French gambist Mathilde Vialle leads an ensemble featuring early plucked instrument specialist Thibaut Roussel. It was love at first sight when Vialle and Roussel first encountered the English bass viol and Venetian archlute preserved at the Museum of Music at the Philharmonie de Paris which inspried this program of English music from the second half of the seventeenth century, much …

French pianist Alain Planès could not let the centenary of Satie’s death go by without paying tribute to this composer whom he admires above all others. Planès is the heir of the great 20th century French pianism as a student of Jacques Février, the renowned interpreter of Satie who studied with Marguerite Long and was a favorite of both Poulenc …

Award-winning violin-piano duo, Opus Two (violinist William Terwilliger and pianist Andrew Cooperstock) presents world-premiere recordings of highlights from Stephen Sondheim’s exceptional Broadway shows in arrangements by Eric Stern, a longtime collaborator of the late composer. These include “Broadway Baby” from Follies, “Every Day a Little Death” from A Little Night Music with cellist Beth Vanderborgh, “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday …

The years 2023-2028 mark 200 years since the five last years of Franz Schubert’s life. This leads up to the 200th anniversary of Schubert’s death in Vienna on 19 November 2028. In homage to this important event, baritone Samuel Hasselhorn and pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz have started a multi-genre international project titled SCHUBERT 200 which includes the release of one album …

In his second album for Warner Classics, cellist, vocalist, and composer Abel Selaocoe celebrates his South African heritage with traditional Bantu music played alongside cello-centric “Western Classical” baroque or baroque-inspired works. Much of the album features Selaocoe original compositions or arrangements on which he sings and plays both percussion and cello with a full band that includes string ensemble (the …

The music of Gaetano Donizetti has been a source of inspiration for the founders of the Opera Rara, the company that restores, records, and performs neglected vocal repertoire from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Spearheaded by Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi, the Donizetti Song Project is curated by musicologist and Opera Rara’s Repertoire Consultant Roger Parker. Over the course of …

This new release features world premiere recordings of Shawn E. Okpebholo’s complete song cycle Songs in Flight. Drawing inspiration from 18th and 19th century print advertisements for the recapture of runaway enslaved individuals, Songs in Flight explores their untold stories with texts by poets Tsitsi Jaji, Crystal Simone Smith, and Tyehimba Jess. The work incorporates styles including spirituals, folk tunes, …

Chicago audiences have had a chance to experience Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen’s artistry, with the countertenor having made debuts with the Newberry Consort, Music of the Baroque, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Uncharted ventures outside typical countertenor territory into 19th and 20th century lieder. Austro-Germanic lieder was the countertenor’s first musical love and on Uncharted, he indulges in music by Erich …

The third solo album from Egyptian soprano Fatma Said focuses on Romantic era lieder by Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. In the conventional course of things, a lieder recital involves one singer and one pianist, but Said takes a characteristically imaginative approach with this album. “I’ve always wanted to make music with friends,” she …

Their names were Laura, Livia, and Anna. Together, they were known in the late 1500s as the Tre Donne di Ferrara – the three ladies of Ferrara. Their ensemble was praised by contemporary poets and won highest renown throughout Italy and Germany. However, women were not supposed to become famous for their professional achievements. And so, one of them was …

The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective was conceived in 2017 by husband-and-wife duo Tom Poster, piano, and Elena Urioste, violin. The Collective operates with a flexible roster featuring many of today’s most inspirational musicians, both instrumentalists and singers, and its creative programming is marked by an ardent commitment to celebrating diversity of all forms and a desire to unearth lesser-known gems of …

New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) presents the debut solo album of the rising star American baritone Theo Hoffman, a student of the late Sanford Sylvan and an alumnus of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, in an adventurous yet appealing program that pairs Schubert songs with Beatles songs (by Lennon-McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison) on similar themes. Hoffman tells WFMT, …

