The New York Times 3 July 2020

The 40-year friendship between two musical titans, John Williams & Yo-Yo Ma, reaches a new peak with “A Gathering of Friends.” The incredible warmth & brilliance of composer/conductor John Williams is felt throughout this album of both his concert music (a newly revised Cello Concerto) and his legendary film music, including a powerful new arrangement of the Theme from “Schindler’s List,” brought to life by Yo-Yo Ma and the world-renowned New York Philharmonic. Another highlight from the John Williams film music catalog is Yo-Yo Ma’s performance of “With Malice Toward None,” an inviting and uplifting melody from the movie “Lincoln,” inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address.

Camel, who made his debut from MCA Records in 1973, transferred to Decham's subsidiary Derum in 1974 and released the second album "Mirage". With the support of the record company, he will actively promote tours mainly in the UK with the purpose of promotion. Among them, the live performance at the Marquee Club in London on June 20, the same year, will be recorded for radio broadcasting. After the broadcast, it will be in storage. Furthermore, in order to advance to the United States, the first US performance will be held four times on the east coast side in November of the same year. Among them, Camel performed a studio live at the Electric Lady Studio in New York for radio broadcasting in the United States, but this will also be stored as it is not used for anything other than broadcasting. This time, the original master of these two performances was discovered, and this a valuable archive finally released as a live album.

Born in New York in 1946, Swiss-American lutenist Hopkinson Smith graduated from Harvard with Honors in Music in 1972. His instrumental studies took him to Europe where he worked with Emilio Pujol, a great pedagogue in the highest Catalan artistic tradition, and with the Swiss lutenist, Eugen Dombois, whose sense of organic unity between performer, instrument, and historical period has had lasting effects on him. He has been involved in numerous chamber music projects and was one of the founding members of the ensemble Hespèrion XX. Since the mid-80’s, he has focused almost exclusively on the solo repertoires for early plucked instrument, producing a series of prize-winning recordings for Astrée and Naïve, which feature Spanish music for vihuela and baroque guitar, French lute music of the Renaissance and baroque, English and Italian music of the 16th early 17th century and music from the German high baroque.