Category: Album Release

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Leaf Music, Rachel Mercer & Kevin Lau Present: “Kevin Lau: Under a Veil of Stars”

(Halifax/Kipuktuk, NS) The St. John-Mercer-Park Trio is proud to present Kevin Lau: Under A Veil of Stars, an album that seeks to be both intimate and cosmic, to find the universal in the particular, and to celebrate the sacred energy music alone has the power to transmit. Kevin Lau: Under A Veil of Stars sees three outstanding musicians actualizing the themes of escapism, surreality, and temporality. Over nine tracks, Under A Veil of Stars careens through several moods and themes, each offering the listener a chance to interpret the meaning through their unique lens, before culminating in the album’s centerpiece: the three-movement Under a Veil of Stars. This piece chronicles the themes and motifs of life’s overarching three stages – childhood, adulthood, and old age. 

Kevin Lau: Under A Veil of Stars is at once intimate and grandiose. Lau writes: “Intimate. Cosmic. Two words that describe not only my ideal musical vision—music that invites us into an experience with the warm, welcoming touch of the familiar, only to then show us the universe—but also the piano trio ensemble itself, which is somehow both very small (three musicians!) and very grand, symphonic even. I am thrilled to have my four piano trios represented on this album, along with a handful of piano trio subsets that I felt complemented these works.” 

One of Canada’s most versatile and sought-after composers, Kevin Lau has been commissioned by some of Canada’s most prominent artists and ensembles, and his work has been performed internationally in the USA, France, Denmark, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. A prolific composer of orchestral, chamber, ballet, opera, and film music, he was appointed Affiliate Composer of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2012; to date, he has produced seven works for the TSO. Shortly after, he was commissioned to write two ballets with choreographer Guillaume Côté: a full-length ballet (Le Petit Prince) for the National Ballet of Canada and a half-hour ballet (Dark Angels) for the National Arts Centre Orchestra. His music is represented on many commercial recordings, including two JUNO Award–winning albums (Mosaïque, Ensemble Made in Canada; Detached, harpist Angela Schwarzkopf). He is currently composer-in-residence of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra; his most recent work, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano Lizzy Hoyt, marks his fourth commission with the MCO. Kevin’s creative output, often inspired by the fantastical and the surreal, is unified by the search for deep connections amidst surface diversity—connections that serve as a metaphor for the reconciliation of seemingly fundamental differences. 

Described as a “pure chamber musician” (Globe and Mail) creating “moments of pure magic” (Toronto Star), Canadian cellist Rachel Mercer has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across five continents. Grand prize winner of the 2001 Vriendenkrans Competition in Amsterdam, Rachel is Principal Cello of the NAC Orchestra in Ottawa and Co-Artistic Director of the “5 at the First” Chamber Music Series in Hamilton. She collaborates regularly with her long-time duo partner, pianist Angela Park, and was cellist of the JUNO Award–winning piano quartet Ensemble Made in Canada (2008–2020), the AYR Trio (2010–2020), and the Aviv Quartet (2002–2010). An advocate for new Canadian music, Rachel has commissioned and premiered over thirty works, including solo and chamber work, and cello concerti by Stewart Goodyear and Kevin Lau. Rachel can be heard on the Naxos, Naxos Canadian Classics, Centrediscs, Analekta, ATMA, Dalia Classics, and EnT-T record labels and released a critically acclaimed album of the Bach Suites on Pipistrelle in March 2014, recorded on the 1696 Bonjour Stradivarius Cello from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank. Rachel plays a seventeenth-century cello from Northern Italy. 

Violinist Scott St. John, from London, Ontario, is Concertmaster and Artistic Partner of the innovative ROCO Chamber Orchestra in Houston, Texas, and teaches chamber music at the University of Toronto. He performs frequently with the St. John-Mercer-Park Piano Trio and returns often to the summertime Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. Early violin success with teacher Richard Lawrence in London, Ontario, gave Scott a path to further studies with David Cerone, Arnold Steinhardt, and Felix Galimir. After playing a Carnegie Hall debut, he lived in NYC and worked for Young Concert Artists. Scott has held the position of Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, and from 2018 to 2021 he was Director of Chamber Music at The Colburn School in Los Angeles. As a member of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, he was Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University. Scott won a JUNO Award for recording Mozart with his sister Lara St. John and founded the Felix Galimir Award for chamber music students at University of Toronto. Scott loves chamber music, Dvorak, new music, music by less-known composers, and a great espresso. 

