Star 14 June 2023

BMG follow up this years The Kinks The Journey release (from March this year), and continue the 60th anniversary celebrations, with Part 2, which will be available as a 2CD or 2LP package. Compiled by the band, this collection is curated “according to themes inspired by the trials and tribulations of their journey through life together as a band since 1963”.

This recording of Turandot, Puccini’s spectacular final opera marks a number of important firsts. Before the recording sessions in Rome in March 2022, Sir Antonio Pappano had never conducted Turandot; neither Sondra Radvanovsky, who takes soaring title role, nor Jonas Kaufmann as Turandot’s suitor, Calaf – who sings ‘Nessun dorma’ – had previously performed the opera. It is also the first studio recording of Turandot to include the entire, crucial final scene as completed after Puccini’s death in 1925 by Franco Alfano.

Alessandro Pizzin (a.k.a Alieno deBootes) continues his unconventional reinterpretation of The Residents' music by proposing 18 new variations on well-known themes of the legendary american art combo. Assisted once again by brilliant international musicians such as Ken Field (Birdsongs of the mesozoic/Revolutionary Snake Ensemble), Christophe Godin (Morglbl), Dave Newhouse (The Muffins), James Larcombe (Stars in Battledress), Luis Gonzalez (Caballero Reynaldo) and with the invaluable help of long-time collaborators such as Alessandro Monti, Roberto Marchetto and Franco Moruzzi, Alieno perseveres in the attempt to carefully recombine the DNA elements of the Residents' music he actually perceived back in the late seventies in such a way as to obtain something that is not that far from their primitive origins.

Carly Simon’s legendary surprise concert at New York’s Grand Central Terminal will be released on audio and Blu-ray for the first time on January 27. Live at Grand Central—The video has been digitized and converted to HD, re-edited and the audio has been re- mixed by multi-Grammy Award winning producer and engineer, Frank Filipetti and re- mastered.

In the tropical Caribbean forest a river runs, the streaming water drowning out the rustling of leaves, the pulse of insects and the birds’ cry. The song of a man, more powerful than that of the waters, rises to the tops of the ancient trees. Polobi, balanced on a rock, launches a melody towards the infinity of the sky.

Phoenix is the highly-anticipated, expansive next album in the musical evolution of alto saxophonist and composer Lakecia Benjamin, and first for Whirlwind. The album was produced by Terri Lyne Carrington and featuring a star-studded line up of specially curated guests; Dianne Reeves, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Patrice Rushen, Sonia Sanchez, Angela Davis and Wayne Shorter. The band comprises trumpeter Josh Evans, Victor Gould on keys, Orange Rodriguez on synths, drummer Enoch (EJ) Strickland, percussionist Nêgah Santos and bassist Ivan Taylor. Trumpeter Wallace Roney Jr., Rhodes organist Anastassiya Petrova and bassist Jahmal Nichols all join for one track each.

"Stupendous brilliance, breathless virtuosity. Anne-Sophie Mutter's Virtuosi thrilled at the Vienna Musikverein." (Die Presse) In June 2023, star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter gave an impressive concert in Vienna with her Virtuosi ensemble. Based on this, a varied album has now been created, with music by Antonio Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Joseph Bologne, André Previn and John Williams. "Growing up, I'm on the trail of storytellers," Mutter says of her work with the Virtuosi, a rotating ensemble of current and former Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation scholarship holders.