The Lord of the Rings is one of most successful trilogies in film history earning 17 Academy Awards® including three for its music. Beyond critical acclaim, the music from the films also enjoyed wide commercial success, collectively selling 7 million copies. Directed by Peter Jackson,The Lord of the Rings films are based on the popular J.R.R. Tolkien novel of the same name.

Claudio Bohórquez has established himself as an experienced chamber musician and concert soloist. For the past 30 years and more he has been playing the cello, teaching at the famous Hanns Eisler conservatoire in Berlin and travelling the world from the USA to Japan and from Argentina to Russia.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) focused on instrumental music at the beginning and towards the end of a career that was otherwise largely devoted to opera. The two trios for violin, cello and piano are early works, written at the time he was studying in Munich, or shortly afterwards. The first Trio in D major dates back to 1896, was premiered at the Tonkünstlerverein in Stuttgart in September of that same year and published as Op.5 in 1902 by Leuckart in Leipzig.

Music has always been omnipresent in Naples. In the city’s opera houses, theatres and conservatories, it has found expression in a multitude of styles and genres, while also playing an important role in Naples’s innumerable salons and in the palazzi where the local clergy foregathered with music-loving patrons and other champions of the arts. Vocal and instrumental music was integral to most of the ceremonies and events in public life in every social stratum. Moreover, the outstanding reputation of the city’s conservatories, most of which had been established as orphanages in the 16th century, attracted only the most gifted students, laying the foundations for Naples’s exceptional reputation at this time.

Recorded in 1958 and released on the Folkways label in 1959, this album introduced American listeners to Joseph Spence’s unique guitar and vocal styles. These field recordings by musicologist Sam Charters capture Spence in a relaxed, expansive mood—only one of the six selections in the set is under five minutes in length. Spence’s guitar style was due in part to the D tuning of his bass string, which produced a lower bass sound. Whereas many critics have called Spence’s vocal style unorthodox, they have found his guitar playing spontaneous and iconic. Some music critics have gone so far as to refer to him as the “Thelonious Monk of folk guitar.”

Jamie Saft continues his collaboration with eclectic UK-based label RareNoiseRecords in 2018. On a roll after releasing his first ever solo piano album in January, the aptly named ‘Solo A Genova’, the Upstate New York-based artist presents a further facet of his seemingly boundless talent for composition, performance, invention and in this case, for acting as master of ceremonies to a group of exciting and innovative musicians. His latest formation, the Jamie Saft Quartet sees repeated collaborators, celebrated saxophonists Bill McHenry and bassists Bradley Jones as well as in rising star of the drums Nasheet Waits.

The Lord of the Rings is one of most successful trilogies in film history. Directed by Peter Jackson and based on the popular J.R.R. Tolkien novel of the same name, The Lord of the Rings earned a total of 17 Academy Awards ®, including three for the music featured in the films. The music from The Lord of the Rings enjoyed wide commercial success and has collectively sold seven million copies.

Fans and fellow artists the world over are mourning the death of music legend Ben E. King, who passed away on April 30, 2015 at age 76, after a brief illness. A singer, songwriter, mentor and philanthropist, he personified artistic excellence, humility and warmth. In the words of the late Ahmet Ertegun, “Ben E. King is one of the greatest singers in the history of rock and roll and rhythm and blues. His style and the tempo of his voice have a magic all their own.”