Pianist Jean-Pierre Armengaud is considered a leading interpreter of French music and a specialist in Impressionist and Expressionist repertoire. He has been director for musical programming at Radio France and is associate professor at the Paris-Sorbonne University. Following his acclaimed recordings of the complete piano works of Debussy, Armengaud embarks on a project to record all of Clara Schumann’s solo …

The music of Bach is a major cornerstone for Michael Houstoun, who has recorded the 96 pieces that comprise Bach’s Preludes and Fugues Books 1 & 2 on a four-CD set. As Houstoun says, “For a pianist like myself, someone for whom music virtually begins with Johann Sebastian Bach, he provides a series of bottom lines of incalculable value everywhere …

Francesco Tristano is a Luxembourgish classical and experimental pianist and composer who also plays the clarinet. In his new album, Tristano interprets some of JS Bach’s most challenging pieces written for keyboard. The album is branded with Tristano’s own imprint intothefuture, making its debut on the Naïve label. Tristano has previously released three other albums dedicated to the music of …

German pianist Sebastian Knauer explains the inspiration behind his new album with the Berlin German Symphony Orchestra: “My encounter with the great American film composer and conductor David Newman led me to dedicate an entire album to American film music from its beginnings to the present day.” David Newman, who made the orchestral arrangements for several of the album’s tracks, …

Carlos Simon — Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the inaugural Boston Symphony Orchestra Composer Chair, and a member of The Blacknificent 7 — has already had his music performed by the world’s leading ensembles including the National Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra for the Last Night of the Proms, the Cincinnati …

French pianist Alexandre Kantorow, winner of the Gold Medal at the 2019 Tchaikovsky competition,  presents his fourth solo album for BIS, and his ninth album overall. The centerpiece work is Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, considered to be the most virtuosic composition in his entire output. Liszt transcriptions of five Schubert lieder include the song quoted in the Wanderer Fantasy, “Der Wanderer,” …

The great Italian legend of the piano Maurizio Pollini passed away on March 23, 2024. This album, recorded together with his son Daniele, showcases three different aspects of Franz Schubert’s mastery of the piano: the sonatas, the collections of short pieces, and music for four hands. Schubert’s great F minor Fantasia was the first piano four hands work father and …

With a discography of well over 100 albums, this release marks Marc-André Hamelin’s first Beethoven recording. The transcendental difficulties of the Hammerklavier — by far Beethoven’s longest piano sonata, and in the composer’s view also his finest — will always deter all but the greatest pianists of the day, with only a select few able to master its formidable musical, …

CSO Artist-in-Residence Daniil Trifonov celebrates music from the country he now calls home with his new double album ranging from jazz and swing to modernism, minimalism, and popular soundtracks. Joined by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin for George Gershwin’s Concerto in F and the world premiere recording of the concerto written for him by Mason Bates, Trifonov also performs …

Spanish pianist and scholar Isabel Dobarro has an active international performing career and has performed and lectured at some of the most renowned venues in the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the European Parliament, and the National Auditorium in Madrid and the Palau de la Música Catalana. Dobarro is recognized as a passionate advocate for female …

Danish pianists Rikke Sandberg and Kristoffer Hyldig have partnered to record dazzling versions of music by Denmark’s most famous composer Carl Nielsen for piano, four hands.  Selections include Nielsen’s own piano, four hands versions of his Third Symphony, “Sinfonia Espansiva,” and excerpts from his opera Saul and David. In addition to being promotional tools, four hand arrangements were , in …

Pianist Fazıl Say writes: “Oiseaux tristes brings together works by three prominent French composers… As I was working on the album during the pandemic period, it reflects the mood of that time… (Ravel’s) Miroirs is one of the most comprehensive and interesting works in the piano repertoire. I spent months working on it, and although it’s difficult to play, it …

In a celebration of his heritage, pianist Jean-Paul Gasparian’s new solo album is dedicated entirely to Armenian music. The program features works by Komitas, Aram Khachaturian, and Arno Babajanian, as well as two pieces composed by his father Gérard Gasparian inspired by the renowned Armenian poet Sayat-Nova. A third selection by Babajanian is also based on a song by Sayat-Nova, …

Goodyear’s new recording features some of the greatest works in the repertory: the Op. 16 and Op. 26 Piano Concertos, as well as the Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat. According to his note in the CD booklet, the recording of this album, with its roots in the struggles of the 2020 pandemic, is inherently personal to Goodyear, as …