Category Archives: Music

Dori Freeman’s self-titled debut

Dori Freeman’s self-titled debut album is the birth of a major new voice in Americana music. This talented young woman from Galax, Virginia, has a gift for songwriting that runs as deep as the veins of coal in her native … Continue reading

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Oyster Ceilidh Band’s Jack’s Alive, Oyster Band’s English Rock ‘N Roll: the Early Years (1800-1850) and Lie Back and Think of England

Ed Dale wrote this review. I stumbled onto the Oysterband several years back via a copy of Little Rock to Leipzig, received as a premium during a college radio station’s fund drive. This was blind good luck. The two CDs I … Continue reading

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Philip Glass and Lauri Otonkoski’s A Madrigal Opera/Cameo — A Symphonic Poem

When he left serial minimalism behind in the mid-1970s, Philip Glass moved on to become one of the foremost composers for the theater of the late twentieth century. By “theater” I mean performing arts in general — opera, ballet, the … Continue reading

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Les Witches’ Music of an Earlier Age

Les Witches is an early music ensemble who, according to their Web site, seek to “resurrect the ambience of the bars and taverns of Shakespeare’s time. . . .” They certainly seem to have done that, although when their focus … Continue reading

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Trio Mediaeval’s A Worcester Ladymass

I think one reason I’m so fond of Trio Mediaeval is that their attitude toward the performance of early music mirrors my own: in their introduction to this disc, they note that performing music from a thousand years ago (give … Continue reading

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Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Op. 8, Nos. 1-4; Pietro Locatelli’s Concerto in F Major, Op. 3, No. 10 and Concerto in D Major, Op. 3, No. 11

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is arguably one of the most performed, and certainly among the most heard, of Baroque masterpieces, having made its way from musty libraries to concert halls to shopping malls. It is seldom that one is able … Continue reading

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Arsen Petrosyan’s Charentsavan, Music For Armenian Duduk

Arsen Petrosyan is an Armenian player of the wind instrument known as duduk, a double-reed horn that makes a sound similar to that of the clarinet, flute, bassoon and shawm. A musical prodigy on this difficult instrument, he has titled … Continue reading

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Various Artists’ Sacred Music of the Moroccan Jews

In 1959, the American author and composer Paul Bowles recorded several hours of religious singing by Jews in two Moroccan cities. These Jewish communities were in transition; having survived World War II, their population had started trickling away to the … Continue reading

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Blind Faith’s Blind Faith (Deluxe Edition)

Craig Clarke penned this review. Blind Faith was arguably rock’s first “supergroup!” The conglomeration sprang from the breakups of Eric Clapton’s previous band, Cream, and one of the many breakups of Steve Winwood’s Traffic. Clapton and Winwood had planned to … Continue reading

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Eva Salina’s Lema Lema

Lema Lema: Eva Salina Sings Šaban Bajramović is an amazing recording of Balkan Romani (Gypsy) music that’s filled with contradiction and paradox. Šaban Bajramović was the king of Balkan Romani music in the 1960s and 1970s. Apparently a larger-than-life, somewhat … Continue reading

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