The Life Of A Man, brings together the hits of Joe Cocker into the first comprehensive hits collection for 12 years, and the first package ever to cover his entire career from 1968 to his untimely passing in 2014. Cocker was raised on blues and grew up in Sheffield inspired by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Lightnin’ Hopkins. These influences are evident in Cocker’s idiosyncratic style of vocals which adds a rough edge to the most delicate of melodies. Cocker began making a name for himself in the UK initially, with his prolific and powerful voice lending itself tastefully to love songs which lyrically juxtaposed with his gruff voice. This stunning collection features the international hit, With A Little Help From My Friends and the Grammy Award winning smash duet, Up Where We Belong.

Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708-1763) was born in Schweidnitz, Silesia (today Poland). His special inclination towards music led him to undertake a brief period of study in Breslau (today Wroclaw) with the court musicians who were under the employment of the Archbishop of Breslau. In 1733 Janitsch moved to Berlin where the then Crown Prince, Frederick offered him a position as a double bass player. With the permission of the Crown Prince, he founded the circle "Freitagsakademien" (Friday academies), in which music was performed by professional and amateur musicians alike.

Soli Deo Gloria is proud to release the last instalment of its successful Brahms Symphony series which sees John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique explore the music of Johannes Brahms. This album is a celebration of the Fourth Symphony and the various pieces that contributed to its making.

Two illustrious composers at odds with their Requiem? When, in 1791, a 36-year-old Mozart composed the one that would remain unfinished due to his death, he did so in response to a commission from the eccentric Count von Walsegg. Mozart would never hear his music. At the time, Salieri was at the height of his glory at the age of 41, famed for his operas from Paris and Milan to Rome and of course Vienna, where he was Court Composer and Director of the Italian Opera. Having put an end to his lyrical career, in 1804 he composed his Requiem, which was strictly intended for his own funeral, where it was indeed played - in 1825.

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Loreena McKennitt is one of Canada's most beloved national artists, a folk chanteuse, and a new age troubadour who made her breakthrough in the mid-'80s with her literate and oft-experimental focus on Celtic-tinged traditional and original material, coupled with her haunting harp playing. As her career progressed, McKennitt began incorporating Spanish, Galician, and Arabic themes into her repertoire, culminating in a trio of career-defining albums – The Visit, The Mask and Mirror, and The Book of Secrets – that made her an international star. McKennitt went on a long hiatus after the tragic death of her fiance in 1998, but returned to the studio in 2006 with the acclaimed The Book of Secrets, followed by a string of EP's and concert and studio albums, with highlights arriving via 2010's trad-Celtic LP The Wind That Shakes the Barley and 2018's inward looking Lost Souls.

Lindsey Stirling's third album, Brave Enough, is where her crossover sound falls nicely into place. Her first two efforts – thrilling collisions of violin acrobatics and electronic embellishment – were novel, but there was something missing to that new age dubstep. On Brave Enough, Stirling taps into a deep well of pain – inspired by her own emotional maturity and the death of her best friend and keyboardist, Jason Gaviati, in November 2015 – and the result is an organic interplay between her instrument and digital beats that focuses more on pleasant rhythms than dubstep muscle.

Scarlatti’s sonatas are among the most original compositions of the Baroque period, bursting with rhythmic and harmonic invention, contrast and colour. Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli take up this exceptional production and record, on two guitars, twelve of his 555 sonatas. Scarlatti was well acquainted with the instrument, which he heard in Spain and Italy, where it permeated his keyboard compositions. By going back to one of Scarlatti’s most obvious and greater musical sources of inspiration, the two performers underline the eloquence and inexhaustible invention of these rhapsodic miniatures, masterpieces of their composer’s art as a colourist.

Rune Alvers' CD Le nouveau Grieg is currently being digitally relaunched on the LAWO Classics label. The CD was recorded on Edvard Grieg's own grand piano at Troldhaugen Bergen in 2007. The term Le nouveau Grieg - The new Grieg, refers to the composer's Slåtter op. 72, which is included in its entirety on the CD along with Lyriske stykker op. 71. However, tonight's concert presents a broader selection of Edvard Grieg's production with verbal intros of a historical and musical nature.