Angela Park has established herself as one of Canada’s most sought-after pianists. Praised for her “stunningly beautiful pianism” (Grace Welsh Prize, Chicago), “beautiful tone and sensitivity” (American Record Guide), and for performing “with such brilliant clarity it took your breath away” (Chapala, Mexico), Angela’s versatility as both soloist and chamber musician has led to performances across Canada, as well as in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Mexico. Angela was a founding member of the JUNO Award–winning Ensemble Made in Canada, a group she performed with from 2006 to 2022. She has a long-standing duo partnership with cellist Rachel Mercer, performing extensively as the Mercer-Park Duo, the St. John-Mercer-Park Trio with violinist Scott St. John, and with Mayumi Seiler (Seiler Trio). They performed with violinist Yehonatan Berick as the AYR Trio from 2010 to 2020. Other important collaborations include duos with violist Sharon Wei, piano duo concerts with Stéphan Sylvestre, collaborations with violist Rivka Golani and flutist Susan Hoeppner, and trio concerts with clarinetist James Campbell and soprano Leslie Fagan. From 2011 to 2014, Angela was Visiting Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano–Woodwinds at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Angela has been Assistant Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano at Western University since 2019.

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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Leaf Music & City Opera Vancouver Present: “Chinatown”

(KJIPUKTUK) Alice Ping Yee Ho, City Opera Vancouver, and Leaf Music are proud to present Chinatown, a sweeping opera that tells the collective story of thousands of Chinese immigrants who left their homeland between the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries in search of a better life for them and their families. The first opera in Hoisanese and English and the first to fuse authentic Chinese folk dialects and cultures into the world of English opera, Ho’s Chinatown is a tribute to the legacy of the people who toiled under the promise of prosperity, and instead received abuse and hardship. 

Chinatown revolves around the intertwining lives of Saihin and Xon Pon, two young men from  Hoisan county in South China who have come to Canada in search of prosperity. We follow their story as they meet, work together, endure hardships and have families of their own. A collaboration between composer Alice Ping Yee Ho, librettist Madeleine Thien, and Hoisanese translator Paul Yee, Chinatown brings together decades of lived experience from thousands of Chinese immigrants in an intimate and emotionally arresting musical and dramatic soundscape. 

Ho says the opera is intended to be an artistic depiction of the realities facing early 20th century Chinese newcomers. “This album represents an important work that tells the stories and experiences of early Chinese immigrants. It’s clear by the standing ovations and positive reviews that the opera Chinatown is a beautiful and moving story of racism, resilience, and family.  I hope this album will inspire the audience the same way as it was imagined in the theatre – the experience of an epic journey of music and drama, both heart-wrenching and heart-warming.” 

Founding artistic director, Dr. Charles Barber says, “We conceived the idea for CHINATOWN in mid-2017. It was approved and budgeted by the Board, and so began its development. We spent a year searching for the storyteller. Having chosen Madeleine Thien, we commissioned a scenario and thereafter a draft libretto. The Vancouver Foundation made a stupendous lead grant in support of this project, and this process. One year later, we began taking Maddie’s draft to multiple private and public workshops, with professional actors road-testing its language and structures. Translator Paul Yee joined to lead us in the incorporation of Hoisanese in the opera.”  

“Alice Ping Yee Ho was commissioned in 2020, and thereafter we held public music workshops — again in Chinatown venues, and with professional singers. Delayed by COVID, from concept to curtain took five years. CHINATOWN exists because of the inspired collaboration of Alice, Maddie, and Paul, and the many friends and artists who joined in generous support. We thank them all.” 

“For five nights in September 2022, at the Vancouver Playhouse, our audiences heard the results: a story of strength and resilience in the face of great adversity and loss. We believe this piece is a fitting tribute to those who lived and worked in Chinatown, for which they left everything. In this recording, we hope you will be as moved as were they—and we thank you for listening.”  

It is a timely, significant and often beautiful work that proves well worth the wait. The overwhelming strengths of the show are the singers, the orchestral ensemble, and Alice Ping Yee Ho’s enchanting score  –The Vancouver Sun 

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Alice Ping Yee Ho is an award-winning Hong Kong–born Canadian composer known 

for her “distinctly individual” style and “organic flow of imagination.” A two-time Juno Award nominee and a recipient of the Dora Mavor Moore Award, Symphony Nova Scotia’s Maria Anna Mozart Award, Barlow Endowment Commissioning Prize, and Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, her works have been performed by ensembles across the globe, including the Toronto Symphony, Finnish Lapland Chamber Orchestra, Polish Radio Choir, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, and Luxembourg Sinfonietta. 

