On July 20, 2018, double bassist Christian McBride presented his band ‘New Jawn’ at the Malta Jazz Festival. A five-time Grammy winner, McBride is one of the most requested, most recorded, and most respected figures in the music world today. Hailing from Philadelphia, this music luminary combines jazz, R&B, pop/rock, hip hop/neo-soul, and classical. Gracing the Malta Jazz stage with him are Nasheet Waits (drums), Marcus Strickland (tenor sax), and Josh Evans (trumpet).
The Hermes Experiment, consisting of Heloise Werner (soprano), Oliver Pashley (clarinet), Anne Denholm (harp) and Marianne Schofield (double bass) is a UK-based contemporary quartet made up of harp, clarinet, voice and double bass. Capitalising on their deliberately idiosyncratic combination of instruments, the ensemble regularly commissions new works, as well as creating their own innovative arrangements and venturing into live free improvisation. The ensemble has commissioned over 50 composers at various stages of their careers. During this showcase recorded at Classical:NEXT 2019 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, The Hermes Experiment performs “I Am Happy Living Simply'”and “The End of the Ending” by Emily Hall, “Samsara” by Alex Mills, and “Double Fiesta” by Meredith Monk.
GusGus was founded in 1995 as a collective of film music creators. After signing a contract with the 4AD label the following year, GusGus became one of the most popular electro formations in Iceland, a status that was cemented internationally by the release of Polydistortion in 1997 Over the next two decades, GusGus explored virtually every sub-genre of electronic music, from house to trance, to techno and trip-hop. Discover GusGus at the Sónar Reykjavík 2018 festival, where founding members Biggi Veira and Daníel Ágúst present the latest album from the band, Lies Are More Flexible. With his exceptional vocal talent, fascinating electronic hacks and subtle arrangements, GusGus promises to impress you.
Considered to be one of the most unique ensembles to feature on the Czech scene in the last 25 years, the style of the Clarinet Factory hovers between contemporary and classical music, jazz and world music. As winners of the Classic Prague Awards in 2017 for 'Best Crossover Project', the quartet combines their classic music training and clarinet art with jazz, minimalism and improvisation to create their very own music without borders, capable of communicating directly with all audiences. The Clarinet Factory also experiment with electronics, both ambient and dance-oriented, and the four musicians remain ever fascinated with the possibilities of their instrument, considering their work as a music laboratory. Regularly collaborating with symphonic ensembles, vocalists, performance artists, the quartet have written music for film, theatre, ballet and contemporary dance. In this performance from 2019's Classical:NEXT!, the ensemble interprets their own works: "Bird Song", "Husa divoká", "B-A-C-H", "Hikari", "Luda's Dance" and "L'Amour". The Clarinet Factory is made up of Vojtěch Nýdl (clarinet and vocals), Luděk Boura (clarinet), Jindřich Pavliš (clarinet), and Petr Valášek (bass clarinet).
The American DJ/producer - known for his enigmatic combinations of grooving, melancholic and ecstatic house and techno - visited the museum for some ground-level inspiration, and will share this during this once a lifetime event under the ever so stunning Rijksmuseum. This is the first time the museum collaborates on a project that revolves around electronic music, matching its vision to inspire visitors and to let them experience art in exciting new ways Initiated by Audio Obscura, this is the next step in connecting world-class artists with legendary, historical locations.
Harpsichordist and organist Sébastien Daucé leads Ensemble Correspondances in this concert recorded as part of the Valletta International Baroque Festival of 2017 at the Co-Cathédrale de St-Jean de la Valette in Malta. The concert opens with a rendition of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s late-17th century composition Te Deum. The joyful and popular prelude of this piece is familiar to many as the Eurovision Anthem. Furthermore, the concert program is made up of motets by Henry du Mont (1610-1694), an organist and baroque composer of the French school, born in the Southern Netherlands. Among his musical heirs were Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) and François Couperin (1668-1733).
Oum El Ghait Benessahraoui, who is better known as Oum, gives a unique glance at ethnic Morrocan musical esthetics. The singer-songwriter is considered to be the ambassador of Morrocan culture, too. Deeply influenced by gospel, jazz, soul and R&B genres, today Oum mixes more and more African music genres, such as Sufi, Hassani, or Afrobeat. Yet, the singer’s voice still echoes the colours of Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald or Whitney Houston. It is the African American vocal tradition that made a huge impact on Oum since her early days as the singer. Performing from Music Meeting Festival in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Oum charms the stage with an exotic sonic journey to the undiscovered lands of North Africa.
