Vasily Petrenko’s Award-winning survey of the Shostakovich symphonies with the RLPO, now reaches the eighth instalment with the release of the epic ‘Leningrad’ Symphony.

Here he talks to Edward Seckerson about the work.

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Catalogue No.: 8.573057

Leonard Slatkin enjoys close ties to Sergei Rachmaninov: his great-uncle brought the composer to the US and conducted the première of his second symphony. Slatkin tells Gail Wein about his recordings of Rachmaninov Symphonies with Detroit Symphony, and his life in Motor City.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.573051

Mohammed Fairouz’s music is distinctive for his blending of western and middle-eastern sonorities. He talks about how a musician can have the same effect as a storyteller, and tells us about a lullaby for a newborn baby…and a 300-year-old violin.

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Catalogue No.: 8.559744

Duke Ellington wrote serious music for symphony orchestras […] with great power. I feel that he single-handedly elevated jazz to a level of artistry comparable to all the other art forms. The music is very beautiful; it’s very symphonic, very orchestral.

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Catalogue No.: 8.559737

The album will be released in Europe throughout February, and in the US and Asia Pacific from 26 February.

Gail Wein discusses Tan Dun‘s recording of Concerto for Orchestra

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Catalogue No.: 8.570608

Raymond Bisha discusses The King’s Singers‘ recording of Pater Noster – A Choral Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer.

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Catalogue No.: 8.572987

Raymond Bisha introduces us to the contemporary Canadian composer Vivian Fung’s superb new recording Dreamscapes. Her Violin Concerto featuring soloist Kristin Lee is an intensely lyrical and virtuoso work in which West and East collide to create music of remarkably fresh sophistication. Glimpses and her piano concertoDreamscape, for prepared piano, explore contrasts ranging from hauntingly sustained calm and tranquillity to moments of brutal power.

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Catalogue No.: 8.573009

Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers and his latest collaboration with award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra reveals the breadth of his achievement. Its opening work, Atlantic Riband, evokes the struggle and ultimate victory of ocean-crossing immigrants to America in an orchestral showpiece of power and splendour. In this podcast, Raymond Bisha introduces us to this, and to Fuchs’ other orchestral and chamber works on this wonderful new recording.

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Catalogue No.: 8.559723

In this podcast, conductor Gerard Schwarz first takes us through the transformation of Seattle Symphony during his 26 years tenure at the helm. He then talks to Gail Wein about the thrill of recording, and how he found the symphonies of the legendary American composer, educator and administrator William Schuman his most interesting project—‘a revolution and a great joy’! Listen to find out why Schwarz finds Schuman’s 8th Symphony “exquisite, brilliant and wonderful”!

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Catalogue No.: 8.505228

In this podcast, Raymond Bisha helps you discover Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s delightful wind concertinos. The Italian composer is better known for his operatic compositions but he wrote a number of sublimely and expressive orchestral works, including the three melodic, rhythmically buoyant, and at times elegiac wind concertos featured on this new release.

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Catalogue No.: 8.572921