Jason Victor Serinus

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Jason Victor Serinus
Some Joy for the New Decade
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Dec 28, 2019  |  30 comments
As the decade draws to a close, many of us choose to gather with people we love so that together we can celebrate and give thanks for our blessings. In that spirit, I offer a new hybrid SACD/Download of a perennial favorite, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor. Op. 125 “Choral” (BIS 2451), whose memorable finale celebrates the joy of oneness with humanity and the divine.
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Jason Victor Serinus
Christmas in New Orleans Via Cologne
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Dec 18, 2019  |  4 comments
Yup, it sounds weirder than hell, even if talk of hell is best tabled at Christmastime. But never mind: The New Orleans Jazz Band of Cologne’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town is the real swinging thing.
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Jason Victor Serinus
Bryce Dessner Moves Music Forward
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Dec 02, 2019  |  6 comments
“Musical scavenger” Bryce Dessner, the composer/musician who gained fame as principal songwriter of American rock band The National, describes his process as collecting sounds that appeal to him and trying them out. Classically trained, he’s one of a growing number of artists whose cross-genre music, when performed by string quartets, orchestras, and ensembles, has been central to broadening the definition of classical music in the 21st century. Dessner is also one of eight “extraordinary artists, thinkers and doers” appointed to a collective that will help steer conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen when he succeeds Michael Tilson Thomas as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony in September.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
Beethoven for Four, in All Its Glory
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 30, 2019  |  0 comments
As the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven approaches, artists worldwide have begun issuing complete recordings of his oeuvre. At the top of a fast-growing list, three stand out: Andris Nelsons' recording of Beethoven's nine symphonies with the Wiener Philarmoniker (Decca), Igor Levit's issue of Beethoven's Complete Piano Sonatas (Sony), and the subject of this review, the Miró Quartet's 8-CD set of Beethoven's Complete String Quartets (Pentatone PTC5186827).
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Jason Victor Serinus
Russian Romantic Piano Trio Bonanza
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 16, 2019  |  0 comments
Romantics rejoice! In an age where ice seems to melt faster than hearts, there are still great musicians who uphold the Russian tradition of romantic music. Vadim Gluzman, Johannes Moser, and Yevgeny Sudbin may not (yet) have the cachet of David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Sviatoslav Richter, who famously came together with Herbert von Karajan to record Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, but their new SACD of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, and Arno Babajanian’s sole Piano Trio (BIS-2372) places them firmly in the grand Russian tradition of emotive, give-it-all-you’ve-got musicianship.
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Jason Victor Serinus
A Magic Flute Delights and Surprises
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Aug 31, 2019  |  9 comments
A divine amalgam of joy and solemnity and one of Mozart’s most spiritually elevated creations, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) brings each generation's finest conductors and singers to the microphone. Now, Metropolitan Opera conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and tenor-cum-baritone Rolando Villazón and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe add to their series of Mozart recordings for Deutsche Grammophon with a star-studded version that includes some of the best young and veteran artists of our time.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
Wynton Marsalis’ Yummy Violin Concerto and More
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Aug 18, 2019  |  5 comments
I expect every lover of jazz and classical music will want to check out Decca’s new recording of jazz great Wynton Marsalis’ thoroughly engaging Violin Concerto and Fiddle Dance Suite.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
Leoš Janáček’s Intimate Diary
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jul 26, 2019  |  0 comments
Czech composer Leoš Janáček was already in his 60s and married when, in 1917, he fell hopelessly in love with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman 38 years his junior. Although it wasn’t the first time that Janáček had fallen in love with an “unobtainable,” his passion for Kamila was all-consuming. During the final 11 years of his life, while he lived under the same roof with a wife whom he had informally divorced, he sent Stösslová almost 730 letters and was inspired by his love for her to compose many of his greatest works.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
Keith Jarrett’s Live Well-Tempered Clavier Resurrected
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jul 12, 2019  |  12 comments
Thirty-two years after it was recorded, pianist Keith Jarrett’s live reading of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, has seen the light of day.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
As One — Original Cast Recording
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jul 01, 2019  |  6 comments
What’s the most frequently performed new opera in America at present? It’s Laura Kaminsky’s 2014 chamber opera, As One, whose libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed explores the coming out process of its protagonist, Hannah, as a transgender woman.
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Jason Victor Serinus
Stilling Heartbreak from Weinberg
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jun 22, 2019  |  9 comments
Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's (b. 1986) rendition of Polish-Jewish composer Mieczysław Weinberg's (1919–1996) final symphony, which is dedicated "to the memory of those who were murdered in the Warsaw Ghetto," has all the earmarks of a life-affirming Record to Die For. Rarely have I heard such hallowed silence, absolute control, and reverence for life and beauty from a conductor so young. For those willing to explore the mysteries of exquisite sadness amidst suffering, this recording cries out.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
Trachea from 2L and Norway’s Schola Cantorum
Jason Victor Serinus  |  May 31, 2019  |  10 comments
With Trachea, the latest superb recording from Norwegian label 2L [http://www.2l.no], label founder and recording engineer Morten Lindberg continues his commitment to contemporary music. Here, working with Schola Cantorum, Norway’s well-tuned 55-year old chamber choir, under the leadership of Tone Bianca Sparre Dahl, Lindberg scores big with six fascinating and musically accessible choral compositions, all but one of which were written in the last five years.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
Goerne & Andsnes Give Schumann’s Longing New Life
Jason Victor Serinus  |  May 06, 2019  |  0 comments
What better way to get into the proper frame of mind for Munich High End than by listening to native German speaker baritone Matthias Goerne’s new recording of Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 24—Kerner-Lieder Op. 35, with accompaniment by the distinguished piano soloist Leif Ove Andsnes? It’s available on CD (Harmonia Mundi HMM902353), as a download (up to 96/24), and streaming.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
The Oboe in the Twentieth Century
Jason Victor Serinus  |  May 03, 2019  |  2 comments
Ours is an era where bargain anthologies from the greatest artists, ensembles, and composers on record compete with new issues of unusual repertoire and transcriptions. One among many that have caught my mind and ear is Alex Klein and Philip Bush’s recording of Twentieth Century Oboe Sonatas.
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Jason Victor SerinusMusic and Recording Features
Philip Glass Premiere from Third Coast Percussion
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 05, 2019  |  10 comments
Philip Glass (b. 1937) may not quite be a household name in America, but he's surely as well-known as any living classical composer, and the repetitive minimalism that is the hallmark of his music has influenced everything from rock music to TV commercials. Still, after 5 decades of composing, it took a commission from Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion for Glass to write his first concerto for percussion ensemble, Perpetulum—"What took them so long to ask me?" Glass has said about the commission. TCP has just released the premiere recording of the 21:23 minute concerto on their new 2-CD set, Perpetulum (OM 0132), from Glass's own label, Orange Mountain Music. The recording, which was engineered in 24/96, is also available as a download with those specifications.
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