In 1990, Richard Hickox recorded Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols and Hodie: A Christmas Cantata for EMI, two holiday choral favorites that complement each other well, despite having been created more than four decades apart. The subdued, folk-inspired quality of much of Vaughan Williams' music remained more or less constant through the years in his choral writing, so even though he adopted a more sophisticated and sometimes astringent style in later years, including irregular rhythms and spiky dissonances that never would have passed in the music of his youth, there is a common thread in his choices of modes and harmonies that unites both cantatas.
Superstar violinist Anne Akiko Meyers is one of today’s most in-demand classical performers. Beloved by audiences around the world, with a reputation for groundbreaking recital programs and important commissions, Fantasia marks her 35th studio album and is one of her most important projects to date.
"Fantasia" aptly describes this exuberant debut by drummer/percussionist Duduka Da Fonseca. Many tracks feature him with his partners in Trio da Paz (guitarist Romero Lubambo, bassist Nilson Matta), but there's also a rotating cast of jazz heavyweights: guitarist John Scofield, trumpeters Tom Harrell and Claudio Roditi, saxophonists Joe Lovano, David Sanchez, and Billy Drewes, pianists Kenny Werner and Marc Copland, and more. The results are upbeat, melodic, and richly textured, with ample and inspired improvisations – the above names virtually guarantee it.