Tesla Quartet HAYDN, RAVEL, STRAVINSKY

Our debut album is all about taking a look at the familiar in a new light, a process of reflection. As we approached the 10 year milestone as an ensemble, we found ourselves looking back over the last decade for inspiration. One obvious pillar of our artistic identity has been Joseph Haydn, whose quartets we have performed in every season without fail since the very beginning. And what better place to begin? The C Major Quartet, Op.54 No.2 has become one of our favourites in recent seasons, particularly because, after having already written 41 quartets, Haydn somehow manages to produce a work of sheer brilliance and utter beauty, still toying with the conventions and expectations he himself established for the genre.

Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major has been my favourite quartet since the first time I heard it at a summer music camp as a young teenager, and it’s the piece that motivated me to dedicate my life to string quartets. My colleagues and I all agreed that this work had to be on the album, but how would we relate it to Haydn, who had been dead almost a century before Ravel even conceived of his singular quartet? One of the pioneering Neo-Classicists of the early 20^th Century, Ravel was constantly reaching back through time and bringing old forms into new light. The quartet itself can even be seen as a reflection upon itself, with thematic material from the first movement appearing throughout the whole work, recast in different light, time, and space.

I have always lamented the fact that Ravel only wrote one string quartet, so I began looking through his piano music to see if there were any pieces I could arrange for the quartet. It didn’t take me long to find the elegiac Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn, a short piano piece Ravel composed in homage to Haydn on the centenary of his death in 1809. I found that his Menuet antique, which the composer had later orchestrated himself, worked well as a quartet, as did the diminutive Menuet in C-sharp minor, published posthumously.

How did we make the leap to Stravinsky? His friendship with Ravel and shared Neo-Classical spirit bring their musical kinship to life. But while Ravel seems to delight in the seamless interweaving of past and present, Stravinsky rips the old styles from their ancient roots and thrusts them vigorously into the modern era with a vitality akin to Haydn – just another reminder that there is always more than one view of history.

So rather than starting at the beginning, we find ourselves at the turn of the 20^th Century with Ravel’s String Quartet, reflecting on a genre that has been perhaps the most intimate and personal for all composers since Haydn’s time. As the minuets weave their way through the album, the lines between past and present blur, creating a new time and space to enjoy these wonderful works. (Ross Snyder)

Jiyoon Lee / Henry Kramer MYTHES

As part of her prize for winning the Windsor Festival International Strings Competition in 2015, South Korean violinist Jiyoon Lee makes her debut recording on Champs Hill Records with duo partner Henry Kramer in a recital of Stravinsky, Wieniawski, Bartok, Szymanowski and Ravel. · Winning the David Oistrakh competition in 2013, Jiyoon Lee subsequently won prizes in the Indianapolis, Queen Elizabeth and Carl Nielsen competitions, in addition to Windsor, and is now performing around the world. Henry Kramer has similarly won prizes in the Queen Elizabeth and Montreal competitions and an award winner at the Julliard School.

Nadine Sierra THERE'S A PLACE FOR US

Nadine Sierra, 2018 winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s prestigious Beverly Sills Artist Award, has made her first album for Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Gold, having signed an exclusive contract with the labels last year. Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Robert Spano, There’s a Place for Us is scheduled for international release on 24 August 2018, in time to mark the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth the following day. The album presents the soprano’s stunning vocal abilities in an eclectic choice of American classical music – as well as works by Bernstein, the repertoire ranges from Stephen Foster and Douglas Moore to Stravinsky and Villa-Lobos, and on again to Ricky Ian Gordon, Osvaldo Golijov and Christopher Theofanidis, with texts in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. After singing the role of Norina (Don Pasquale) at the Paris Opéra in June and July, Nadine Sierra will perform music from the album at this summer’s major US festivals, including an appearance at Tanglewood’s star-studded Bernstein Centennial Celebration.

America’s founding colonists were sustained by the belief that they were building “a city on the hill”, a place that would serve as a model to all mankind. Countless migrants have journeyed there since to share the American dream. Nadine Sierra’s story stands for the stories of millions whose families have made a fresh start in the United States. The critically acclaimed lyric soprano and Fort Lauderdale native, who celebrated her 30th birthday in May, understands the essential contribution made by migrants to the nation’s growth. Her mother is Portuguese, while her father’s family hails from Puerto Rico and Italy. There’s a Place for Us, Sierra’s Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Gold debut album, pays tribute to the diverse backgrounds and creative energy of America’s classical composers. It also presents a timely reminder of unity and equality, of integration and optimism, at a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is increasing, and fault-lines are widening between divided communities in the US and beyond.