One of Canada’s most acclaimed writers, Madeleine Thien was born in Vancouver. She is the author of four books of fiction, most recently Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which received the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages, and her essays and stories can be found in The New Yorker, Granta, Brick, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. 

Paul Yee grew up in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the 1960s. He did volunteer projects there in the 1980s and worked as an archivist while doing an MA in Canadian history. He is a published author of over twenty works. His non-fiction includes Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver; his fiction includes children’s books and stories for adults, including A Superior Man, published in 2015. Chinatown is his first opera. 

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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. 

About Canada Council for the Arts 

The Canada Council for the Arts contributes to the vibrancy of a creative and diverse arts and literary scene and supports its presence across Canada and around the world. The Council is Canada’s public arts funder, with a mandate to “foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts.” The Council’s grants, services, initiatives, prizes, and payments support Canadian artists, authors, and arts groups and organizations. This support allows them to pursue artistic expression, create works of art, and promote and disseminate the arts and literature. Through its arts funding, communications, research, and promotion activities, the Council fosters ever-growing engagement of Canadians and international audiences in the arts. The Council’s Public Lending Right (PLR) program makes annual payments to creators whose works are held in Canadian public libraries. The Council’s Art Bank operates art rental programs and helps further public engagement with contemporary arts through exhibition and outreach activities. The Council is responsible for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, which promotes the values and programs of UNESCO to contribute to a future of peace, reconciliation, equity, and sustainable development. 

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MEDIA CONTACT:  
For more information/photos or to arrange interviews, please contact
Peggy Walt at peggy@leaf-music.ca

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Leaf Music, Lara Deutsch & Adam Cicchillitti Present: “Wanderlust”

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music, flutist Lara Deutsch, and guitarist Adam Cicchillitti are excited to release their new album, Wanderlust. Wanderlust is a collection of folk-inspired pieces that trace their heritage back through a variety of global folk music traditions. Conceived in the heart of the pandemic, flutist Lara Deutsch and classical guitarist Adam Cicchillitti have curated seven luscious pieces, each exploring classical music spanning the coasts of Japan to Newfoundland’s Celtic roots. The album will be released on August 25.

Flutist Lara Deutsch commented that “this album is reflective of the pandemic’s silver lining: being grounded inspired us to take listeners on a musical “world tour” when they couldn’t otherwise travel. It’s the first of many albums for our duo, as we’re committed to sharing lesser known (but amazing!) repertoire for flute and guitar with audiences everywhere.” Wanderlust stokes the fires of far-flung adventures residing in all of us. 

The duo will be celebrating the launch with live evening performances in Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax in September: Friday, September 8 at Salle Joseph-Rouleau (Jeunesses Musicales du Canada in Montreal), Tuesday, September 12 (allsaints event space, Ottawa), and Wednesday, September 27 (in partnership with Scotia Festival of Music, The Music Room, Halifax). Tickets for the Halifax performance go on sale on September 5 (https://www.scotiafestival.com).

Named one of 2020’s “Rising Stars” by BBC Music Magazine, flutist Lara Deutsch is a versatile soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player known for her engaging warmth and ability to connect with audiences. Recipient of the $125,000 Prix Goyer for 2019-2020, Lara is an avid chamber musician: recent performance highlights include recitals for the National Arts Centre (NAC) and Facebook’s #CanadaPerforms initiative, Newport Classical (Rhode Island, USA), the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal’s Virée Classique, and Ottawa’s Music & Beyond Festival. Among her favourite collaborators are pianists Philip Chiu and Frédéric Lacroix, guitarist Adam Cicchillitti, and harpist Emily Belvedere, with whom she founded Duo Kalysta.  She has recorded two chamber music albums on the Leaf Music Label: Origins (2019, Duo Kalysta) and Night Light (2022, with Philip Chiu), both of which were named to Top 20 lists for their respective years by CBC Music. Lara performs on a 14k gold Haynes flute, generously loaned by Canimex Inc. of Drummondville, Québec. She is represented by Latitude 45 Arts.  

