Throughout the week Classic FM's presenters bring you the best new recordings, including world exclusives and premiere broadcasts of latest releases. John Suchet plays a track from his featured Album of the Week at 10.15am every weekday. You. John Brunning plays a track from his featured Drive Discovery at 6.15pm every weekday, and David Mellor picks out his three favourite new releases and re-releases every week - including his own Album of the Week and a Bargain Boxset. Featured this week is Julian Lloyd Webber - A Span Of Time on Naxos
A leading cellist looks back at an incredible career in this retrospective box set (previously one of David Mellor's picks). But not only do we hear him on his favoured instrument, we also hear him as conductor and arranger, providing a portrait of a complete musician as well as a distinguished soloist. SEE THE CLASSIC fM PAGE p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060} p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060; min-height: 14.0px}

Pianists Martha Argerich and Sergei Babayan have recorded selections from Prokofiev's music for stage and screen in magnificent two-piano transcriptions by Babayan. "Prokofiev for Two" captures for posterity the sense of mutual inspiration felt by these kindred spirits, palpable in their live performances together. The album features Babayan's twelve-movement transcription of music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet and arrangements of Prokofiev's incidental music for Hamlet and Eugene Onegin, film score for The Queen of Spades and opera War and Peace. Martha Argerich & Sergei Babayan - Prokofiev for Two is WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release' p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060}

Michael Whalen is a two-time Emmy® Award winning composer and music supervisor (8 nominations) who has worked in advertising, television, film and video games for over 30 years. ("Veronika Decides to Die" (2014), "What the Bleep Do You Know?", "As The World Turns", themes for HBO, CBS News, ABC News' "Good Morning America", "The Oprah Winfrey Show", dozens of specials for PBS, National Geographic, Discovery, The BBC, NHK and the History Channel and television films for Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel. As pianist, Whalen has 30 solo and soundtrack recordings to his credit, and has produced/exec. produced over 100 additional recordings for other artists. Fiona Apple's gorgeous new lullaby, 'I Can't Wait To Meet You',  a collaboration with Whalen features piano loop, marching drums and the memorable protest chan.     LISTEN ON NME

John Hollenbeck leads l'Orchestre national du jazz Montreal through an original, and highly unconventional concert.  Part performance art, part theatre improv, Hollenbeck's composition reimagines the role of improvisation.  Considered by the composer as a "spatial experiment", the project was noticeably free of most musical and theatrical boundaries.   Hollenbeck, an American drummer and educator, leads the orchestra members (and guest vocalist Theo Bleckmann) to extend their improvisation beyond notes and instruments, to the full and expressive movement of the entire body.  Eclectic gestures, peculiar stage positioning, whistling, and yelling all play a role in the avant garde piece, that was debuted at the 2017 Montreal International Jazz Festival. Winner of the Prix Opus - Concert de l'année, Jazz - du CQM - Conseil québécois de la musique, the performance was fully embraced by the members of the orchestra - many of whom were experimenting well outside of their comfort zone - and by the adoring audience, who called the orchestra back for an encore.  Watch the attached video.

Capital Public Radio is seeking a dynamic classical music host to add to our creative, experienced and expanding team. Are you warm and engaging on air? Do you have a rich knowledge of classical music and a knack for telling a good story? Does playing a role in crafting our vibrant, classical music format appeal to you? Are you eager to expand the audience for classical music through community engagement initiatives? If you're nodding enthusiastically to these questions, then we want to hear from you! CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

Pianist/vocalist Pauline Frechette creates a moody parlor atmosphere with a mix of cellos and violins along with bass, tenor sax and guest Stanley Clarke on this intimate collection. Her voice is fragile an ddelicate, getting eerie on "Come Away With Me" and deeply melancholic on "Follow Your Heart." Clarke's solo adds to a bohemian "Love in the Afternoon" while her instrumentals include a reflective Stewart Cole's trumpet on a second "Follow My Heart" while her own piano serves well on "Song for Michael." Long moon shadows. READ ALL THE Jazz Weekly REVIEWS

The middle period of the Savannah Music Festival featured most of its jazz shows, as the stylistic orientation shifted, throughout a 17-day run. This 29th edition celebrated the accustomed diverse blend of blues, country, classical, latin, cajun, flamenco, bluegrass and African musics. The Maria Schneider Orchestra appeared at the splendidly retro-preserved Lucas Theatre For The Arts, opened way back in 1921. The composer's anticipated regulars were lined up, including Scott Robinson, Donny McCaslin (reeds), Ryan Keberle (trombone), Ben Monder (guitar), Frank Kimbrough (piano), Gary Versace (accordion) and Johnathan Blake (drums), all of them on fine soloing form. Schneider displayed her distinctive conducting style, both in its physical language, and in the resultant sonic colourations. While still selecting a few old favourites, the leader was intent on highlighting newer works, often with a topical edge. Her older chestnuts frequently celebrate nature, but 'Data Lords', for instance, is more concerned with criticising the social media beast, cannily anticipating recent developments. A bristling beginning featured a muted Mike Rodriguez trumpet, heavily reverbed as swirling dark clouds gathered for this foreboding AI warning. This is a much darker Schneider universe. Steve Wilson took an alto solo, then both of these soloists responded, as their leader's signals became increasingly agitated and insistent, prompting a free-form strengthening. George Flynn's gruff bass trombone provided a deep undercurrent throughout. Robinson and McCaslin soloed vigorously during 'Arbiters Of Evolution', exchanging repeated blasts as this leviathan trucked along, the latter saxophonist reaching a monumental climax, Robinson then quite wisely taking it way down to a serene level.
– Photos by Frank Stewart READ THE FULL jazzwise ARTICLE