Sonya Lifschitz is a pianist working across many contexts, with repertoire spanning from 15th century Faenza Codex to works written for her today. She is known for her fiercely imaginative, daring collaborations across film, animation, spoken word, visual and performance art. Robert Davidson has been making music from language since childhood. He has created music from the voices of Australia's prime ministers, from 100 years of radio broadcasts and from stories of asylum seekers and indigenous members of Australia's Stolen Generations. This performance is recorded during Classical:NEXT 2019 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Perhaps you know Sleaford Mods from their collaboration with The Prodigy on The Day Is My Enemy album for which they recorded the track “Ibiza” together. Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn are Sleaford Mods, the electronic punk duo hailing from Nottingham. Up until 2012, Jason Williamson worked together with Simon Parfrement, who left the music production to Andrew Fearn. In 2015, Sleaford Mods was nominated for the IMPALA Album of the Year Award for their album Key Markets. At the 2019 We Love Green festival in Paris, they play tracks from their latest album Eton Alive.
Since 1994, World Music Expo (WOMEX) has been attracting musicians, agents, a great number of press agencies, as well as media companies from all over the world. Its main exposition event has been held in various locations throughout Europe, including Berlin, Brussels, Marseille, Stockholm, Seville, Cardiff, and Budapest. In 2018, WOMEX was held in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. One of its showcase participants, Norayr Kartashyan, is acclaimed as one of Armenia’s finest woodwind masters and composers, an acknowledged virtuoso numerous traditional Armenian instruments. To name a few: the blul and shvi flutes, duduk, the double-reed zurna trumpet, the pku clarinet, and the parkapzuk bagpipe. Kartashyan’s compositions are gently unfolding, delicately intertwined evocations of rural music with a timeless connection to the earth, full of beauty and warmth.
With Afrojack, Galantis, Sam Feldt, Lost Frequencies, and many more, the sold-out, two-day event had over 60,000 fans. Mysteryland dates back to 1993 and is now the world’s longest-running electronic music, culture, and art festival in the world. The first international edition of Mysteryland was held in Chile in 2011. In May 2014, Mysteryland made its stateside debut at the site of the legendary 1969 Woodstock Festival.
Since 1994, World Music Expo (WOMEX) has been attracting musicians, agents, a great number of press agencies, as well as media companies from all over the world. Its main exposition event has been held in various locations throughout Europe, including Berlin, Brussels, Marseille, Stockholm, Seville, Cardiff, and Budapest. In 2018, WOMEX was held in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. One of its showcase participants, Ladama, is a quintet of women multi-instrumentalists from Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia and the United States who not only perform as a touring band, but also strive to engage youth in their respective communities in the process of musicmaking, composition and audio production through collaboration and performance workshops. Ladama is a positive force in times urgently in need of tolerance and communication.
Atys en folie is a parody of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s lyrical tragedy Atys (1676). Atys, Lully’s most famous opera, was a constant subject of parody throughout the 18th century. Stage director Jean-Philippe Desrousseaux drew on several parodies to create this original production for singers, puppets, and musicians to revive the work. Princes, princesses, and kings are relegated to peasants, market gardeners, and fishmongers in the countryside. Among the performers are Alain Buet, Marie Lenormand, and Arnaud Marzorati. Gaëlle Trimardeau, Bruno Coulon and Jean-Philippe Desrousseaux feature as puppeteers. The music is performed by ensemble La Clique des Lunaisiens, conducted by Arnaud Marzorati. This performance was recorded at Teatru Manoel in Valletta, Malta, in 2017.
The Amazing Keystone Big Band performs material from their album “We Love Ella” at this 2019 recording from Salle Pleyel in Paris, France. Led by trombonist Bastien Ballaz, saxophonist Jon Boutellier, pianist Fred Nardin and trumpeter David Enhco, The Amazing Keystone Big Band helps young and adult audiences all over the world discover jazz in all its guises. "We Love Ella" is a reinvention of legendary vocalist Ella Fitzgerald's greatest successes.
Jeditah is an experimental songwriter, producer and singer from Amsterdam. She works with Brendan Jan Walsh on cello and Jordy Pama on synths and electronics. From an early age on, Jeditah has been immersed in the world of music, travelling with her parents as a music collective. She finds inspiration in the works of acclaimed artists like Björk, James Blake, Laurie Anderson and PJ Harvey. When she began experimenting with making her own music, she first only utilized her own voice, lowering and altering it, and eventually adding electronic beats and synths. With Electric AlleyCat, Jeditah has established her position as a singer and songwriter. In between performing and recording with the band, she creates layered soundscapes from old recordings and homemade samples. It's here where she develops her very own sound: playful, melancholic and adventurous – music that speaks to the imagination of the listener. In this concert from 2019's Classical:NEXT!, she performs "Horseman" "You & Me, "Lay Down", "The Night", "Differently" and "Private Space".
