Frances Barber

"The Ultimate Lady Jazz" is a compilation album released in 2012 by Blue Note. This double CD album features a collection of tracks by various female jazz artists. Notable tracks include "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones, "Cry Me A River" by Julie London, and "The Girl From Ipanema" by Eliane Elias. The album blends classic and contemporary jazz performances, highlighting the contributions of women to the genre​.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently 'Sounds and Sweet Airs - A Shakespeare Songbook' (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson's latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano's love of her art.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently ‘Sounds and Sweet Airs – A Shakespeare Songbook’ (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson’s latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano’s love of her art. This programme artfully blends well-known and lesser-known lieder by German and Austrian masters such as Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf with French songs by Gounod, Poulenc and Franck, as well as works by Anglo-Saxon composers such as Hubert Parry, Samuel Barber and Ivor Gurney. Female composers are not forgotten, with rarely-performed songs by Rita Strohl based on slightly risqué poems by Pierre Louÿs, music by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Kaija Saariaho – who has recently passed away – and Deborah Pritchard, whose song presented here was composed especially for Sampson. And while Leonard Bernstein’s comically cheeky song ‘I hate music’, appears to be a call not to let music take itself too seriously, Errollyn Wallen’s ‘Peace on Earth’, which concludes the album, invokes calm and encourages us to find peace, a message that seems more relevant today than ever.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently 'Sounds and Sweet Airs - A Shakespeare Songbook' (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson's latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano's love of her art.