Premiered at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2022 – with Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming and Kelli O’Hara as its stars – Kevin Puts’s The Hours was praised by The New York Times as “sincere and persuasive … fervent … and soaringly lyrical”. The opera returns to the Met’s schedule in May 2024. Based on both the award-winning 2002 film directed by Stephen Daldry and the original novel by Michael Cunningham, The Hours interweaves characters and events from three different periods of the 20th century. Joyce DiDonato, who takes the pivotal role of writer Virginia Woolf, says that: “Even though it deals with death head-on, the piece is life-affirming and tells a timeless story. The characters’ struggles are shared universally, and by highlighting them through the different personalities and periods, hopefully everybody can find a part of themselves in the story.”

ATMA Classique proudly presents Jean Sibelius’ Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. Recorded at Maison symphonique de Montréal, this new release is part of our complete cycle of Sibelius symphonies launched in 2019 with Symphony No. 1.

Electrifying conductor, brilliant composer, gifted pianist, inspiring teacher: Leonard Bernstein is one of the most famous and influential musicians of all time. Deutsche Grammophon is proud to partner with Netflix to release the Original Soundtrack Recording from one of the most anticipated films of the year: Bradley Cooper’s MAESTRO. The Hollywood superstar directs and stars as the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Carey Mulligan plays the actress Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, his wife for nearly three decades until her death. MAESTRO has been receiving fantastic buzz and critical acclaim at various Film Festivals and is already a strong contender for awards season coming up. Exclusive DG artist Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the London Symphony Orchestra.

Randall Goosby presents his new album with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He has recorded the popular Violin Concerto by Max Bruch and the two Violin Concertos by Florence Price. The album also includes Price's Adoration in an arrangement for string ensemble.

To mark the 150th anniversary of one of the most popular of all classical composers, Grammyr-winning conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his 'Fabulous Philadelphians' present Rachmaninoff's Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3, and the symphonic poem Isle of the Dead. This release completes their two-part survey of the three symphonies and other major orchestral works and, like the first instalment of 2021, continues to build on the orchestra's incomparable Rachmaninoff legacy.

The Philadelphia Orchestra and its Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin continue their pioneering project to revive neglected music by Black American composers. Their latest recording, set for digital release on 15 September, presents Florence Price’s Symphony No. 4 and William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, a work premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra back in 1934.

ATMA Classique proudly presents Jean Sibelius’ Symphonies No. 3 & 4 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. Recorded at Maison symphonique de Montréal, this new release is part of our complete cycle of Sibelius symphonies, launched in 2019 with Symphony No. 1.

Beatrice Rana, partnered by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, performs the piano concertos of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck-Schumann. She complements them with Liszt’s transcription for solo piano of Robert’s song ‘Widmung’, an exuberant dedication of love, composed in the year of Robert and Clara’s marriage. The previous year (1839), Robert had written to Clara: “You complete me as a composer, as I do you. Every thought of yours comes from mysoul, just as I have to thank you for all my music.”

It has often been said that music is a universal language; it is not, though, universally understood as a mother tongue, it is only universally spoken thus. So one must always attempt to hear it like something new, not quite familiar with a tourist's perception. Let's travel, then, and imagine some interesting encounters, where a German Brahms would understand a French Saint-Saëns as much as a Russian Glière, where a Belgian Jongen would make himself understood to an Austrian Kreisler as much as to a British Elgar, and where a trombonist and a pianist would understand themselves mutually. The listener, then, will have the creative opportunity to impart these familiar and less familiar sounds with significance while surrendering to the sheer pleasure of their beauty.

Is there a subgroup of works among the creations of top composers that has been more neglected than Mozart's songs? They're neglected partly because they're a very mixed bag; they were mostly composed for specific purposes, and they don't develop as a group in an orderly way as do, say, the piano concertos. At any rate, any new recording of Mozart's songs is good to have – the album title referring to "Lieder" is a bit misleading, for there are songs in French and Italian here as well as German.

This is the fourth instalment in Deutsche Grammophon’s new Mozart cycle. In the end this will encompass the seven great operas, from Idomeneo forwards. I haven’t heard the previous three, but from the reviews I have seen the reception has been rather mixed. Concerning this latest issue I am also in two minds. The problem, as I see it, is that Nézet-Séguin hasn’t quite decided what he is up to. He has the excellent Chamber Orchestra of Europe at his disposal.

This live recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni inaugurates a series of Mozart operas to be recorded live at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden in southwestern Germany, featuring a galaxy of top operatic stars. The performance marks an impressive beginning indeed for the project. The incongruously named Mahler Chamber Orchestra under French Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin may seem tentative and underpowered to those used to, say, the Vienna Philharmonic, but Nézet-Séguin keeps the music very tightly connected to the singers. The opera stands or falls on the voice and attitude of the seducer Don himself, and the performance of the young Italian bass-baritone Ildebrando d'Arcangelo may come to be seen as a milestone in his career development. He has a low yet lively voice, and he's a completely persuasive Don Giovanni.

This cello concerto is a miracle, both for the listener and for the soloist. The listener is swept along through unexplored terrain. The instrumentation stands out - even for a master like Robin. For a cello, Robin's concerto is innovative and challenging from a technical point of view. The premiere with Yannick and the orchestra was like a celebration - you can hear it. New work only reveals its secrets after a lot of listening, so it is fantastic that this recording is being made. In the summer of 2007, Robin de Raaff wrote Entangled Tales for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Entangled Tales is built up of several layers. It is a continual variation of small elements: rhythms, brief melodies, and ever-changing sounds in the rich palette of a large symphony orchestra. He does not hesitate to use an opulent instrumentation in impressionist and expressionist sphere. For the occasion of its 125th anniversary in 2015, the Het Gelders Orkest asked Robin de Raaff to write a special composition. The result is a symphony of three movements on the concepts of light and dark, referred to as illumination and eclipse. These words do not point to a state of being, but to motion. It is not just about states - light and dark - but also about motion: illumination and eclipse.

World famous mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and conductor-pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin join forces to take on one of the most brilliant song cycles ever written: Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey). DiDonato, however, casts a different light on this beloved cycle of 24 songs in telling their story from the perspective of the woman, the lost love. Nancy Plum, Town Topics writes: “The question of what happened to the woman who sent the narrator on a tortuous journey was not answered in the Wilhelm Müller poetry from which Schubert drew the text, but DiDonato created a scenario onstage of being that woman, reading from the narrator’s journal and responding to the inherent despair.” “What stood out was the heavy emotion that came through in her singing, as she lingered on a syllable here, pressed her tone there. She created vivid feelings with her contrasts” wrote New York Classical Review about Joyce Didonato’s interpretation.