Delightful musicians you won’t find through Amazon

By PHK

I’ve been surprised at the number of excellent classical musicians who sell CDs of their performances in the lobby after concerts. Maybe I’m a little slow, but I first ran across this marketing phenomenon a couple of years ago in the Washington, DC area. I thought I would be able to find their CDs later as easily on the web or in stores – like Borders, Tower Records or Barnes & Noble – that carry seemingly endless stocks. On a rare occasion this has proven true – but far less frequently than I expected.

But like blogging, there are ways around the stranglehold of the “superstar name only” fixation of the recording industry. The good news is that some artists are taking advantage of it: Not only through the sale of CDs at a concert, but also through their own web-pages whether maintained by their representatives or developed and launched on their own.

What I also have discovered is that their recordings are often far more interesting than the over digitally mixed ones designed for mass sales - perhaps because, as one performer told me recently, the edge is still there- the mixing and reproduction in a big-time sound studio by big-time sound technicians too often strips out the vitality, the humanness and the emotion of the performer flattening the dynamics and eliminating the texture in a misbegotten goal of apparently appealing to the greatest number and less so the discerning listener.

Here are links to the webpages of three excellent musicians – pianists Danae Kara and Hyperion Knight and guitarist Jeremy Mayne - whose work I particularly like and would not hesitate to recommend to others.

Danae Kara is a Greek pianist who lives in Athens and whose repertoire includes various Greek composers from the popular Theodorakis and Hadjidakis to the lesser known Skalkottas and Kalomiras. Kara has also recorded Brahms and Mendellsohn on the Italian label, Agora. I remember hearing Danae perform in Athens in the 1980s – she was not only a wonderful pianist with an unusual repertoire but a delightful person as well. Kara’s recording of “Johannes Brahms: the last piano works” (2000) is the only CD of hers that I was able to locate here – and that I did find through Amazon.

I first heard Hyperion Knight on August 5 perform Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Santa Fe
Symphony and it was electric.

This young California born, New York based pianist is no first-timer to New Mexico and it is clear that he and Lori Lovato, the symphony’s principal clarinetist, enjoy performing together a lot. His 1997 recording “Rhapsody” that features “Rhapsody in Blue” and other works that bring the worlds of classical music and jazz together is listed on Amazon – but the recording itself is unavailable. Good thing I bought a copy from him in the lobby of the Lensic after the concert – as did lots of others there.


Finally, I thought I’d conclude with Jeremy Mayne, a young Albuquerque based guitarist who I heard last month in a mini-recital here in town. His 1998 recording of Spanish composers Narvaez, Sanz, Sor, Albeniz, Turina and Asencio spans a period of guitar composition from the early 16th century to 1979 and is a delightful introduction to the world of works by lesser played Spanish composers. Mayne’s CD “Cancion del Emperador” is only available from him through his website. Mayne also performs on the steel guitar and “Rhythmscapes,” (2004) is a collection of his own compositions. They too are well worth hearing.

Now, if I could only locate CDs of Eugene Bozza’s Opus 43 “Shepherds of Provence” for oboe and English horn (it did win the 1st Grand Prize of Rome after all) and R. Benitez’ “Pange Lingua (Danza de Seises para el Corpus Christi)” which I heard in the Seville Cathedral during Corpus Christi and performed a few days later in an early summer concert by the Orchestra of Cordoba. Suggestions anyone?

Comments

[jaggu]

good