Home » Stories » Sharon Isbin & Amjad Ali Khan - Strings for Peace is not east-west fusion, but rather a new articulation of Hindustani classical music / CD Hotlist

Stories for January 23, 2021

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    Jeni Slotchiver - American Heritage takes you to a different world of patience and space / Jazz Weekly
     
    Posted At : January 23, 2021 6:24 AM

    Following the success of the Busoni The Visionary series, Jeni Slotchiver is humbled to introduce something so intimately close to home. With Southern roots of her own, Ms. Slotchiver's debut ZOHO CD release American Heritage is her homage to the legendary composers preserving American folk music and creating anew. What was once familiar, is reborn. Spanning 125 years, from Louis Moreau Gottschalk's The Banjo (ca. 1854-5) to Frederic Rzewski's Down by the riverside (1979), American Heritage presents piano compositions by composers of concert music, inspired by the melodies, dance rhythms, harmonic inventions and various stylistic elements evocative of the American experience. Of the eight composers represented, six are of African descent and two of these are women. There are quotes from spirituals, use of the African American pentatonic scale, the African call and response structure popularized in southern church tradition, polyphonic rhythms of jazz, and the rich, sultry harmonies of blues. With the exception of the rich musical heritage of Indigenous people, the largest and most important American folkloric body of work arrived on American shores with the first enslaved African people.  Jazz Weekly's  George W. Harris writes....Pianist Jeni Slotchiver gives solo interpretations of music from early to late 20th Century, taking you to a different world of patience and space. While classically trained, Slotchiver has a rich blues touch and a bona fide feel for gospel and folk material. Material ranges from a homespun read of "Swanee River" to the spiritual "Down By The Riverside" as well as the folk classic "Shenandoah" but with an arrangement by Keith Jarret. Parlor moods are presented in a collection of pieces from Harry Thacker Burleigh and the genteel pen of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, on "Union" and "The Banjo" while traditional pieces like "Deep River" and even 1967's "Troubled Water" feel like they've both been drawn from the same well. A journey to another world and world view. SEE THE Jazz Weekly PAGE

  • Jane Ira Bloom and Mark Helias improvise together over zoom / NPR: Fresh Air
     
    Posted At : January 21, 2021 12:00 AM

    Soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and bassist Mark Helias come together to create duets discovered in the moment in a way that is rarely heard today with Some Kind of Tomorrow. The long time bandmates, separated by space and time find a way to play in real time with one another and the results are magical. Two master improvisers and composers bring listeners up-close and personal to the first spark of their imaginations at work, recording eleven duet improvisations over the spring, summer, and fall of 2020. The music is raw, authentic, intimate, alive, and unapologetic in its passion. Their sound is deep wood and polished brass recorded with a depth that is hard to describe. They played the music, recorded it, mastered it firsthand and are now making it available to listeners for the first time as a digital download on Bandcamp. Don't miss these fearless jazz explorers as they face the future.   Heard on Fresh Air, here's Kevin Whitehead's piece. LISTEN & READ THE TRANSCRIPT

  • Shunia delivers heart-lifting chants for these troubled times / American songwriter
     
    Posted At : January 20, 2021 12:00 AM

    Shunia is a duo that combines addictive melodies, ancient chants and polycultural rhythms into a sound that feels both new and timeless. Their music captures and conveys deep energies and spirit. The state of "shunia" means stillness, receptivity. Shunia's members, Lisa Reagan and Suzanne Jackson both performed with the Washington National Opera for 20 years before finding continued success in their solo careers. Coming together as Shunia, they combined their influences, inspirations and experiences to create genre-defying music with the power to transform and to connect you to the energy within and around you. It can put you in touch with something as simple as your five senses or as mysterious as the infinite. American Songwriter's NADIA NEOPHYTOU writes......To press play on Shunia's new album of chants is to allow a wave of calm and relaxation to wash over one's whole self. For Lisa Reagan and Suzanne Jackson, who've known each other for 30 years, sharing the gift that's been a major part of their lives with others is the reason they began recording together as the duo Shunia in the first place. "Music in and of itself is such a powerful medium," Reagan tells American Songwriter. "It is the language of our humanity and our souls. We know these mantras are tried and true, and we have personally been chanting them for years." READ THE FULL American songwriter ARTICLE

  • Ed O'Keefe is the CBS news white house correspondent who came to play / 98.7WFMT Q&A
     
    Posted At : January 20, 2021 12:00 AM

    WFMT: Chicago 's Candice Agree writes....From the age of 3, CBS News political correspondent Ed O'Keefe toiled at a keyboard-not in typing, as unintended preparation for his 13 years at the Washington Post, but in studying classical piano in Delmar, a suburb of Albany, NY. Although he loved playing, his interest in current events and politics pulled him into a journalism career. No stranger to Chicago, in 2008, O'Keefe was in Grant Park the night that Barack Obama was elected president. O'Keefe, 37, is about to become a fixture in the White House press room, as he will cover the Biden administration for the TV network he joined in 2018. But he has never left his first passion far behind. He shared some musical memories with us before taking on his new assignment at CBS News as Senior White House & Political Correspondent.    Photo courtesy CBS News) READ Candice Agree's Q&A with Ed O'Keefe.

