It's a busy time of year for new release CDs, so host Michael Wolch will feature a few of them, including Tafelmusik and Gryphon Trio.

 

It's the most wonderful time of the year.........for new music! Almost every day I get envelopes delivered from record companies and publicists from across the world, so it is kind of like Christmas as I unwrap the gifts of music. Some of the CDs will make it into the maybe pile, some will get rejected as not suited to our station, while others are immediately put into our system to grace our airwaves. I have chosen a couple to feature this weekend that are among my favourites of the last few weeks: Tafelmusik: Tales of Two Cities; and Jordan Pal: Into The Wonder. 

Tafelmusik: Tale of Two Cities is a celebration of music and culture in the 18th century cities of Damascus and Leipzig. Both cities lay at the crossroads of of ancient trading routes and were important centres of scholarship and the dissemination of ideas. They were also famous for their coffe houses, where music was performed by the most brilliant musicans of the day. Tafelmusik presents music by Bach, Telemann, handel as well as treasures of classical Arabic music as they might have been enjoyed by coffe drinkers of the past.

The CD set also comes with a full concert DVD featuring Tafelmusik with Trio Arabica. 

 

 

Equally wonderful and evocative is a new release by one of Canada's most exciting new generation composers Jordan Pal: Into The Wonder. 

Described as “one to watch” (LaPresse), Pal (b. Toronto, Canada) is a leading voice of his generation in the Canadian concert music scene. An award winning composer, he has had the privilege of being commissioned and performed by many of Canada’s finest orchestras and ensembles. His work, praised as “evocative,” “full of colour and emotion,” “beautifully crafted” (American Record Guide), and displaying a “clear sense of craft and expression” and “skilled orchestration,” has been lauded by audiences, critics and leading industry professionals. Pal is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s RBC Affiliate Composer. His work The Afar was nominated for a Juno for Classical Composition of the Year (2016).

His newest CD is entitled Into The Wonder and it features The Gryphon Trio with Arthur Post and The Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Two new compositions featured are Starling and Into The Wonder. Starling is a portrait of the starlings as they prepare to roost for the winter season, a celestail display of natural wonder.

Into The Wonder is a three movement piece that celebrates the creative will of our universe, evoking birth and death, creation and destruction, universal interconnectedness and the rapture of love. It also seeks to capture the mystery awe and wonder of life. 

 

 

Tune in at 2:00 for the new Tafelmusik, and then 3:00 for the new Jordan Pal CD. Two hours of exciting new music!

 

And, besides the new releases, I will have an hours dedicated to A Short History of the Ballet; Colours; Symphony; and Contemporary Classics. Wow, lots of great stuff this weekend, so tune in, beginning at noon this Saturday.