Sarah Willis is a tireless ambassador for her instrument, the French horn, which she champions around the world. A horn player with the famous Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 2001, she launched what was soon to become a famous TV programme, ‘Sarah’s Music’, for Deutsche Welle in 2014, interviewing personalities ranging from Gustavo Dudamel to Wynton Marsalis. The award-winning programme presents music with warmth and in all its diversity.
José de Nebra, born in 1702 to a family of musicians from Aragón, already made his career in Madrid as a young man: at the age of 17 he took over the position of organist from Tomás de Victoria and also celebrated great success at the opera. In 1736 he was appointed organist and later vice kapellmeister of the Royal Chapel. From this time on, his creative focus was on sacred music and he created more than 170 sacred compositions. After the coronation of Fernando VI and his wife Bárbara de Braganza, the musical work at the court experienced a great revival: the queen brought the famous musicians Scarlatti and Farinelli to the Spanish court and the Royal Chapel also experienced a great boom.
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll born 5 December 1946, better known as José Carreras, is a Spanish tenor who is particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini.
Born in Barcelona, he made his debut on the operatic stage at 11 as Trujamán in Manuel de Falla's El retablo de Maese Pedro and went on to a career that encompassed over 60 roles, performed in the world's leading opera houses and in numerous recordings. He gained fame with a wider audience as one of the Three Tenors along with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti in a series of mass concerts that began in 1990 and continued until 2003. Carreras is also known for his humanitarian work as the president of the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation (La Fundació Internacional Josep Carreras per a la Lluita contra la Leucèmia), which he established following his own recovery from the disease in 1988.
This is first recording for Challenge Classics by the very highly-rated Al Ayre Español and its conductor Eduardo López Banzo - and the beginning of a longterm partnership. The sacred cantatas performed on this Hybrid SACD are by José de Nebra, the ‘father’ of Spanish opera and Zarzuela.
With a capaciously-filled boxset of a dozen CDs made up of attractive individual programmes and entitled The Spanish Guitar, Glossa reintroduces the superb playing of José Miguel Moreno. And with recordings from 1991-2004 which still sound fresh and vivid today. A new essay and all the sung texts are included in the physical booklet that completes this limited-edition set.
Feliciano! is a 1968 album by Puerto Rican guitarist José Feliciano. All of the tracks are acoustic cover versions of songs popularized by other artists, including The Mamas & the Papas, The Doors, Gerry & the Pacemakers, The Beatles, Jorge Ben Jor, and Lou Johnson…