Young

After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic.

Official Release Series is the name Neil Young has given to the personally approved remasters of his core catalog. The series debuted in 2012 with a four-album box that contained Young's first four albums and continued on with his next four albums: Time Fades Away, On the Beach, Tonight's the Night, and Zuma. This set came out on vinyl in 2014 and on CD in 2017; the latter marked the first-ever CD release of Time Fades Away. Whether they're heard in new vinyl pressings or CDs, the remasters are newly vivid and robust, the best this music has ever been presented, and that's reason enough for hardcore Neil Young fans to purchase these titles again.

By 1976 Neil Young had already created a body of work that most songwriters would cut off both arms and legs to have composed. But Young had merely completed another phase of his career and was ready to start the next. This film tells the story and reviews the music of Neil from the release of his stunning Zuma album at the end of 1975 up to the release of the well received Prairie Wind in 2005 - a 30 year period during which this maverick musician covered just about every style in existence.

Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, Op. 68, of 1848 appears to be a collection of simple teaching pieces for children. But its unassuming exterior hides a wealth of inter-connected references: to Bach and to William Blake (whose Songs of Innocence and Experience it shadows), and to the life of the Romantic artist as reflected in nature and the passage of the seasons. Anssi Karttunen’s transcription for string trio brings a textural subtlety that enhances the unsuspected layers of meaning in Schumann’s modest miniatures – revealed, over 170 years after their composition, as an essential Romantic manifesto. The Zebra Trio consists of the Austrian violinist Ernst Kovacic, Canadian violist Steven Dann and Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen, each bringing a vast experience in chamber music, in different styles and in working with living composers to the world of the string trio. The Zebra Trio has always mixed familiar master-pieces with new works and transcriptions, combining all of these in creative ways in their concerts.