Renaud Capuçon’s exciting new Mozart project for Deutsche Grammophon comprises three albums and two STAGE+ performances, all to come before the end of the year. Together they encompass the artist’s multi-faceted career as concerto soloist, chamber musician, artistic director and mentor to outstanding young talent. Mozart: The Violin Concertos, recorded with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (OCL), of which Capuçon is Artistic Director, is scheduled for release on 29 September 2023. Recorded with three of the emerging artists mentored by Capuçon, Mozart: The Piano Quartets will follow on 10 November, and will inaugurate the Capuçon-DG Beau Soir imprint. The violinist’s trilogy of 2023 Mozart albums will be launched, meanwhile, with the release on 23 June of Mozart: Sonatas for piano and violin, made with American pianist Kit Armstrong.
After the great success of his last Deutsche Grammophon album dedicated to works by Mozart, oboist Albrecht Mayer now turns to the uniquely gifted Bach family. "Bach Generations" is based on the thread of genius that runs through the different generations, producing works that span late Renaissance, Baroque and Classical styles.
Pianist Yuja Wang and composer/conductor Teddy Abrams were classmates at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and had long wanted to work together. The sympathy shows in this 2023 Deutsche Grammophon release, which perhaps turned out even better than the performers had hoped. Abrams' 11-movement Piano Concerto is a standout among the jazz-flavored works that crowd American concert programs (and increasingly those beyond) every year. The work is neither simply swing jazz transferred to an orchestral medium nor a classical piece that uses jazz as a flavoring.
For her Deutsche Grammophon debut, this rising star has chosen the Beethoven, the most musically demanding of all violin concertos, as the centrepiece. Recorded live at Vienna's prestigious Musikverein María has composed her own cadenzas for the violin concerto. The album also includes works by Kreisler, Saint-Saëns, Spohr, Wieniawski and Ysaÿe, as well as the Beethoven cadenzas by the same composers.
To celebrate the 150th birthday of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), Yuja Wang joined the L.A. Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel to perform all four of the composer's piano concertos and his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini over two consecutive weekends. This ambitious project took place at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the city where Rachmaninoff spent the last months of his life.