  • Jane Ira Bloom, Mark Helias 'Some Kind Of Tomorrow' is raw, intimate, and fearless / JAZZ VIEWS
     
    Posted At : January 20, 2021 12:00 AM

    Jane Ira Bloom, Mark Helias 'Some Kind Of Tomorrow' was Reviewed by JAZZ VIEWS Sammy Stein, who wrote........
    Saxophone player Jane Ira Bloom and bass player Mark Helias are long-time collaborators. This album was born out of the need to create music in such a unique time where live audiences and in-person studio recordings were impossible. Recorded remotely from their homes, the music stands as a departure from any kind of release they have done together as all tracks are completely improvised. The resulting sound is raw, intimate, and fearless.​ I asked Jane Ira Bloom about the recording, and she explained, " Given how we had to make this made Mark and I rely on the most basic aspect of our collaborative impulse – our two sets of ears. Mark and I have known one another for over 40 years. We first met in New Haven CT in the 1970s, and when you think about it, you build up so much shared vocabulary when you've played with someone over such a long time. We really didn't plan this recording. It happened because we needed to improvise with one another and so the music emerged from a different place than normal when you plan a recording project." READ THE FULL JAZZ VIEWS REVIEW

  • Signum Saxophone Quartet - Echoes is the WFMT: Featured New Release
     
    Posted At : January 19, 2021 12:00 AM

    An ensemble that attracts rave reviews and sell-out crowds at prestigious venues everywhere from Vienna to New York, the sensational Signum Saxophone Quartet presents their first Deutsche Grammophon album. Featuring inventive arrangements of music by composers from Dowland to Peter Gregson, as well as Guillermo Lago's Sarajevo, a saxophone quartet original, Echoes showcases the full potential of the saxophone – a modern instrument more than capable of capturing the echoes of the past. For January 19, 2021, the Signum Saxophone Quartet: Echoes is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release.'

  • Sa Re Sa Sa is a healing mantra which rings true for Shunia / Yogi Times
     
    Posted At : January 19, 2021 12:00 AM

    Yogi Times - Windy Campbell writes....Sa Re Sa Sa is a famous mantra in the Kundalini Yoga community, which embraces ancient mantras and modern affirmations as a critical aspect of everyday yoga and meditation. The Sa Re Sa Sa chant is believed to remove adversity and negativity from within, awakening one's Infinite Creative energy and removing obstacles to higher consciousness.  Sa Re Sa Sa chant is often a starting point in one's yogic journey, which rings true for the duo Shunia, whose members, Suzanne Jackson and Lisa Reagan, share a love of yoga, meditation, and singing; both have followed a path from opera's world stage to immersion in a chant. The duo's mission is to merge music, mantra, and movement with healing and connection. The pronunciation of the Sa Re Sa Sa mantra is relatively straightforward. TAKE A LOOK

Top 10 for Jan

  • SIGNUM saxophone quartet :

    Echoes

     An ensemble that attracts rave reviews and sell-out crowds at prestigious venues everywhere from Vienna to New York, the sensational SIGNUM saxophone quartet are now set to present their first Deutsche Grammophon album.
  • The Album Leaf :

    SYNCHRONIC - OMPS

     Milan Records announces the release of SYNCHRONIC (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) with music by The Album Leaf.
  • Poor Clare Sisters of Arundel :

    Light for the World

     More than 800 years since they were founded, the Poor Clare Sisters of Arundel – a community of 23 nuns living in the south of England – have found themselves unexpected recording stars.
  • Ilan Eshkeri :

    A Perfect Planet

     Sony Music today announces the January 8, 2021 release of A PERFECT PLANET (SOUNDTRACK FROM THE BBC SERIES) with music by composer ILAN ESHKERI (Stardust, The Young Victoria).
  • Jane Ira Bloom, Mark Helias :

    Some Kind of Tomorrow

     Soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and bassist Mark Helias come together to create duets discovered in the moment in a way that is rarely heard today with Some Kind of Tomorrow.
  • Catalyst Quartet :

