Kristjan Järvi / MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra / Absolute Ensemble PHILIP GLASS Aguas da Amazonia

Kristjan Järvi wanted to do something extra special to celebrate the 80th birthday of Philip Glass, the renowned American composer of minimalist music (or ‘music with repetitive structures’ to use Glass’s preferred terminology). Kristjan had fallen in love with Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia when he first heard it performed by the experimental Brazilian group UAKTI. Originally conceived in the 1990s as a dance score for a ballet company in Belo Horizonte, the music is inspired by the great Amazon river and its tributaries, and is influenced by folklore, jazz and New Age elements. When Kristjan was planning the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s repertoire for 2017 and developing his idea of fusing music with lighting and projection art, he knew that Aguas da Amazonia would be perfect for the ‘Waterworks’ tour. He says: ‘I called Philip up and said, “This is an amazing piece. Can I please get it orchestrated?” And he said, “Yes, let’s do it!” So I asked Charles Coleman to arrange it, and he’s done a brilliant job.’

A recording of the new orchestration, with Kristjan conducting the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and members of his New York-based Absolute Ensemble, was released earlier this year by Philip Glass’s label Orange Mountain Music. 

MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra / Kristjan Järvi STEVE REICH Duet

The music of Steve Reich has been heard in various venues, including electronic music dance clubs, but the full symphony orchestra treatment has been rare. That is changing, however, with the tenure of Kristjan Järvi as chief conductor of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the result in that musically conservative, German city is this major-label double album of Reich's music, in many respects a first. Järvi's enthusiasm for the project is palpable here, most obviously in the live performance of the early Reich standard Clapping Music, which he and the composer perform together to the approval of the crowd. But to put together two CDs worth of standard orchestral music by Reich takes a little bit of doing. The first CD of the set is perhaps the more successful, containing not only Clapping Music, but two of Reich's earlier forays into orchestral repertoire, the Duet for two solo violins and string orchestra (written for Yehudi Menuhin) and The Four Sections, a sort of minimalist counterpart to Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. The "four sections" are the strings (movement 1), the percussion (movement 2), and the winds and brass (movement 3), with everyone coming together for the finale. This little work deserves the wider exposure it gets here, for it offers a unique window onto Reich's thinking on timbre in a fun, accessible way. The second CD features two works originally written for voices and small ensemble, the Daniel Variations (in memory of the murdered Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl) and You Are (a group of four settings of Hasidic aphorisms), reworked for orchestra. These are both successful examples of Reich's later style, in which Jewish themes are common, but it's not clear what the orchestra adds; in You Are, especially, the balance with the voices seems thrown off. Nevertheless, this is a major breakthrough for the octogenarian Reich, in a musically hallowed city far from his American homeland, in a place where he must find it uniquely satisfying to score a triumph. (James Manheim)

MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra / Kristjan Järvi STEVE REICH Duet

A new double album, honouring the 80th Birthday of the minimal music pioneer. Includes 2 world premiere recordings. Steve Reich, one of the most influential composers of our time and key founder of the minimalist school of music, is celebrating his 80th birthday on 3 October 2016. The album is not only a celebration of his birthday but also a result of a 3-year-project that started with Reich's residency as "composer in residence" at the MDR Radio Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra-choirs versions of "Daniel" and "You Are Variations" are therefore world premiere recordings. "Duet" was dedicated to and written for Sir Yehudi Menuhin for his 80th birthday. "Clapping Music" is performed on this album by Steve Reich himself and Kristjan Järvi. CD 1 includes Live performances at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig / CD 2 includes studio recordings. (Presto Classical)

Simone Dinnerstein / Kristjan Järvi / MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra BROADWAY - LAFAYETTE

Sony Classical released pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s newest album, Broadway-Lafayette, in February 2015. The music on this album celebrates the time-honored transatlantic link between France and America through the music of George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Maurice Ravel (Piano Concerto in G Major), and Philip Lasser (The Circle and the Child: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, written for Dinnerstein). The album was recorded with conductor Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

Of Broadway-Lafayette, Simone says, “Over the centuries, France and America have influenced and supported each other in many ways, and this music explores the link between the two cultures. George Gerswhin is the quintessential American composer. He immortalized his own trip to France in American in Paris and his music broaches aesthetic boundaries in a way that few other composers have managed – he combines the tunefulness and syncopation of jazz and popular music with the rich harmonies and rhythmic creativity of high art. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is particularly present in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, written in 1929, the year after Ravel met Gershwin while on tour in the U.S. Philip Lasser, this album’s living composer, is the son of a French mother and an American father, and grew up in a bilingual household. His musical voice is an amalgam of both worlds, circling around Bach’s sun. His piano concerto, written for me in 2012, incorporates the Bach Chorale “Ihr Gestirn, ihr hohen Lüfte.” The work explores ideas of travel and discovery, and of memory and return.”