The world music-leaning period instrument band L’Arpeggiata, led by theorbo player Christina Pluhar, celebrates nature in a mostly Baroque program (Monteverdi, Bononcini, Biber and Handel) coupled with traditional songs and ballads including eden ahbez’s “Nature Boy.” In Terra Mater (meaning Mother Nature), Pluhar writes, “You will hear the chirping of the nightingales, sweet birds, cuckoos, frogs and chicken, the whispers of the winds, …

Singer-songwriter and composer Rufus Wainwright scored his epic Dream Requiem for orchestra, chorus, soprano and narrator. In June 2024, it received its world premiere in Paris with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the chorus and children’s choir of Radio France conducted by Mikko Franck with Meryl Streep as the narrator and soprano Anna Prohaska. Dream Requiem combines words …

This album spotlights Gabriel Fauré’s orchestrated songs and his music for the stage, of which his suite from the incidental music for Pelléas et Mélisande includes some of his best-loved music. Performances of Fauré’s spectacular Wagnerian drama Prométhée are a real rarity, while the Shylock Suite, based on Shakespeare, contains some of his most elaborate symphonic music. Fauré orchestrated only …

Recent guests in the WFMT studios, Cantus presents a collection of songs that what it means to connect in the modern world on their fourth release on Signum Classics. The program reflects upon the tension between technology and human longing for genuine in-person interaction. Citing the documentary Social Dilemma as an inspiration, ensemble bass Chris Foss says “the digital revolution …

Led by bass and recorder player Lionel Meunier, Vox Luminis is an early music ensemble based in Belgium which specializes in English, Italian, and especially German 17th- and 18th- century repertoire. The ensemble is comprised of some of the most sought-after European vocal soloists, and is supplemented, depending on the repertoire, with an extensive continuo, solo instruments, or a complete …

Lieder specialist Benjamin Appl celebrates Christmas with sacred arias by Bach and Mendelssohn, carols from Germany, Austria, America, Britain, Sweden and France. Appl is accompanied by instrumentalists (including his own mother on guitar), the Munich Radio Orchestra, and Germany’s most famous children’s choir, Regensburger Domspatzen, of which he was a member in his youth. “I returned to my hometown to …

The first release of Florez Records, the new label founded by tenor Juan Diego Flórez, is dedicated to the genre of zarzuela. “These romances full of passion and emotion represent an almost unique opportunity for Spanish and Latin American tenors to sing in their mother tongue,” says Flórez. “This recording production certainly fills me with happiness and pride. Firstly, because …

The original score for the upcoming Ken Burns documentary Leonardo da Vinci features 28 new compositions by  Caroline Shaw. The album features performances by the composer’s longtime collaborators Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion, and Roomful of Teeth as well as double bass player John Patitucci. David McMahon, one of the documentary’s directors, says “Caroline’s existing body of music—joyful, daring, at times …

The staged production of Raphaël Pichon’s concept for Mozart’s Requiem with director Romeo Castellucci premiered at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, 2019. After several dates across Europe, a concert version premiered at the 2023 BBC Proms; The Times headline exclaimed, “Mozart’s Requiem is reborn at the Proms” continuing with “It’s not often a performance of Mozart’s Requiem comes along that makes it sound …

Tenor Ian Koziara and pianist Bradley Moore spotlight art songs by Franz Schreker, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Viktor Ullmann, and Alexander von Zemlinsky, whose musical achievements were overshadowed by the oppression of the Third Reich. This album marks the first tenor-voice recording for almost all of these rare songs. The musical language of these early 20th century works is more Late Romantic …

French tenor Benjamin Bernheim’s first song recital album pairs him with his regular collaborator, pianist Carrie Ann Matheson. Matheson is artistic director of the San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program and was formerly coach, prompter, and assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. Bernheim made his American debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019 in Gounod’s Faust …

Austin based Grammy-nominated baritone, trumpeter, and pianist, Michael Hawes (former Chicagoan and former member of Axiom Brass) has devoted his first solo album to the music of Florence Price. Hawes sings most of the selections with pianist Eugenia Jeong. Four of the songs are performed on the trumpet. A brass ensemble, which includes the distinguished trombonist Randall Hawes, Michael’s father, …