This 2CD set is a compilation of original field recordings made by David Attenborough between 1954 and 1963. He travelled to remote parts of the world to find and film exotic animals for the BBC television series Zoo Quest. But he was just as interested in the people he met and their music. Whenever he came across musicians, out came his early portable tape machine . "While I was theoretically looking for pythons, in the evenings I would record different types of music."
Go: Organic Orchestra is a 21st century vision of a "future orchestra". Artistic director Adam Rudolph's prototypical approach to composing and improvisational conducting embraces music forms and cosmologies from around the world. Using a non-linear score with his unique approach to rhythm as the seed material, Rudolph improvisationally conducts the musicians in concert. This creates spontaneous orchestrations which serve as both context and inspiration for the musicians improvisational dialogue.
Euripides wrote The Trojan Women in 415 B.C., but his tragic play about the aftermath of the fall of Troy continues to resonate many centuries after it was first performed. Eleni Karaindrou, best know for her film scores for Ulysses' Gaze and Eternity and a Day, composed this score for a 2001 production of The Trojan Women after being struck by the parallels between the ancient Greek story and the recent situation in the Balkans. Although she chose to use various folk instruments from around the Mediterranean, such as the lyre, an ancestor of the modern violin; the lauto, a Greek form of the lute; and the ney, an end-blown flute, her stark compositions are not folkloric recreations. Instead, she blends the ancient timbres of the instruments with a vocal chorus to create a sound that is not quite modern but not archaic either. Perhaps the best word to use in describing Karaindrou's austere, beautiful music is timeless.
Compiled here are many of the greatest performances of world and ethnic music ever recorded. This volume represents a trip around the world, stopping at each port to sample one of that country’s finest recordings of its indigenous music. Each of these recordings was captured at a period during the golden age of recording when traditional styles were at their peak of power and emotion.