Tag: Schubert

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Leaf Music Distributes Six Degrees: Music for Violin and Strings – Mayumi Seiler and friends

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music announces the distribution of a new digital recording: Six Degrees: Music for Violin and Strings (MS001) by acclaimed Canadian violinist Mayumi Seiler, being released on March 29. Drawing on inspiration from life’s connections and relationships, the violinist is joined by colleagues from her illustrious career’s past and present to produce five works written for violin and strings. Top Canadian string players along with formerly mentored students form the ensemble, while the repertoire is composed by longtime collaborators and composers who inspired them. Six Degrees is a celebration of the relationships that keep us interconnected.  

Joining Mayumi Seiler on this recording are cellist Rachel Mercer, bassist Joe Phillips, violist Ryan Davis, violinists Hee-Soo Yoon and Isabel Lago, as well as harpist Ben Albertson. The recording was produced by Denise Ball with Pouya Hamidi as recording engineer.

Featured composers include Franz Schubert, Montreal-based composer Michael Oesterle, Massenet (Meditation, transcribed for violin, strings and harp), and Métis composer Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk, whose A Search for Resonance beautifully melds with the virtuosic elegance of classical elements. Saskatchewan composer Ryan Davis created a duet for violin and viola for the album, Lavender Jump, inspired by the fields of purple flowers in his native province.

Mayumi Seiler (mayumi-seiler.com) is renowned for her exciting performances of concerto, recital, and collaborative works both live and on disc. She has appeared as soloist with major symphonies in international venues such as Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Barbican, Royal Festival Hall, and collaborated with such noted conductors as Kent Nagano, Sir Neville Marriner, Sandor Vegh, Maxim Vengerov, Christopher Hogwood, Hugh Wolff, Peter Oundjian, and Richard Hickox. Among her extensive list of recordings are the Beethoven and Mendelssohn Concertos, the three Haydn Concertos with the City of London Sinfonia and Richard Hickox conducting on the Virgin Classics label, and Stravinsky’s Le Baiser de la Fée with the Hong Kong Philharmonic under David Atherton (Virgin Classics). Her many recordings of chamber music, include works of Schumann, Dohnanyi, Boccherini and Mozart (Hyperion and Capriccio labels.)

While nurturing a busy schedule as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, Japan and the Americas, Ms. Seiler founded Toronto’s Via Salzburg – acclaimed as “One of the best roads to our musical hearts” (Toronto Star). In Via Salzburg she led a string orchestra in regular performances at the Glenn Gould Studio for sold out audiences. Through fourteen seasons she curated programs with internationally renowned artists, combining varied art forms such as dance, pantomime, and painting with music.

An active and passionate teacher, Mayumi Seiler serves on the faculty at The Glenn Gould School in Toronto. She’s held a professorship at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg, given masterclasses worldwide and adjudicated at numerous international violin competitions.

She began her musical upbringing in Osaka, Japan, where she was born of Japanese/German parentage. Wedded to the violin from the age of three, Mayumi received her musical education at the renowned Mozarteum during her formative years in Salzburg. She performs on a JB Guadagnini of 1740.

Listen to Six Degrees wherever you stream your music: https://leaf-music.lnk.to/ms001 

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 Distribution and Christine Vanderkooy Present: “Schubert Late Piano Works”

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Pianist Christine Vanderkooy presents a new album, Schubert: Late Piano Works, distributed by Leaf Music Distribution. Recorded at the Glenn Gould Studio during Toronto’s lockdown in December of 2020 on “Bertha” the nine-foot New York Steinway, the recording comprises two works composed by Schubert in the twilight of his life: Sonata in C-minor, D. 958 – the first from his late sonata trilogy – and Drei Klavierstücke, D. 946. While these works were long passed over following their creation in 1828, these deeply human compositions have been establishing their place as inimitable masterworks amongst pianists and audiences alike.

Written just a year following the death of his admired Beethoven, Schubert completed “some of his most sophisticated, poetic, and deeply felt works for the piano…permeating the deepest layers of the soul…moving us, sometimes with the masterful shift of just one note or rest, from the desolate to the sublime,” Christine writes in the liner notes.

Praised for her “sensitive and passionate artistic interpretation,” Christine Vanderkooy has performed as a soloist across Canada, the US and Europe. Her previous recording, Schubert and Schumann, enjoyed critical acclaim including a cover story for Tempo magazine. As well as radio play on CBC Radio and stations across the continent. Christine has been frequently invited to adjudicate festivals and competitions and has twice been invited to judge the Canadian JUNO Awards. Her national reputation as a piano pedagogue has led to workshops and masterclasses across the country.

Christine studied and taught at McGill University where she earned a Doctor of Music in Piano Performance. Her major teachers included David McIntyre, Boyd McDonald, Tom Plaunt, Sara Laimon and Marc Durand. She joined the University of Windsor in 2017 as Associate Professor of Music and Education. 

The recording was made possible by funding from the University of Windsor, including a research start-up grant and the Research Stimulus Fund Grant from the Faculty of Education, as well as an SSHRC Exchange Grant.

Listen to Schubert Late Piano Works wherever you stream your music: http://leaf-music.lnk.to/cv2023

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).