• Obscure Atlas - Maya Fridman, Konstantyn Napolov, Helena Basilova 01

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Obscure Atlas

    Let us start off by thanking the wonderful people at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht (NL) from the bottom of our hearts for this opportunity to record at their legendary Grote Zaal (Big Hall). It’s been a blast. When Konstantyn, Helena and Maya suggested to record Aart Strootman’s piece Obscure Atlas, and Daniel Wohl’s Microscope, two pieces …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording Silent City

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Silent City

    Almost exactly two months ago, we found ourselves in at the start of a lockdown due to a world-wide pandemic. As the world shut down, the culture industry went with it. Concerts, recording sessions, rehearsals, everything got cancelled to try and ward this virus up from picking up steam, to flatten the curve as it …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording songs by Paul E. Gay

    Behind the Scenes: Recording songs by Paul E. Gay

    I just got back from this recording session and just had to write about it. It’s just been so much fun to work with these incredible musicians and composer Paul Edward Gay, who’s written songs based on poetry by Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and himself. On piano was Artem Belogurov (who’s already building up quite …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording Halo

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Halo

    The piccolo is this tiny flute with seemingly no recognition as a serious solo instrument. This is mainly due to the small amount of repertoire from it, and so flutist Ilonka Kolthof set up the Dutch Piccolo Project to promote this great yet small instrument and its amazing pallette of sounds, by commissioning composers from …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording The Zoo

    Behind the Scenes: Recording The Zoo

    What a fantastic project this has been! Violinist Merel Vercammen set out to record fully free improvisations with eight other classical and jazz artists. After listening to all of the improvisations that came from this, all sorts of animals came to her mind, hence calling the album The Zoo. Each improvisation got titled after an …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba

    Only a few times in your life, you’re faced with the chance of a lifetime. For me, as a recording producer as well as an early-music-lover, my chance of a lifetime was when I was asked by Ralph Rousseau to record Telemann’s recently-discovered 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba, that had been thought lost for …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording A Fearful Fairy Tale

    Behind the Scenes: Recording A Fearful Fairy Tale

    Last week, we recorded Russian-Dutch pianist Helena Basilova performing a programme of beautiful fairy-tale music for solo piano (with a hint of additional cello provided by Maya Fridman). The album, titled A Fearful Fairy Tale, will be out this summer, so stay tuned! Good to be back! After such a wonderful session with Alexander Warenberg …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording Canti d’inizio e fine

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Canti d’inizio e fine

    This album has been a special one. Canti d’inizio e fine (“songs of the beginning and the end”), written by Maxim Shalygin, was written about the Holocaust and the circle of life and death. Each of the six movements was named after each of the ancient Jewish Angels of Death: Gabriel, Samael, Kapziel, Azrael, Abbadon …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording Sonatas

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Sonatas

    There’s something about musical families that just plain enjoyable to record with. Russian-Dutch Alexander Warenberg is someone from such a family: there are many Warenbergs in our classical music industry, all with great talents. And so, together with extraordinary pianist Giuseppe Guarrera, Alexander set out to record two behemoths of sonatas by Dmitri Shostakovich and …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording The Collectors

    Behind the Scenes: Recording The Collectors

    Music for piano and percussion. A duo with without a lot of repertoire, but nonetheless a duo that has the ability to be much more expressive and explosive than any other duo imaginable. The beautiful sonority of a big Fazioli concert grand piano and a collection of the most interestingly varied percussion I’ve ever seen, …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording Remgewogen

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Remgewogen

    With an album title composed by the autocorrect feature of a phone, this album promised to be a fun one to record! And so it was. Going Dutch For Remgewogen, guitarist Martin van Hees wanted to feature contemporary Dutch works written for solo classical guitar. By composers such as Roderik de Man, Louis Andriessen, and …

  • Behind the Scenes: Recording Where The Fence Is The Highest

    Behind the Scenes: Recording Where The Fence Is The Highest

    A chance encounter, that’s all it takes sometimes. I found out about Teis Semey and his music from a YouTube video I saw of him performing one of his suites with his ensemble. I decided to send him a message to see if he’d like to hang out and talk about maybe doing a project …

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