The renowned American magazine Classical Guitar called Montreal-born guitarist Adam Cicchillitti “a virtuoso at the top of his game” and CBC Music described him as an “ardent ambassador for classical guitar.” Adam has commissioned over two dozen new works since 2019 and recorded three albums with the Analekta record label. His album Focus, dedicated to new Canadian music for two guitars, was awarded “Classical Recording of the Year” at the East Coast Music Awards in 2021, and Intimate Impressions was nominated in the same category in 2022.

Adam’s set a benchmark in classical guitar with his award-winning recordings, competition performances, arrangements, and teaching. He regularly collaborates with many of Canada’s most esteemed soloists and orchestras, including flutist Lara Deutsch, baritone Philippe Sly, bandoneonist Denis Plante, the Orchestre classique de Montréal and Forestare. He’s toured Canada several times with Prairie Debut, Debut Atlantic and Jeunesses Musicales. In 2022, his duo with guitarist Steve Cowan commissioned and premiered six new concertos for two guitars and the chamber orchestra, Thirteen Strings. They were awarded third prize in the Guitar Foundation of America’s most prestigious international guitar ensemble competition in 2021 and second place in the finals in New York this summer. Adam is only the second guitarist to win the grand prize of the Canimex concerto competition in Sherbrooke, Québec, and has been a finalist and multiple-prize winner in over a dozen national and international competitions. He is a specialist in child pedagogy, is the founder of the guitar school at Ottawa Suzuki Strings and holds a doctorate in music interpretation from McGill University. Adam is sponsored by Augustine Strings and plays a guitar by Sergei de Jonge. 

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

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MEDIA CONTACT: 

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews, please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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Leaf Music, Dorian Bandy Present: “Lovers and Mourners: Variations and Sonatas from Seventeenth-Century Germany”

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Dorian Komanoff Bandy is thrilled to present Lovers and mourners: Variations and Sonatas from Seventeenth-Century Germany, his first record on Leaf Music, set to be released on August 18, 2023. Recorded at Église St-Augustin in Quebec, the album is an exploration of one of the most fertile periods for the development of violin writing and performing. Bandy draws on some of the periods’ most sombre, meditative works to deliver an album of refined elegance and measured delivery, featuring himself (baroque violin), Hank Knox (harpsichord) and Elinor Frey (viola da gamba). 

Lovers and Mourners focuses on three seventeenth century composer-performers: Johann Jakob Walther, Heinrich Biber, and Johann Georg Pisendel. Bandy guides the listener through a series of variation sets and themes, simultaneously offering faithful interpretations of the music while injecting his own unique touch. Speaking about the creation of the album, Bandy says, “These composers created a body of work that is by turns quirky, beguiling, heartfelt, and brazenly virtuosic.  It deserves far wider appreciation than it has so far received.”

Dorian Bandy is a musicologist and performer specializing in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. He is the author of Mozart the Performer, as well as numerous academic articles.  He leads a vibrant career as a conductor, baroque violinist, and historical keyboardist, with a repertoire spanning four centuries and performances – acclaimed for their vitality, drama, and warmth — that have taken him to venues across Europe and North America, including London’s Wigmore and Cadogan Halls, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and New York’s Symphony Space. This recording was made possible thanks to an SSHRC Development Grant. 

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

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MEDIA CONTACT: 

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews, please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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The Charke-Cormier Duo Release: “The Equation of Time”

 

Leaf Music and award-winning ensemble the Charke-Cormier Duo are proud to present The Equation of Time, the duo’s third full-length album and their second to feature a medley of different genres and styles. Recorded on opposite sides of the country, the Charke-Cormier duo recorded all tracks in Wolfville, NS, with Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Celso Machado recording percussion in Gibsons, B.C. 

The Equation of Time begins with Brazilian-Canadian guitarist and percussionist Celso Machado’s second book of music for flute and guitar; six dance and groove-based pieces on which the Charke-Cormier duo float effortlessly over the top. The versatility of bass flute and guitar is showcased again in Derek and Eugene’s more conventional performance of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth’s Sonata in A minor. Although the bass flute would be unknown to the work’s original performers in the mid-18th century, the bass flute’s warm and airy tone is reminiscent of the wooden transverse instruments that would have been in use at that time.  

