Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet
This disc introduces Yo-Yo Ma's latest and most ambitious adventure, the Silk Road Project. It explores the cultures that flourished along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route that for centuries connected Europe and the East. Founded by Ma in 1998, the project aims to create connections, mutual trust, and cultural interchange between people from different parts of the world through their only shared language: music. This recording includes music from Mongolia, China, Persia, ... Regular Price : $18.98
Amazon.com Price : $13.99
(26
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Cieli di Toscana
Not content with the simplistic 'crossover' formula, superstar tenor Andrea Bocelli has been pursuing alternative paths since he emerged as a vocal phenomenon in the mid-1990s: operatic classics and contemporary popular song. The singer's last few albums have showcased his love for the former (including homages to his beloved Verdi: the Requiem and Verdi aria collection). But Cieli di Toscana ('Tuscan Skies') marks a triumphant return to the pop idiom last explored on Sogno, offering ... Regular Price : $18.98
Amazon.com Price : $13.99
(26
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Romanza
From his childhood on the family farm in rural Tuscany to the worldwide stage, Andrea Bocelli has achieved phenomenal success. His singing is only partially the point, and his fame owes much more to the aura of romance and the romantic archetype that's attached to him. Romanza is by far Bocelli's largest success, winning adoration thanks to the swooning vocals and the easy, sometimes lush, always pop-safe instrumental textures and melodies. As far as his opera chops go, Bocelli has ... Regular Price : $18.98
Amazon.com Price : $13.49
(29
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Classics
Have some friends who still haven't discovered what the Sarah Brightman fuss is all about? You'll find the perfect introduction to make converts of them all in Classics, so they'll have no more excuses to remain clueless. Sporting a Botticelli-inspired image of the platinum-selling soprano on the cover, Classics is a classy anthology including highlights from three of Brightman's chart-topping releases along with seven new tracks. Songs personally selected by the diva as her favorite ... Regular Price : $17.98
Amazon.com Price : $10.89
(39
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Time to Say Goodbye
Fans of small, pretty-voiced soprano Sarah Brightman will not be disappointed by this CD. In addition to some pop songs, Brightman sings high-flying excerpts from Orff's Carmina Burana, Puccini's 'O mio babbino caro' (performed better by almost any other operatic soprano elsewhere), and 'Alleluia' from Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate. One might call this a crossover disc; others might just see it as a recording featuring a pop singer with artsy aspirations. Whatever it is, Brightman's ... Regular Price : $17.98
Amazon.com Price : $13.99
(22
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Encore
In a career that's veered from '70s pop chanteuse to Broadway star and neo-operatic diva, Sarah Brightman has brought a critics-be-damned sense of dramatic scale to nearly every project she's tackled. As the title suggests, the tracks here are largely culled from her Songs That Got Away and Surrender song anthologies, although they do include four previously unreleased outtakes from those collections. Her 1998 recording of the title song from ex-husband Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle ... Regular Price : $18.98
Amazon.com Price : $11.99
(37
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Enchantment
Of course, we couldn't expect time to freeze its relentless path and forever preserve the Welsh sensation Charlotte Church in a chrysalis of precocious youth. And yet, at 15 and now taking bolder steps into expanding her repertory on Enchantment, the soprano remains a marvel of a prodigy. Here, she scours a wider range of sources than on her previous albums. Church moves with breathtaking ease from classic Broadway (West Side Story, Show Boat, South Pacific) to traditional Celtic, ... Regular Price : $18.98
Amazon.com Price : $7.99
(58
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Mendelssohn, Beethoven: Violin Concertos
Joshua Bell's first recordings of these warhorses stand apart from the hundreds of versions crowding the catalogs in at least one respect, namely his own cadenzas. Beethoven didn't supply his own for the long first movement of his Violin Concerto, and Bell's thoughtful, stylish emendation easily stands with the frequently played Kreisler and Joachim cadenzas as a viable option. His extroverted yet well-proportioned cadenza in the Mendelssohn may not match the original's instant melodic appeal, but it certainly works. Elsewhere, ... Regular Price : $17.98
Amazon.com Price : $14.98
(17
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Concertos For Double Bass
On this record, featuring Edgar Meyer as both composer and bassist, the playing's the thing, and it is spectacular. His performance of four virtuoso concertos, two by himself and two by Bottesini, eclipses his compositions, though his stylistic versatility is in full evidence in both his works. The Concerto for Bass has elements of jazz and blues, and a good deal of textural contrast and imaginative orchestration, but it is repetitive and a bit dreary. In the hair-raisingly difficult ... Regular Price : $18.98
Amazon.com Price : $15.95
(16
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
Reflections of Spain: Spanish Favorites for Guitar
David Russell was born in Glasgow, Scotland, but his family moved to Spain while he was still a young boy so he could study music in the birthplace of classical guitar. On Reflections of Spain, Russell plays the music of his childhood home with all the joy you would expect from someone revisiting a beloved place. Russell's formidable technique is powered by a keen intelligence and tempered by an emotional delivery. He plays chestnuts ... Regular Price : $17.98
Amazon.com Price : $14.88
(17
%) VISIT AMAZON.COM'S PAGE
