Carolyn Williams

The 37 songs in this recital, written by 27 composers – male, female, English, French, Swiss, German, Romantic, modern and contemporary – bear witness to the richness of Shakespeare’s works to which this recital is dedicated.

Icelandic music of the last half century is the focus of this recording by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, led by its conductor, Graham Ross. Born from his close collaboration with the native composers of the “Land of Fire and Ice,” this programme sets out to explore and highlight their hypnotic soundworld, instinctively leaning towards contemplation. A prime example is the touchingly beautiful Requiem by Sigurður Sævarsson, which here receives its world premiere recording.

Walt Disney Record is set to release the soundtrack to the live-action version of “Mulan”, on September 4th, which is the same day as the film is coming to Disney+. The album features original music composed by Harry Gregson-Williams who has previously worked on “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “Shrek” and “The Martian”. It also includes two songs by Christina Aguilera, a new version of “Reflection”, which was originally made for the animated movie and a brand new song, “Loyal Brave True”.

Song composition has been a constant in British music since the lute and consort works of the early seventeenth century. By 1900, it had developed into a sophisticated genre embraced by almost all serious composers. The music on this amply-filled disc illustrates the diversity of British song-writing and its transformation over a century: from Vaughan Williams’s Orpheus and his Lute (ca 1901) to HuwWatkins’s Five Larkin Songs, composed in 2010 for Carolyn Sampson, who performs them here.

Song composition has been a constant in British music since the lute and consort works of the early seventeenth century. By 1900, it had developed into a sophisticated genre embraced by almost all serious composers. The music on this amply-filled disc illustrates the diversity of British song-writing and its transformation over a century: from Vaughan Williams’s Orpheus and his Lute (ca 1901) to HuwWatkins’s Five Larkin Songs, composed in 2010 for Carolyn Sampson, who performs them here. Together with Joseph Middleton, her partner on several acclaimed recital discs, she has devised a highly contrasting programme bookended by two groups of songs by William Walton – A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table from 1962, celebrating the diversity of London, and three songs from Façade, the ‘entertainment’ with which the young composer gained both fame and notoriety in 1923.

Simone Pedroni is a brilliant classical pianist and former Van Cliburn Award-Gold Medal winner, while John Williams is the most celebrated film composer of our time. Williams and Pedroni each transcribed about half of material on this album, which premieres Williams' own piano suites from 'Lincoln', and 'The Book Thief', plus Pedroni's own special transcriptions of music from 'Harry Potter', 'Star Wars', 'Schindler's List' and more. The album is a stunning and unique presentation of John Williams' film music, without the usual symphony orchestra, and includes 80 minutes of music.