Jazz in Duketown is the largest free outdoor jazz festival in the Netherlands. It's a real gathering for jazz addicts, inviting internationally renowned artists. Israeli-American double bassist Omer Avital plays radiantly energetic, resounding jazz with oriental influences. At Jazz in Duketown 2019, Avital forms a quintet with saxophonists Asaf Yuria and Alexander Levin, drummer Ofri Nehemya, and pianist Eden Ladin. They present singular repertoire from Avital's album 'Qantar'.
Since 1994, World Music Expo (WOMEX) has been attracting musicians, agents, a great number of press agencies, as well as media companies from all over the world. Its main exposition event has been held in various locations throughout Europe, including Berlin, Brussels, Marseille, Stockholm, Seville, Cardiff, and Budapest. In 2018, WOMEX was held in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. One of its showcase participants, Moonlight Benjamin, blends together Voodoo blues, Haitian rock and Creole roll into a riff-heavy, groove-laden sonic concoction built on the tension between her powerful voice and saturated electric guitars.
Popa Chubby, born as Ted Horowitz, is an American blues singer and guitarist, who has become one of the most popular figures of New York's blues scene. Early on in his career he released the album 'Booty and the Beast' (1995), which became one of the 1990s's best-selling blues albums. Chubby describes his own style as "The Stooges meets Buddy Guy, Motörhead meets Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix meets Robert Johnson". As part of the French music festival Blues sur Seine, Chubby and his band played a great blues rock concert, showcasing the artist’s powerful and soulful guitar playing. This performance was recorded at Théâtre Simone Signoret on November 8, 2019.
In 2019, the vibrant city of Sofia, Bulgaria, hosted the International A to JazZ Festival. Among the featured acts was the trailblazing jazz trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. This genre-defying artist captivated the audience with his eclectic “stretch music”; an approach that incorporates hip-hop and reaches back through the American canon into African percussion and its rich melodic content. Trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s quintet, which includes drummer Corey Fonville, percussionist Weedie Braimah, pianist Lawrence Fields, and bass guitarist Max Mucha, delivered a performance that defied boundaries and expectations.
In The Opera Locos (“The Opera of Crazies”), a comic opera show from the Spanish theater company Yllana and theatre producer Rami Eldar, five eccentric opera singers perform some of the greatest opera arias. Classical arias from George Bizet’s Carmen, W. A. Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto are combined with classics from the pop and rock repertoire. During the performance, the five characters reveal their hidden passions, personalities, and desires, leading to unpredictable, hilarious situations that audiences of all ages will appreciate. The soloists are Florian Laconi (tenor), Margaux Toqué (mezzo soprano), Michaël Koné (countertenor), Laurent Arcaro (baritone), and Diane Fourès (soprano). This performance was recorded at Théâtre Libre in Paris, France.
Since 1994, World Music Expo (WOMEX) has been attracting musicians, agents, a great number of press agencies, as well as media companies from all over the world. Its main exposition event has been held in various locations throughout Europe, including Berlin, Brussels, Marseille, Stockholm, Seville, Cardiff, and Budapest. The 2018 edition of WOMEX was held in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. One of its showcase participants, Mario Batkovic, aims to explore the sonic possibilities of the accordion, without effects or loops, rather through a mutualist symbiotic relationship between man and instrument. Challenging, hypnotic, and grandiose, Batkovic’s single-handed symphonic vision is certainly unique.
Strongly influenced by Hispanic culture, the English singer-songwriter Anna Calvi makes her voice and guitar vibrate with the ardor of flamenco. She gives a powerful, biting, and incredibly moving performance at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. This performance is part of a European tour to promote Anna Calvi’s album Hunter, produced by Nick Launay, and recorded in London and Los Angeles. The album is raw and imbued with the primary energy with which Anna Calvi pushes the limits of her guitar and voice in ways she had never done before. Songs from the setlist include “Hunter,” “Away,” and “Alpha,” with an incredibly generous encore in which Anna performs “Jezebel,” “Desire,” and “Ghost Rider.”
The vibrant island of Malta was in for a night of light and cheerful music when Brazilian music legend João Bosco took the stage on July 21, 2018. The self-taught guitarist made his music debut in the 1970s alongside Elis Regina and Aldir Blanc. In 2018, with guitarist Ricardo Silveira, bassist João Baptista and drummer Kiko Freitas, Bosco introduces us to his trademark melting pot of bossa nova, samba and MPB, sparingly influenced by contemporary jazz. Following his phenomenal successes in his native Brazil, the enthusiasm of the Maltese crowd underlines that João Bosco is now gradually achieving his long-overdue recognition elsewhere.
