Vera Lengsfeld

Acrobat is a UK-based record label specializing in collectors’ and re-issue CDs across just about every genre of music. They have CDs by some of the biggest names in music, from Frank Sinatra to Duke Ellington, Patsy Cline to Willie Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis to Bill Haley, as well as a huge selection of more hard-to-find artists. Knowing that there is demand for specialist, niche and collectors' music all around the world, their strategy is to ensure that artists and recordings in genres which are often not given priority by the major companies are as widely available as possible. They also have a fabulous selection of compilation CDs, including the popular The British Hit Parades, America's Greatest Hits and Jukebox Hits series, along with other themed collections in most genres.

The mere mention of Vera Lynn's name evokes images of London skies filled with a barrage of balloons, and Britons riding out the German Blitz in shelters and underground stations. England's sweetheart during the trying times of World War II, Lynn was still in her twenties when she took on that role. She was born Vera Margaret Welch in London's East Ham, to Bertram and Annie Welch, one year before the close of the First World War. She began singing as a girl of seven, and also studied dance. She later took her maternal grandmother's maiden name as her stage name, and her natural, unaffected vocal style and charm brought Lynn early success on the radio. At age 18, she was singing with Joe Loss' orchestra, and she'd also begun recording for the Crown label. By the end of the '30s, after stints working for Charlie Kunz's and Bert Ambrose's bands, Lynn got her own radio series. This event coincided with the end of what was known as the "Phony War," that period in which men were being conscripted and sent overseas, re-armament rushed, and nightly blackouts imposed, but no shots were fired or bombs dropped.

2012 album by renowned jazz bassist and composer Jaromír Honzák is for the first time not comprised of his own compositions but is dedicated to song by Suzanne Vega in Honzák´s charac­teristic arrangements. Honzák is joined here by the Norwegian singer Sissel Vera Pettersen, Polish drummer Łukasz Żyta, pianist Vít Křišťan and guitarist Josef Štěpánek. The album was recorded at the end of 2012 at Sono Studios.

On She/Her, South African clarinetist Maria du Toit and Dutch pianist Vera Kooper explore music from around the world, exclusively written by women. The pieces performed here are rarely played, and for about half of them this is the world-premiere recording. Although some of these composers enjoyed popularity during their lifetimes, such as Ivy Priaulx Rainier, with the passage of time, their music vanished into near oblivion. Rainer’s exhilarating and at times meditative Suite is the centre of this album. With compositions ranging from 19th-century France to present day Nigeria, the exploration of this obscure repertoire became a mission – to celebrate and appreciate the music of talented and neglected female composers and bring these wonderful pieces to life again.