Beautiful Music

The newly-released (and Grammy nomidated!) recording AMERICAN ORIGINALS: A NEW VOICE, A NEW CANON is one of my suggest CDs for gift giving on the Sunday Baroque Holiday Gift List. Countertenor Reginald Mobley and Agave Baroque present exquisite performances of music by underrepresented composers, including Anonymous music from Cusco Archives, Cuban Baroque musician Esteban Salas, […]

Every year at around this time, I put together a list of recent recordings I suggest you consider for holiday gift-giving. This year’s list includes a thrilling new live concert recording called A MEXICAN CHRISTMAS. The performers are The Newberry Consort and EnsAmble Ad-Hoc. We audition selections each week on Sunday Baroque, but there’s never

Lara Downes is a musician I admire very much. Her sensitive artistry and personal passion shine through in everything she plays. Today’s Beautiful Music is pianist Lara Downes playing the Romance Op. 11 #3 by Clara Schumann, another sensitive and passionate musician of her time. Lara Downes  

  Today’s Beautiful Music is a pleasing performance by Les Delices of a Sinfonia by Francois-Andre Philidor. The French baroque composer was from an extended family of accomplished musicians as well as chess experts. This 2018 performance was given by Debra Nagy (baroque oboe), Julie Andrijeski & Adriane Post (violins), Steuart Pincombe (cello) and Mark

Carmen-Helena Téllez was a musician — a conductor, pianist, producer, composer, scholar and interdisciplinary artist. In 2012, the Venezuelan-American musician joined the faculty of The University of Notre Dame as Professor of Conducting, after many years teaching choral conducting and leading the Latin America Music Center at Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University. Today’s Beautiful

I hope you enjoy this serene and lovely performance of a beloved piece by Johann Sebastian Bach — SHEEP MAY SAFELY GRAZE from his Cantata BWV208 — by pianists Lang Lang and Gina Alice, who are married. J.S. Bach: Hunting Cantata, BWV 208 – No. 9. Sheep May Safely Graze (Transc. Duck for 4… –

For today’s Beautiful Music, the marvelous countertenor Reginald Mobley collaborated with Stephen Stubbs on the secular aria HERE THE DEITIES APPROVE by Henry Purcell. It was originally published in 1683, and was part of the ode Welcome to all the Pleasures. Purcell then went back and published it again in 1698 as part of his collection

  In 1714, André Campra composed his secular cantata Silène et Bacchus. The aria “Tristes captifs” is its finale, and today’s Beautiful Music is a 2014 performance by bass-baritone Jonathan Woody with Brooklyn Baroque at the Church of Saint Luke in the Fields, New York City.     Campra: “Tristes captifs” from Silène (J. Woody, Brooklyn Baroque)

I hope today’s Beautiful Music puts a smile on your face. It’s a virtuosic (and charming) performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca on bamboo instruments! The concert took place in Vietnam in 2015. Mozart’s Turkish March in Bamboo – YouTube

Elizabeth Claude Jacquet de la Guerre was a child prodigy who grew up to be an esteemed performer and composer. The French woman was a harpsichordist and organist born in 1665 — two decades before Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Today’s Beautiful Music features harpsichordist Elisabetta Guglielmin playing two movements — the prelude