The group follows this opening piece with renditions of pieces from 17th century Italian composers Girolamo Frescobaldi and 18th century German composer Wilhelmine Von Bayreuth before closing the album with Derek Charka’s “The Equation of Time”, a piece exploring the relationship between the passage of time and the listener’s experience of music. The piece sees Charke and Cormier oscillate between changing tempos and shifting perspectives. “The Equation of Time” is the second work that Derek has written for bass flute and guitar. With many improvisatory figures woven throughout the score, it was composed with the Charke-Cormier Duo’s skills as improvisers in mind. 

Derek Charke (flutes) and Eugene Cormier (guitar) formed the Charke~Cormier Duo several years ago culminating in a debut recital at the KC Irving Centre in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. This sonorous union of flute and guitar continues to charm audiences across the Maritimes. Their repertoire includes many of the most important works for this pairing of instruments, and creates a sonic journey for audiences from the street corners of Argentina to the halls of Europe, as well as introducing fresh new works created today. Both performers are highly accomplished musicians who are on the teaching faculty at Acadia University’s School of Music. 

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Leaf Music Proudly Presents: “Beethoven: Complete Music for Piano and Cello”

Halifax-based record label Leaf Music is pleased to announce the release of cellist Robert deMaine and pianist Peter Takács’s 2-disc album of Beethoven’s complete works for piano and cello. Set to be released July 8, 2022, this stunning collection showcases Beethoven’s unprecedented textures and formal innovations found in his sonatas for cello and piano. 

DeMaine is a master of Beethoven’s conversational tone and technical flourishes, playing with “lapidary technical precision, and a persuasive identification with the idiom of the music at hand.” Takács showcases the composer’s experiments in harmony and form with his noted ability to communicate musical interpretations. As the inventor of the modern cello sonata, Beethoven’s Op. 5 joins the cello and keyboard into a dialogue of near equals. 

While Beethoven’s compositions demonstrate his lifelong interest in counterpoint and move toward instrumental parity, his arrival was not immediate. deMaine and Takács take listeners on a journey through this progression, concluding with Op. 102 as Beethoven’s ideal balance, weaving their two instruments into a single unified texture of equal forces.

Robert deMaine is the Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and sought-after solo artist and chamber musician. His solo repertoire includes concertos by Haydn, Dvorak, Elgar and Penderecki. And as a recitalist, he is known for magnificent interpretations of J.S. Bach’s cello suites. A first-prize winner in many national and international competitions, deMaine was the first cellist ever to win the grand prize at San Francisco’s prestigious Irving M. Klein International Competition for Strings. He is an exclusive Thomastik-Infeld artist, and performs on a cello made in 1684 by Antonio Stradivari.

Romanian-born Peter Takács has performed widely, receiving critical and audience acclaim for his penetrating interpretations. Takács has performed as a guest soloist with major orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, as well as at important summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Music Mountain, Chautauqua Institution, and Sweden’s Helsingborg Festival. Since 2008 he has been a member of the faculty at the Montecito Summer Music Festival in Santa Barbara, California. He performed and recorded the cycle of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas to critical acclaim in 2011.

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Leaf Music & Infusion Baroque Proudly Present: “Virtuosa”

Leaf Music and award-winning ensemble Infusion Baroque present Virtuosa. Recorded at Église St-Agustin in Mirabel and Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique de Montreal in Quebec, Virtuosa is the ensemble’s first collaboration with JUNO-award winning producer Martha de Francisco. Virtuosa offers 14 pieces and almost two hours of music spanning 400 years. The album features Alexa Raine-Wright on flute, Sallynee Amawat on violin, Rona Nadler on harpsichord, and Andrea Stewart on cello and viola de gamba, with guest performances by soprano Ariadne Lih, Sari Tsuji on violin, and Gili Loftus on fortepiano. The group is celebrating the release of Virtuosa with a performance at the Montreal Baroque Festival on June 23, the eve before Virtuosa’s release.

An in-depth booklet and companion website display stories and artwork surrounding the women featured on the recording. The goal of the Virtuosa Project is to provide cultural and socio-economic context for the women’s lives, the music they wrote, and to highlight their accomplishments in a time saturated with adversity. As the members of Infusion Baroque delved deeper into the stories of the composers, they began to form a shared admiration for the depth of perseverance and passion they encountered.

Virtuosa is the culmination of many shared frustrations and conversations between the members of Infusion Baroque. “One of the most poignant thoughts brought about by Infusion Baroque’s Virtuosa Project exploration is that, had I been born during the time that the music on this album was composed, I would not have been allowed to play the flute, says flutist Alexa Raine-Wright. 

