The first recording on Challenge Classics by the wonderful Dutch baroque orchestra, La Sfera Armoniosa. For its debut, La Sfera Armoniosa and its artistic director Mike Febtross have chosen orchestral music and arias from operas by Henry Purcell. Well-known baroque specialist, soprano Johannette Zomer joins the orchestra in this live recording.

The debut album by young countertenor Oscar Verhaar showcases eight arias drawn from Handel's English oratorios.

Welcome to the bewitching world of Circus Dinogad in which Welsh contralto Hilary Summers, the Dutch theorbo & bass clarinet duo Mike Fentross & Maarten Ornstein and the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam converge in a fusion of musical traditions.

The booklet for this release tells us that it is not only a world premiere recording but that La Rosinda has been revived on only one other occasion since the 17th century. Baroque opera enthusiasts should be circling, then, for this is a work in which Cavalli’s skills as an opera composer who can mix fluidity of text with just enough lyricism to make musical drama that is both compelling and attractive are clearly displayed.

In Dowland’s words: “ingenuous profession of Musicke, which from my childhoode I have ever aymed at,… the better to attain so excellent a science”. Mike Fentross achieves this “divine science of musicke” by wooing his audience by “speaking harmony” on his sweet lute. His art entwines harmony and poetry, albeit often a melancholic art, which is then framed by the proportions of rhythm. His art teaches, stirs and delights the heart and soul of his honorable listeners in profound ways. Mike Fentross first studied with Toyohiko Satoh at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, then with Nigel North and José Miguel Moreno.

Working in 17th-century Venice soon after the worlds first public opera houses opened there, composer Francesco Cavalli had no tradition to follow. He gave his fertile imagination free rein, tinkering with the brand-new art form to create the lively Venetian style of opera, with its melodious arias, sprightly dance rhythms, free-wheeling mythological or historical plots and generous dollops of comedy. Like most of Cavallis operas, Ilpermestra wasnt performed between the late 17th century and recent years. Ilpermestra was written on the occasion of the birth of King Philip IV of Spains first son in 1658. It was one of the most magnificent operas to have ever been staged. This is the world premiere recording of the opera, made after a live stage performance in Utrecht in 2006.

Laula! is the third album by Mike Fentross and Maarten Ornstein; following our debut duo album, Oblivion Soave and having worked with Rima Khcheich on our second album Ombre de Mon Amant, we are once again collaborating with an extraordinary singer — the Estonian mezzo-soprano Kadri Tegelmann. She is not only a superb interpreter of the Baroque music, as featured here, but she also introduced us to the deep and rich tradition of Baltic vocal music with its many folksongs, hymns and chants.