Composer Hans Zimmer will receive the 2018 Max Steiner Award at the annual Hollywood in Vienna concert gala. The event is scheduled for Oct. 19 at the Konzerthaus in the Austrian capital, Hollywood in Vienna founder and CEO Sandra Tomek announced. "Hans Zimmer has had a close connection to Vienna for some time now," Tomek said, citing such recent recording projects as "The Crown," "Blue Planet II" and "Inferno," all recorded at Vienna's new Synchron Stage. "For a city so rich in music history, it is only fitting to give this award, named after the great Max Steiner, to this exceptional and multi-talented composer. Zimmer is an 11-time Oscar nominee, most recently for "Dunkirk." He won the Academy Award for best original score in 1994 for "The Lion King." He is also a three-time Grammy winner and two-time Golden Globe winner. The event will be broadcast internationally to more than 35 countries, and later be released on Blu-Ray. PHOTO: CREDIT: MICHAEL BUCKNER/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK READ FULL Variety ARTICLE

Producer Scott Rudin has announced that Bette Midler will return to Hello Dolly! at Broadway's Shubert Theatre for six weeks only from July 17. Bernadette Peters, has been playing the role opposite Victor Garber as Horace Vandergelder. Both Peters and Garber will play their last performance on July 15, 2018. David Hyde Pierce will return to the role of Vandergelder alongside Midler. In a press release dated Friday Bette Midler said:     "I am delighted to return to the scene of one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I know the brilliant Bernadette Peters enjoyed her turn as much as I did, Dolly Levi is one of the most joyful characters in Broadway history, and Bernadette and I were lucky to be able to step into her glorious shoes." READ THE FULL BritishTheatre.com ARTICLE

Evgeny Kissin returned to Boston in the Celebrity Series, performing with the Emerson String Quartet Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall. The word "performing" hardly captures the artistry and profound fluency with which the five consummate musicians brought to life works by Mozart, Fauré and Dvořák. The key is that they seemed genuinely to delight in making music together, playing for each other as much as for the loudly appreciative audience. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060; min-height: 14.0px} READ THE FULL Boston Musical Intelligencer REVIEW

"People don't know how to take me," says jazz trumpeter/composer Terence Blanchard with a laugh. It's a rare rainy day in Los Angeles and the five-time Grammy Award winner is seated inside a West Hollywood hotel suite. Flanked by a piano festooned with sheet music on one side and a keyboard roosting on a granite kitchen countertop on the other, Blanchard is talking about the trio of projects he's been juggling. "There's the E-Collective electric band, my film career and an opera," he explains. "People ask, ‘How do you do all this?' Well, I have a fascination with and love for music. It's just that simple." Slowing down long enough to chat with Billboard, the indefatigable Blanchard touches on everything from living in a "weird" Twilight Zone episode under the narcissistic direction of President Trump and dispelling opera myths to nurturing the wide-eyed vision of jazz's next generation. READ THE FULL billboard ARTICLE

I've interviewed four American presidents. Norman Mailer. Madonna. Tom Cruise. They can work out well and make great pieces, but I hardly ever get excited about doing interviews. Because I was talking about Bill Frisell. The occasion was a show he was scheduled to play at Little Rock's Ron Robinson Theater -- a show that wound up being canceled because of bad weather. So while I talked to Frisell and wrote the interview for our blood, dirt & angels blog (blooddirtangels.com), obviously I didn't get to see and review the show. Now Frisell, who for years has served as a sideman for figures as disparate as free jazz composer-producer-saxophonist John Zorn and alt-folkie Vic Chesnutt, has released the remarkable jazz guitar album Music IS (OKeh Records). This is his first completely solo effort since 2000's Ghost Town. It's composed of 15 Frisell compositions; the 16 tracks have two new stripped-down versions of his venerable tune "Rambler," which in its original form was the title track of Frisell's 1984 album and featured flugelhorn and tuba. On the new album, the artist plays acoustic and electric guitars, with a little bass and ukelele in the mix. Yet the most salient feature of the recording might be Frisell's subtle and sensitive use of a looper pedal to create a sonic canvas for some of his most painterly playing. This is a fairly straightforward album, at least for a musician as eclectic and resistant to characterization as Frisell. You can pick out elements of folk, rock, country and jazz, delivered with his trademark American tonal flavor. His playfulness weaves lightly through the project, and though the tracks are multilayered and harmonically complex, they never become dense. Above everything else, a sense of joy and tenderness permeates the project -- like we're hearing Frisell pray through his instrument. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060; min-height: 14.0px} READ THE FULL NWAOnline ARTICLE