Stile Antico received further praise from Kenneth Delong in The Calgary Herald for their concert on Sunday 15th April at the Rozsa Centre, The University of Calgary. In his opinion,  'the group has a special zing'. For the full review, click here.

On June 6 we have the UK premier of Poland's R.U.T.A. This is Poland’s extraordinary punk meets folk outfit – think Johnny Rotten meets the Warsaw Village Band. The incendiary lyrics come from old folk poems and the music features some of the country’s best-known punk singers accompanied by rustic fiddles and percussion. You don’t speak Polish? Don’t worry, English back-projections are supplied. Don’t miss it. This concert is supported by the Polish Cultural Institute, London.

The second night, June 7, has the accordion and tango as a red thread that runs through the evening featuring three brilliant bands. With support from ESEK and the Embassy of Finland, this concert opens with Lepistö & Lehti, an accordion and double bass duo from Finland, develops with the Kosmos Ensemble plus Miloš Milivojević on accordion, and concludes with the Fugata Quintet, an international group of instrumentalists playing the dramatic nuevo tango of Astor Piazzolla.

June 8 features two distinctive folk bands drawing on traditional sources, but reworking them in an innovative way. From the UK, Spiro create a sound-world in which English folk meets Philip Glass. And Le Vent du Nord are a breath of fresh air in French-Canadian music. They’re playing in London for the first time. In the Friday folk slot in Hall Two we present Sam Lee & Friends – one of the rising stars of the British folk scene with some special guests adding an international flavour.

The final evening, June 9, rounds everything off with two all-star bands. From the UK, the Yiddish Twist Orchestra pay homage to 1950s Yiddish, calypso and mambo sounds (with Sam Lee as guest vocalist) and from the Indian Ocean, the Madagascar All Stars – including Dama, Justin Vali and Regis Gizavo – a cocktail of infectious sounds from across the island. In the regular jazz slot in Hall Two we feature Lauren Kinsella’s Thought-Fox, a spectacular young jazz group from Ireland in a special collaboration with Moroccan oud player Soufian Saihi.

Also, don't miss the FREE foyer performances throughout the festival programmed in partnership with the Jewish Music Institute.

remember.”

Tickets start from £9.50 and discounts are available to Songlines subscribers.

For further information, please visit:

http://www.songlines.co.uk/encounters

http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/sef2012

The top four nominees for each category will be featured on a 16-track Songlines Music Awards 2012 CD which will be on sale from March 19th 2012.

We are delighted to report that it has just been announced that Janina Fialkowska is the recipient of Canada's “2012 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award” for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in Classical Music. In the history of the awards, Janina is the second classical music instrumentalist (and the first woman in this category) to receive the Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. The Governor General of Canada is the federal vice-regal representative of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

Each year the Awards are presented for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in the categories of theatre, dance, classical music, popular music, film, and broadcasting. These awards recognize artists who have made an indelible contribution to Canada’s cultural life and recipients of these awards are nominated by the general public.

The three-day celebration in Ottawa (May 3-5) includes an official presentation at the House of Commons on Parliament Hill, the award ceremony at Rideau Hall (the seat of Canada’s Governor General), a gala tribute performance at the National Arts Centre where a short film about Janina, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, will also be shown.

For more news about Janina, have a look at her most recent newsletter here.
 

For more details please go to the festival website

Best Classical Song: 'Poor Wayfaring Stranger' by Peter Hollens with Swingle Singers

Best Jazz Album:  'Midnight' by The Songmen

For more information please click here. 

Following Stile Antico’s fourth performance at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Boston Globe hailed that ‘Stile Antico makes all else just noise…the Agnus Dei of the Mass was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard’ (Boston Globe) and the Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote that ‘nothing can replace the pure pleasure of hearing this talented ensemble live’ (Boston Musical Intelligencer). The Vancouver Sun reported that ‘the volcanic reaction from the Chan Centre audience was jarring but well deserved. A single encore ended an evening of near perfection’, the New York Times praised Stile Antico’s ‘appealingly warm, fresh performance [presenting] a world of gracefully spun themes that sound as moving on their own as in context’ (New York Times) and the Seattle Sun Break wrote that ‘from unison plainchant which ebbed and flowed like speech, to seven intricate, complex parts for the Tallis, Stile Antico sang unaccompanied with exact pitch and no vibrato so that chords were marvels of perfection’ (Seattle Sun Break). Finally, radio station WQXR’s Operavore Best of 2011 in Opera article, published just the day after Stile Antico’s performance in New York, highlighted Stile Antico’s ‘seamless blending of voices [which] breathed new life into Tudor-era Advent classics. The effect was mesmerizing and meditative—exactly what one looks for in an early music' (WQXR's Operavore) and this concert was listed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker's Best Classical Performances of 2011.

For further reviews of the tour visit Stile Antico’s website here.

David Owen Norris rounds out the year with a New Year's Eve special on Radio 4 at 10:30 am: Cheers! A History of Toasting, presented by John Sergeant and with music selected, arranged and explained by Norris and performed by the choir of Clare College, Cambridge, directed by Graham Ross. This will be followed by his Charles Dickens's iPod at 13:30 on 1st January on Radio 4. 

Don't miss The Prince and the Composer,  A Film about Hubert Parry by HRH the Prince of Wales on Christmas Day, at 3.10 pm on BBC 2:

'The joy of this programme was the deconstruction of the music by choristers and musicologists, in particular, a simply marvellous chap called David Owen Norris, who explained the ethereal nuts and bolts of Jerusalem with the panache and fizz of a rhythmic vacuum-cleaner salesman. Somebody needs to sign this man up for a series on why we love the music we love, right now.' Sunday Times 

Finally, Norris's Burns's iPod is repeated 3 times on Radio4Xtra on Burns Night, January 25th

As Agents, Ikon Arts Management will continue to play a key role in the development of VOCES8’s rapidly expanding touring schedule.  Whilst General Manager, EPAM, will forge ahead with the many groundbreaking educational and repertoire publishing opportunities that this new partnership offers to the publishing arm of Edition Peters. 

To view the full press release please click here.

The London A Cappella Festival has announced the winners of the Composition Competition 2012 in association with Oxford University Press.

Alan Smith's 'View Me Lord' was the winning entry for Category A. The winning piece will be published by Oxford University Press and will be performed at the London A Cappella Festival in January 2012.

David Jenkin's 'Full Fathom Five' was the winning entry for Category B. The winning piece will be performed by the Swingle Singers at the London A Cappella Festival in January 2012. In addition to this, the winning piece will be performed by the Swingle Singers in concert in 2012.

No winner has been awarded this year for Category C

For more details please click here.   

The disc is to be realeased next month on Nimbus records.