Underneath the Virtuosa Project umbrella is a web series dedicated to four women across the 18th and 19th centuries: Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia, Lise Cristiani, Teresa Milanollo, and Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre. Each composer is profiled in a mini-documentary, and accompanied by a companion video in which a piece written by or composed for the featured musician is performed. Each of the women featured is recognized as a pioneer in their field. There are also four pieces from four different male composers on the album, all of whom have in some way contributed to or supported the cause of women musicians during their time. 

Infusion Baroque draws new audiences to early music through a captivating concert experience, effortlessly connecting seasoned musicianship with theatrical flair. Playing music of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on historical instruments, the four women of Infusion Baroque enthrall audiences across North America with their creative and interactive programming.

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Infusion Baroque – Virtuosa

Release Date: June 24, 2022

Physical/Digital Release

Download or Stream HERE

Infusionbaroque.com

leaf-music.ca


MEDIA CONTACT: Andrew Brown | andrew@leaf-music.ca

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Leaf Music Proudly Presents “Souvenirs d’Auguste Descarries” from pianist Isabelle David

Souvenirs of Auguste Descarries is the debut solo album from Quebecois pianist, Isabelle David, set to be released May 27, 2022 through Halifax-based label, Leaf Music. The album includes 14 works from the distinguished Quebec pianist and composer Auguste Descarries. This prominent pianist holds a special place in Ms David’s musical background, as her maternal grandmother was one of the students who benefited from his teaching. This special link and the discovery of the composer’s manuscripts, led Ms David to pursue a doctorate in music performance where she devoted four years of research to Descarries’s piano works. 

Eight of the album’s recordings are unreleased works, adding to the original contribution of Quebecois piano literature. Ms David champions Descarries’s compositions through this beautiful collection.  After his passing in 1958, journalist Pierre Saucier wrote of Descarries in La Patrie, “Nobody could convey the message of the classic works with such verve. He was a master of phrasing, which is such a trite concept today. With his inspired improvisations, music came alive as if by, with a very personal twist.”

“Nostalgie” was written in Descarries’ last years, featuring sophisticated harmonies and profound romantic expression. Isabelle David holds the honour of having performed the piece for the very first time during a recital at the Salle Claude-Champagne in September 2018. The manuscript for “Étude en sol majeur” was discovered by Ms David during her research in the Université de Montréal archives earlier that year.

The “Rhapsodie canadienne” was originally composed in 1927 as part of a Canadian competition intended to promote folk songs. Though it was not selected, Descarries revisited this work six years later and changed it from a small-orchestral piece to a large-orchestral piece. In December 2017, 60 years after its last performance, Ms David performed this piece with the Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil, and again in 2018 with the Orchestre symphonique de Drummondville. Then in 2020, Ms David revived this work by transcribing it for solo piano, with its debut performance as part of her last doctoral recital that year.

This album is the culmination of all the work undertaken in the past few years. It is part of an endeavour shared with other musicians and music lovers who wish to raise the profile of Auguste Descarries’s great piano legacy. I trust you will enjoy the composer’s unreleased pieces, whose opus makes a very original contribution to the piano literature of Quebec. – Isabelle David

Isabelle David is a national award-winning pianist from Quebec, who made her debut as a soloist with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at the age of 17. Her involvement in various international festivals and competitions has led her to perform at Jordan Hall (Boston), Carnegie Hall (New York), Helsingin Musiikkitalo (Helsinki), and Zipper Hall (Los Angeles). She released her first album, The Wild Swans, with violinist Yolanda Bruno in 2019. The prominent pianist and composer Auguste Descarries, from Quebec, holds a special place in her family’s musical background, as her maternal grandmother was one of the students who benefited from his teaching. Throughout Ms David’s childhood, her grandmother shared cherished memories from the time she studied with the master. This special link to Descarries and the discovery of the composer’s manuscripts, now part of the Université de Montréal archives, led her to pursue a doctorate in music performance where she devoted four years of research to Descarries’s piano works. She completed her doctorate in 2020 and has created this album as a culmination of that work.

