthmus of Panama. Perez combines Panamanian, European, Latin-Hispanic, and Native Central American styles into a beautifully coherent musical feast, using two iconic jazz trios, strings, percussion, and native instruments, chants, and narratives to convey images and stories of Panamanian mythology, folklore, and personal memory.

Singing in Swedish with tales about nature, drinking, trolls and other folklore you got the ingredients for a folk metal feast. Having some of the members being ex-Mist of Misery members, a band that just about missed my top 20 list last year but probably should have been (mistakes happens), my hopes for some epic folk metal was high. Midvinterblot bring influences from many of mine, and probably yours, favorite folk metal acts such as Eluveitie, Svartsot, Korpiklaani, Grimner, Finntroll and Fejd