    Uncovered Vol. 1 - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

     On Friday, February 5, 2021, GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet releases UNCOVERED Volume 1 on Azica Records.
  • Laila Biali :

    A Case of You - LIVE

     SOCAN Music and JUNO Award winner Laila Biali shares an intimate acoustic cover of Joni Mitchell's classic love song, A Case of You, captured live off the floor at Revolution Recording Studios.
  • Max Richter :

    Beethoven - Opus 2020

     Max Richter and Deutsche Grammophon are set to release a brand-new orchestral composition to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birthday.
  • Yo-Yo Ma | Kathryn Stott :

    Comfort and Hope

     Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott come together again, this time for Songs of Comfort and Hope, set for release on December 11, 2020 on Sony Classical.
  • Benjamin Grosvenor :

    Liszt

     Hot on the heels of his 2020 Diapason d'Or and Gramophone Award triumphs, British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor presents his first album in a renewed exclusive partnership with Decca Classics.

Sharon Isbin & Amjad Ali Khan - Strings for Peace is not east-west fusion, but rather a new articulation of Hindustani classical music / CD Hotlist

Posted: May 5, 2020 12:00 AM | By: Admin
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Sharon Isbin has been a world-famous classical guitarist for decades. Less well-known has been her dedication to transcendental meditation, which she has practiced since her teens, and her concomitant longstanding interest in the classical music of India. On this album she joins a distinguished family of sarod players and an equally eminent player of the tabla for a set of ragas written for her by the patriarch of that family, Amjad Ali Khan. (He and his two sons take turns playing alongside her on these performances.) The combination of sarod–a plucked but fretless stringed instrument–and classical guitar is not an obvious one, and before cuing up the disc one immediately wonders how Isbin is going to make this work. And the answer is: with impressive good taste and skill. Notable here is not only her ability to use a chromatic instrument effectively in the context of the famously microtonal elaborations that characterize Indian music, but also her ability to complement (if not exactly match) the tone of the sarod. She also subtly uses her guitar to take the place of a tambura, quietly playing tonic-dominant drones (and, slyly, the occasional triadic chord) while the sarod solos. The result is not an East-West fusion, but rather a new articulation of Hindustani classical music. For all libraries.

SEE ALL CD HOTLIST REVIEWS

Crossover Media Projects with Sharon Isbin

  • Sharon Isbin

    Affinity

    On this historic ZOHO release, legendary guitarist Sharon Isbin performs multi-faceted and virtuosic new works for guitar, written for her by four leading composers. From the Africa-influenced El Decameron Negro by iconic Cuban guitarist/composer Leo Brouwer, through the Chinese and Spanish-inspired Seven Desires for Guitar by Tan Dun, to Richard Danielpour's sensual song cycle Of Love and Longing (with multiple Grammy winner Isabel Leonard) and the  jazz and world music-influenced Affinity: Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra by Chris Brubeck with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra/Elizabeth Schulze, Sharon Isbin gives her inimitable imprint to, and vastly enriches major new repertoire for guitar. The four world premieres also include a two-guitar arrangement for her by Colin Davin of Antonio Lauro's Waltz #3 Natalia.   The recording will be available May 22, 2020 on the ZOHO label (ZM 202005).

    All Press Secured By Genevieve Spielberg & Jazz Promo Services

  • Sharon Isbin

    Strings for Peace w/Amjad Ali Khan, Am&Ay Bangash

    Grammy Award-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin's new recording, Strings for Peace, with sarod master, Amjad Ali Khan, and his virtuoso sons Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash, is a groundbreaking release steeped in the tradition of ragas and talas of North Indian classical music.  Available May 22, 2020 on the ZOHO label (ZM 202004), it was recorded in New York following a successful joint 2019 tour in India. Strings for Peace features four Khan compositions based on popular ragas specifically written and arranged for Sharon Isbin: By the Moon - Raga Behag, Love Avalanche - Raga Mishra Bhairav, Romancing Earth - Raga Pilu and Sacred Evening - Raga Yaman.  The four artists are joined on the tabla by Amit Kavthekar, a disciple of Indian drumming giants, Alla Rakha and his son Zakir Hussain. They will tour across the US in 20/21 beginning in Tanglewood and Caramoor festivals this July.

