Rachel Willis

Willis-Sørensen celebrates the release of her second solo album with Sony Classical, “Strauss: Four Last Songs”. The album presents masterpieces from Richard Strauss’s later years, including his sublime Vier letzte Lieder and the closing scene of his final opera, Capriccio. Praised by Opéra Magazine for possessing an “uncommon talent, able to rival the best examples of the past, without being content to simply follow in their footsteps”, Ms. Willis-Sørensen is accompanied by renowned conductor Andris Nelsons, who leads the Gewandhausorchester. Also featured on the album is German bass Sebastian Pilgrim who joins Ms. Willis-Sørensen for the Capriccio scene. Her debut album Rachel which was released last year, received widespread praise and recognition. Gramophone Magazine recommended the album as “a rewarding and intelligent debut from a very fine singer”.

Esteemed tenor, Jonas Kaufmann, returns with his sensational new album "WIEN". This must-have album showcases the crowd-pleasing evergreens that turned Vienna into a beloved capital of classical music. "WIEN" features a stunning collection of operetta hits and Viennese songs composed between 1870 and 1950 - Kaufmann teams up with the world renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Adam Fisher. Vienna’s heyday for operetta produced stage-hits such as Johann Strauß’s ‘Komm in die Gondel’ (from Eine Nacht in Venedig / A Night in Venice) the ‘Clock Duet’ from Die Fledermaus and the ‘Title duet’ from Wiener Blut, as well as Franz Léhar’s ‘Lippen Schweigen’ from The Merry Widow. The city also inspired many timeless songs including Robert Stolz’s ‘Im Prater blühn wieder die Bäume’ and Rudolf Siecznski’s ‘Wien, Wien nur du allein’, Hans May’s ‘Heut ist der Schönste Tag’; Hermann Leopoldi’s ‘In einem kleinen Café in Hernals’ and Georg Kreisler’s ‘Der Tod muss ein Wiener sein’ - to name a few of these charming songs championed down the years by the tenor-greats such as Richard Tauber, Rudolf Schock & Fritz Wunderlich - Kaufmann has won numerous prestigious awards including Gramophone Awards and Echo Klassik Awards.

Esteemed tenor, Jonas Kaufmann, returns with his sensational new album "WIEN". This must-have album showcases the crowd-pleasing evergreens that turned Vienna into a beloved capital of classical music. "WIEN" features a stunning collection of operetta hits and Viennese songs composed between 1870 and 1950 - Kaufmann teams up with the world renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Adam Fisher. Vienna’s heyday for operetta produced stage-hits such as Johann Strauß’s ‘Komm in die Gondel’ (from Eine Nacht in Venedig / A Night in Venice) the ‘Clock Duet’ from Die Fledermaus and the ‘Title duet’ from Wiener Blut, as well as Franz Léhar’s ‘Lippen Schweigen’ from The Merry Widow.

This double-CD has 24 different groups of fusion musicians (including some from Europe) paying tribute to Weather Report. Despite the personnel and often the instrumentation changing from track to track, there is a unity to the project and many of the bands sound quite a bit like Weather Report, either purposely as part of the tribute or naturally. The programming is somewhat random and the bands bring back the sound, grooves, and spirits of Weather Report rather than necessarily always sticking to their compositions. All in all, this is a heartfelt and very well-played tribute that can also serve as an introduction to a cross-section of some of today's top fusion musicians, many of whom are not household names yet.