HANG ON TO A DREAM collects every studio recording Tim Hardin made for the Verve/Forecast label. It includes 30 selections originally released on his four self-titled albums, as well as 17 previously unreleased recordings.

"Je Recherche", premier single décliné au masculin/féminin, nous ouvre les portes du nouvel album de Mauss. À l’écoute de ce titre, un mid-tempo aux effets immédiats garantis, on se dit que l’ami Mauss, prénom Fabrice pour l’état civil, a parcouru un sacré bout de chemin depuis la sortie de sa paire de démos, à l’aube du nouveau millénaire.

" …Nelson Rangell has primarily played pop-jazz throughout his career, although he did a credible job playing some soulful alto with the straight-ahead GRP All-Star Big Band. The records he cut for GRP in the early '90s made him into a popular contemporary jazz attraction in the David Sanborn tradition"

Wibi Soerjadi was born in 1970 in Leiden, Netherlands. After only four years of studying at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, he took an early exam as performing musician. He obtained the highest result possible, an A with honourable degree. In 1985, he won first prize at the Princess Christina Concours in The Hague. In 1988, he won first prize at the National Eurovision Competition for young musicians. Being the youngest contestant and the only Dutch person in the final, he won the third prize at the International Franz Liszt Piano competition in Utrecht in 1989, which is known as one of the hardest piano competitions in the world…..

I'd like to burn some chicks or hags,
I'd like some kiddies too.
I wish I had a hundred chimneys,
Like they have in Birkenau!

The world is only just beginning to count the cost and to pay homage to those who perished in the Holocaust. This American Composers Forum disc makes an important contribution to the debt we owe these thousands of people. It provides a heart-rending aural picture of some of the music that was performed so bravely and defiantly in the concentration camps, and honours the musicians who died at the hands of Hitler's hostile regime. Much of the craziness of the time comes across in the music, even without understanding the words.

Sung in English, Spanish, and Latin, this warm and sometimes moving oratorio humanizes the Nativity by emphasizing Mary's perspective and the miracle of birth. Based on a variety of sources, including the New Testament Apocrypha and contemporary Latin American poetry, El Niño begins with the steady repetition of a D minor chord, followed by the introduction of polyrhythms and dissonance, as well as countertenors Brian Cummings and Dan Brubeck. Both of them, as well as the third countertenor, Steven Rickards, give golden performances on this album. Particular kudos, however, must go to the three principals: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano; Dawn Upshaw, soprano; and Willard White, baritone. Even though there are moments when White's baritone threatens to dominate, they aren't significant enough to forestall any pleasure in the overall work.

On Awakening, his second album for Columbia Records, Leon Parker continues to shake things up, mixing worldbeat and funk with hard bop. It's an ambitious record but one that is surprisingly successful; it reveals more upon each listen, becoming a thoroughly enchanting record. - AMG

Covering the most fertile decades of the avant-garde movement in the United States, American String Quartets, 1950-1970 is a comprehensive survey of the most influential works in this concentrated genre. Broadly divided, these quartets represent either the full-flowering of post-Webern serialism or the more esoteric, philosophical conceptions of the group associated with John Cage. Several rely on tone rows and serial methods, notably the intensely organized quartets of Stefan Wolpe, Jacob Druckman, and Lejaren Hiller's controlled experiment with quarter tones. The works of Cage, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, and Morton Feldman are more freely derived, and their ideas range from the extreme pointillism of Wolff's "Summer" to the proto-ambience of Feldman's "Structures." Somewhat outside the serial/intuitive dichotomy are Leon Kirchner's "String Quartet No. 3" and George Crumb's "Black Angels." Both are augmented with electronic sounds or additional instruments, and the coloristic possibilities of the quartet are expanded in these innovative pieces. The Concord String Quartet made its debut with this recording, and it is wholly persuasive. Although its reading of "Black Angels" was arguably surpassed by the Kronos Quartet, the rest of the performances may be considered definitive.

Some of the greatest chamber pieces by Elliott Carter, America's patriarch of modern music. Released by the superb French label Montaigne Naïve.