Souvenirs of Auguste Descarries

Release date: May 27, 2022

leaf-music.caIsabelleDavid.net

MEDIA CONTACT: Andrew Brown | andrew@leaf-music.ca

Halifax-based classical label, Leaf Music is excited to release the debut solo album from Quebecois pianist Isabelle David. The album includes 14 works by Quebec composer Auguste Descarries, eight of which have never before been released. The piece, “Rhapsodie canadienne” is filled with well-known French-Canadian folk themes and was transcribed for piano by Ms. David as part of her doctoral studies at the Université de Montréal. This album is a culmination of her doctoral work, and endeavors to honour Descarries’s great piano legacy.

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Nathaniel Watson Releases: “Winterreise”

Halifax-based record label Leaf Music is pleased to announce the release of baritone Nathaniel Watson and pianist Michael McMahon’s rendition of Schubert’s Winterreise, recorded last winter in Montreal.

Baritone Nathaniel Watson and pianist Michael McMahon, both based in Montreal, give us their rendition of Franz Schubert’s monumental song cycle, Winterreise, written in 1827, the year before Schubert’s tragic, early death. The 24 settings of poems of Wilhelm Müller are a journey deep into the psyche of a young man, unlucky in love, who sets out with neither friend nor destination, in the dead of winter, an epic figure in the dawning of German Romanticism. In this recording, also made in winter (and during a pandemic), Watson and McMahon share their experience and lifelong passion for Schubert. The composer, who had already composed some 600 Lieder in his short life, confessed to his close circle of friends that these songs moved him more than all the others.

Canadian Nathaniel Watson is a versatile artist who has performed successfully in a wide variety of musical styles. Highlights include Der Freischütz with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Colin Davis, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Kurt Masur, and in Carnegie Hall with Sir Roger Norrington in the conductor’s debut concert in New York. 


He appeared in the title role in the Boston Early Music Festival production of Cavalli’s Ercole amante in Boston, at Tanglewood, and at the Utrecht Festival in Holland, and was featured in the Salzburg Festival production of Weill’s Mahagonny. Recent seasons have included performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque, Messiah with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, Mendelssohn’s Paulus and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with L’Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and Handel’s Semele with Pacific Opera Victoria.

Nathaniel Watson has recorded works by the American composers Samuel Barber, Philip Glass, Andrew Imbrie, and Claudio Spies, as well as premiering works by Mr. Spies, Miriam Gideon, Scott Lindroth, Ronald Perera, Lewis Spratlan, Chan Ka Nin and Earl Kim. He has been featured as a soloist in Ruth Fazal’s Oratorio Terezin, a work that has been performed in six countries, including Israel, and in Carnegie Hall.

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Distinguished pianist Michael McMahon has served on the Faculty of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in both the Piano and Voice Areas, since 1984, and has partnered with a long list of prominent singers in North America and in Europe.

Nathaniel Watson: Winterreise
Release date: February 11, 2022
Physical/Digital Release
Stream/Purchase HERE

nathanielwatsonmusic.com

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Lara Deutsch and Phil Chiu Release: “Night Light”

Leaf Music is pleased to announce the release of Lara Deutsch & Phil Chiu’s collaborative album Night Light. Working and performing together since 2008, Lara and Phil have come together to record a wide range of works by Takashi Yoshimatsu, Jocelyn Morlock, Franz Schubert, and a world premiere by Frédéric Lacroix. 

Society, musical conventions, and tastes inevitably change and develop over time, but the shared human experiences that artists draw upon do

not. The two overarching ideas that Lara Deutsch and Phil Chiu used as inspiration for this album are dreams and journeys. Dreamy music is often associated with relaxation and easy-listening, but don’t be fooled; this music has wickedly fast and thrilling sounds that capture the chaotic nature of dreams as well!

Described in La Presse as “a pianist-painter who transforms each musical idea into a beautiful array of colours”, Philip Chiu is acclaimed for his brilliant pianism, sensitive listening, and a presence that eschews the hermit-pianist image in favour of openness, authenticity, and connection.

Named one of 2020’s “Rising Stars” by BBC Music Magazine, flutist Lara Deutsch is a versatile soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player known for her engaging warmth and ability to connect with audiences. Recipient of the $125,000 Prix Goyer for collaborative artists in 2019-2020, her debut album, Origins (as Duo Kalysta), was previously released on the Leaf Music label and was named one of CBC Music’s “20 Favourite Canadian Classical Albums of 2019.”

Lara Deutsch & Phil Chiu: Night Light
Release date: February 4, 2022
Physical/Digital Release
Stream/Purchase HERE