L'estate Dei Mirtilli

Under Director Richard K. Pugsley, the US-based choir Gloriæ Dei Cantores has gained a reputation for its impeccable vocal blend as well as bold programming, including its recent championing of the music of Jewish composer Samuel Adler. Adler and his family escaped Nazi Germany in 1939, settling in the United States, where he went on to compose more than 400 works. European and American influences unite in his choral music, most notably in Choral Trilogy, an ambitious work for choir and organ that nods to both Herbert Howells and Adler’s teacher Aaron Copland. In “Psalm 23”, Adler sets Hebrew and English texts, acknowledging both his heritage and adopted home in music of mesmerising beauty. To Speak to Our Time, commissioned for the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, brings the plight of refugees across the world into powerful focus.

Heavily rooted in the romantic tradition of the best Italian progressive rock, Il Paese Dei Balocchi blends beautiful instrumental passages with heavy classical orchestration. This is pure symphonic prog the way it was meant to be played and heard. This album dives from the gentle touch of the softest symphonic prog to a medium tempo jazz influenced atmosphere. Like Banco, PFM and Le Orme, Il Paese Dei Balocchi displays awesome keyboard driven progressive creating the most interesting melodies and warm atmospheres. This album is not unlike a grand epic soundtrack really and offers the listener a deep conceptual atmosphere to get lost in. This album also varied widely from the chimes of a nursery to the deep gothic pillars of a church organ. Outstanding and clever recording.

Argentinean group Vox Dei started playing by the end of the 1960s. After signing up to independent label Mandioca, the band released "Azucar Amarga" and "Presente" in 1969; a year later, they issued the album Caliente. Vox Dei's conceptual album La Biblia, released in 1971, consolidated the band as one of the major local rock numbers. When Juan Carlos Godoy decided to leave the act, Ignacio Smilari joined in. Soon after Jeremias, Pies De Plomo came out, Vox Dei participated in a movie called Rock Hasta Que Se Ponga El Sol. In 1974, guitarist Carlos Michelini replaced Ricardo Soulé. The group disbanded after a live performance at Buenos Aires' Obras Sanitarias in 1981, returning in 1988 to make a new record called Tengo Razones Para Seguir.

"La Biblia" is the second and most popular album of Argentine rock band Vox Dei, originally issued in 1971 as a double vinyl LP by Disc Jockey, a small local company that boasted the slogan "the young label". This is a conceptual album (also deemed a rock opera) where the biblical theme is developed, from Genesis (Génesis) to Revelation (Apocalipsis), with inspired songwriting, and a mixture of blues rock and hard rock a la Led Zeppelin with beautiful acoustic sequences, also including some jam band excursions (Las guerras), and poems penned by guitarist Ricardo Soulé, often inspired by the book itself. In spite of its technical defects and dated sound, "La Biblia" is yet an excellent rock album, and the quality of the music contained is above average, making up an imperfect, pretentious, little masterpiece.