    All Press Secured By Genevieve Spielberg & Jazz Promo Services

  • Sharon Isbin

    Bach for Guitar: Lute Suites

    Bach for Guitar is now available at retailers nationwide – including Amazon, Arkiv Music, Barnes & Noble – on the Erato/Warner Classics label (cat. #2564617518).   Ms. Isbin calls the Suites "among the most challenging and musically rewarding works in the classical guitar repertoire."   The first  classical guitarist to perform and record Bach on guitar with baroque performance practice techniques, Isbin collaborated with noted Bach scholar and keyboard artist Rosalyn Tureck on the editions performed on the disc. The CD includes all four lute suites by Johann Sebastian Bach, including Suite in E Major, BWV 1006a, Suite in G Minor, BWV 995, Suite in E Minor, BWV 996, and Suite in C Minor, BWV 997.

    14 NEW  135 TOTAL
    SYND:     Classical 24, CBC, TRH, Sunday Baroque
    Direct: SiriusXM, Music Choice, MOOD, Stingray, AccuRadio
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Denver, Baltimore, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Sacramento, Albuquerque, Columbus OH, Madison WI, Honolulu
    Online: Taintradio, The Washington Post, pancakesandwhiskey.com, IDOLATER, Consequence Of Sound, Stereogum, Billboard

  • Sharon Isbin

    5 Classic Albums

    Sharon Isbin - Troubadour is a one-hour documentary portrait of the world's premier classical guitarist, shows us a trailblazing performer and teacher who over the course of her career has broken through numerous barriers to rise to the top of a traditionally male-dominated field. The film, produced by Susan Dangel, explores what it takes to nurture a dream against all odds to become a world class musician. It will be presented by American Public Television for broadcast on nearly 200 public television stations throughout the US this November-December 2014, and released on DVD/Blu-ray by Video Artists International.

    In coordination with the documentary broadcasts, Warner Classics will release five of Isbin's most popular albums in a single box. The set brings together cornerstones of the guitar concerto repertoire by Rodrigo and Villa-Lobos, arrangements of perennial Baroque favorites, concertos by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun that were written for Isbin herself (and featured in the documentary) and two imaginatively-programmed recital discs including the GrammyTM Award-winning Dreams of a World. 

    20 NEW -  93 Total
    SYND:     Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: SiriusXM, Music Choice, MOOD
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Dallas, Atlanta, St. Louis, Seattle, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Portland, Detroit, Baltimore, Denver, Pittsburgh, Austin, New Orleans, Memphis, Albuquerque, Louisville, Columbus, Madison WI, Honolulu, Canada
    Online: Huffington Post, Taintradio, MusicGuy

  • Sharon Isbin

    Journey to the New World

    Recognized as "the pre-eminent guitarist of our time" The Boston Globe and "the Monet of the classical guitar" Atlanta Journal Constitution, Grammy Award-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin makes her Sony Masterworks debut with Journey to the New World. The extraordinary recording follows a musical progression from 16th century England, Ireland, and Scotland to the shores of America, with the music of the New World represented by Joan Baez, Isbin's first music hero, and violin virtuoso and composer Mark O'Connor.

    13 New ON this week: 124 Total
    Synd:     NPR/ATC, APM/PT, PRI/Classical 24, Sunday Baroque, Sixty Second CD
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Wash DC, Philadelphia, Seattle, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Portland, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Long Is. NY, Indianapolis, Berkeley CA, Orlando
    Online: Taintradio, Folk Image, Guru, RadioIO/Classical Favorites, io4business/Piano Guitar, MusicGuru

  • Sharon Isbin

    Guitar Passions

    Renowned classical guitarist Sharon Isbin, whom critics have acclaimed as "the pre-eminent guitarist of our time" (Boston Magazine) and "the Monet of the classical guitar,"(Atlanta Journal) is following her Grammy-winning 2009 Sony Masterworks debut album Journey To The New World with another extraordinary musical exploration, Sharon Isbin & Friends: Guitar Passions. Available August 30, the new album has a definite Latin American flavor, but the journey this time is focused more on her musical mentors. "I'm paying tribute to my guitar heroes," Isbin says. "These are artists whom I admire greatly, who are also heroes in their own realms." The artists include fellow guitar greats who are also great friends with whom she has collaborated. "Steve Vai has been a dear friend and duo partner for years," Isbin says, singling out the rock guitarist/composer, who improvises with her on La Catedral by famed Paraguayan composer Agustin Barrios Mangore. "Stanley Jordan is another hero and great friend," she adds, and the innovative jazz guitarist joins her in his stunning arrangement of Sonidos de aquel dia, by the Argentinean guitarist/composer Quique Sinesi.

    4 New 'ON' this week 118
    Synd: PRI/Classical 24 & Jazz After Hours
    Direct: SiriusXM
    Markets include: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Denver, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Memphis, Tampa, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Canada
    Online: KING FM Evergreen, Taintradio