Esther Tusquets

Violinist Esther Abrami’s eponymous Sony Classical debut album is a creative melting pot of different styles of classical music – this 180gm LP Vinyl & standard CD release is full of new and inspiring compositions. The album features new compositions contributed by British composer and pianist Alexis Ffrench, Dutch neo-classical pianist Annelie, French pianist and composer Alban Claudin, Oscar-winning British composer Rachel Portman, British Cellist and composer Julian Lloyd Webber and American film-composer Jacob Shea.

Using narrative devices such as allusions and free associations, multivalent expressions, and irony, the author of Esther wrote a story that is about a Jewish woman, Esther, during the time of the Persian exile of Yehudites, and the Persian king, Ahasuerus, who was in power at the time.

Jazz/pop vocalist Esther Phillips is joined here by Henry Cain, Wes Blackman, Bill Upchurch, and James Levi for a set that includes 'Stormy Weather" and "What A Difference A Day Makes".

A platinum-selling singer, Esther Phillips had a long and storied career and all of her recordings for KUDU (sub-label of CTI) have something nice on them, but this is probably the best one. The credits for “From A Whisper To A Scream“, Esther’s 1972 Kudu debut - considered by many to be her finest album for the label - lists such renowned players as Hank Crawford on sax, Eric Gale and Cornell Dupree on guitar, Bernard Purdie on drums, Richard Tee on keyboards and Gordon Edwards on bass. Also enlisting the cream of background singers (Joshie Armstead, Hilda Harris and Tasha Thomas) giving Esther just the right vocal cushion for her blues-tinged interpretations of works by everyone from poet/singer Gil Scott-Heron and the great Marvin Gaye to New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint and soul man Eddie Floyd.

Following the 1972 release of her groundbreaking From A Whisper To A Scream album, Esther Phillips who had enjoyed hits as a child star (Little Esther) in the 50s and as a R&B/jazz stylist in the 60s was experiencing a career rejuvenation with Creed Taylor s Kudu label after kicking a long-time drug addiction and a spell in rehab. Keeping with the same basic formula of surrounding the distinctive soulful vocalist with redoubtable arranger Don Sebesky, top class label mates Hank Crawford, George Benson, Eric Gale and Ron Carter and all-star players (James Brown alumni Maceo Parker and rhythm arranger Pee Wee Ellis, Billy Cobham, Richard Tee, Cornell Dupree, Ralph MacDonald and Gordon Edwards), producer Taylor provided the perfect setting for Esther s interpretative skills. The result was the best-selling Alone Again Naturally, a Top 20 jazz and Top 30 R&B album in 1973.

For her second solo recital album for Rubicon, Esther Birringer turns to Debussy with a recital that includes both books of his Images.  Composed in 1901-5 (book 1) and 1907 (book 2), the composer was very pleased with Images, writing about the first set: “Without false pride, I feel that these three pieces hold together well, and that they will find their place in the literature of the piano… to the left of Schumann, or to the right of Chopin.”Esther Birringer began playing piano aged three and made her debut as soloist with an orchestra aged just six. A meteoric career has followed both in Europe and around the world, where Esther both performs and teaches, as well as promoting young talent.

Struggling actress Esther Diamond, whose year got off to a rough start (what with incarceration, unemployment, and mystical death curses), finally catches a break when she lands an acting job. She's hired to reprise her guest role as prostitute Jilly C-Note on The Dirty Thirty, a TV crime drama about depravity and corruption in the New York Police Department.