Harmonia Mundi label - All DVD & Blu-ray videos

Directed by Christof Nel – A Film by Don Kent

Set Designer: Roland Aeschlimann

Costume Designer: Bettina Walter

Produced by Bel Air Media / Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2008

Handel's Belshazzar at the Aix Festival was imported from the Staatsoper Berlin. Berlin had built a huge, magnificent production and imported English and American opera singers, including star-turn countertenor Bejun Mehta. Add to this a superb local Baroque instrumental ensemble and an accomplished vocal ensemble, not to mention the world-renowned early music conductor, René Jacobs: and voilà, an operatic hit.

Christophe Nel, a well-respected director in progressive German opera houses teamed up with famed Swiss minimalist set designer Roland Aeschlimann and costume designer Bettina Walter to create a production which respected the supposed austerity of oratorio. This experienced team brought Handel's not-so-high drama and philosophic tragedy to almost operatic dramatic standards as the Persian prince Cyrus overran the dissolute Babylonians and freed the captive Jews.

“The Persian prince Cyrus, was sumptuously sung in heroic stances by Bejun Mehta; Rosemary Joshua, Belshazzar's mother Nitocris, sang in convincingly Handelian terms, and convincingly portrayed a religious zealot troubled by her wayward son. Most beautiful too was the singing of Neal Davies as the Syrian Gobrias, whose son had been killed by the dissolute emperor Belshazzar, a role also well sung and broadly characterised by American tenor, Kenneth Tarver. The star of the show was the RIAS-Kammerchor, able to personify Babylonians or Jews at the drop of a hat, singing magnificently. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin again proved itself a world-class chamber ensemble." musicwebinternational

Directed by Christof Nel – A Film by Don Kent

Set Designer: Roland Aeschlimann

Costume Designer: Bettina Walter

Produced by Bel Air Media / Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2008

Handel's Belshazzar at the Aix Festival was imported from the Staatsoper Berlin. Berlin had built a huge, magnificent production and imported English and American opera singers, including star-turn countertenor Bejun Mehta. Add to this a superb local Baroque instrumental ensemble and an accomplished vocal ensemble, not to mention the world-renowned early music conductor, René Jacobs: and voilà, an operatic hit.

Christophe Nel, a well-respected director in progressive German opera houses teamed up with famed Swiss minimalist set designer Roland Aeschlimann and costume designer Bettina Walter to create a production which respected the supposed austerity of oratorio. This experienced team brought Handel's not-so-high drama and philosophic tragedy to almost operatic dramatic standards as the Persian prince Cyrus overran the dissolute Babylonians and freed the captive Jews.

“The Persian prince Cyrus, was sumptuously sung in heroic stances by Bejun Mehta; Rosemary Joshua, Belshazzar's mother Nitocris, sang in convincingly Handelian terms, and convincingly portrayed a religious zealot troubled by her wayward son. Most beautiful too was the singing of Neal Davies as the Syrian Gobrias, whose son had been killed by the dissolute emperor Belshazzar, a role also well sung and broadly characterised by American tenor, Kenneth Tarver. The star of the show was the RIAS-Kammerchor, able to personify Babylonians or Jews at the drop of a hat, singing magnificently. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin again proved itself a world-class chamber ensemble." musicwebinternational

Directed by Owsley Brown III and Jerome Hiler

“A singular harmonic convergence is recounted in Music Makes A City, Owsley Brown III and Jerome Hiler’s enlightening documentary about how Louisville, KY., became a locus for contemporary music in the mid-20th century. In striking synchronicity, a mayor, a conductor, and a robust postwar generation of composers intersected to make the city a hub for visionary composition” New York Times

On May 23, Music Makes a City, will be released on DVD. The feature-length documentary film tells a tale of civic aspiration, cultural ingenuity and how Louisville, Kentucky became the world's unlikely capital of new music in the 1950s. According to Sedgwick Clark, of MusicalAmerica.com, “anyone interested in classical music should see this uplifting story of American ingenuity at its best.”

In 1948, a small, struggling, semi-professional orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky began a novel project to commission new works from contemporary composers around the world. The project grew far beyond anyone's expectations. In 1953, the orchestra received an unprecedented $400,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to commission 52 compositions a year for three years. The new works were to be performed in weekly concerts and recorded for sale by subscription. The architect of this ambitious artistic venture was Louisville Mayor Charles Farnsley who had a deep love of cultural expressions of all kinds as well as boundless enthusiasm and an inexhaustible bank of new ideas. Farnsley, professing to be guided by the philosophical principles of the Chinese sage Confucius, found a willing partner for his plans in Robert Whitney, the young conductor who had arrived in Louisville in 1937 to lead the fledgling orchestra. Over the years, nearly every living composer of note would be commissioned and recorded by the Louisville Orchestra.

Music Makes a City is a wonderful weave of archival footage and anecdotes from veteran Louisville musicians and civic figures. The film features interviews with some of the project’s key participants: iconic American composers Ned Rorem, Lukas Foss, Chou Wen-chung, Harold Shapero and Elliott Carter – the last of whom gave an extensive interview (at the age of 100) expressly for the documentary, recalling his experience of composing for Louisville a piece that remains one of his most popular: 1955's Variations for Orchestra.

Runing time 100 minutes + over 2 hours of features with composers, musicians and related personalities.

Kenneth Gilbert, the master makes his points in soft-spoken fashion; Olivier Baumont, his student, rejoinders and argues!

Experience is all, but, Janowski advises Olivier Dejours, firstly be a good musician, be an excellent player, good coach and reach out to others.

Teaching is a practice essential to his condition as a soloist. students Renaud Capuçon, Thierry Huchin, Mary Scheuble

Young Yuri was brought up on Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles. Filmed during the summer of 1990, taking advantage of glasnost. Students: Danilo Rossi, Andrei Gridchuk, Claire Bobij

Magaloff provides three lessons: one focusses on the young Philip Cassard, more disciple than student. Everything is said with charm, simplicity and above all tact + Patricia Pagny, Hiroko Sakagami

Undisputed star, Karajan protegée, and Belgian national treasure, Jose Van Dam reveals his power as a teacher with students Florence Bonnafous, Renaud Drouot, Marie Paule Fayt, Caroline Fevre, Vincent Le Texier, Helen Perraguin…

One of a series edited by François Manceaux & Olivier Bernager in partnership with Arte & France Musique, uncovering great musicians of our time.

Approx 1 hour running time.