Françaix – Music for String Orchestra
Sir Georg Solti Chamber Orchestra, Budapest; Kerry Stratton
Toccata Classics TOCC 0162

Sometimes all it takes is a letter to provide further impetus for a new disc. At least, that was the case with Canadian conductor Kerry Stratton who, upon searching for some fresh material, contacted Jacques Françaix, son of the eminent composer Jean Françaix, asking if there was any music by his father that had never been recorded. Yes, came the reply, the score for the ballet Die Kamelien and the Ode on Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Two years later, both pieces are to be found on this fine CD of music for strings on the Toccata Classics label featuring the Sir Georg Solti Chamber Orchestra.

2012 marked the centenary of Françaix’s birth — he lived until 1997 — and over the course of his lifetime, he quietly carved out a niche as a gifted and prolific composer, completing more than 200 pieces in numerous genres. The disc opens with the Symphony for Strings, written in 1948. Containing more than just a touch of French insouciance, this is elegant music, elegantly played, with the GSCO’s strongly assured performance further enhanced by a warm and resonant sound. Less well known is the ballet music Françaix wrote for Die Kamelien (The Camellias), loosely based on the 1848 play by Alexandre Dumas, which premiered at New York City Centre in 1951. The score is a study in contrasts, from the eerie opening to the highly spirited fifth movement, Im Spielsaal. Also receiving its premiere on CD is the brief Ode on Botticelli’s Birth of Venus from 1961, a haunting and evocative homage to the Renaissance Italian painter. Here, the delicately shaped phrasing goes hand in hand with a wonderful sense of transparency.

Kudos to Kerry Stratton and the GSCO, not only for some fine music-making, but for uncovering some unknown treasures that might otherwise have been overlooked.

Allan Gordon Bell – Gravity and Grace
Land’s End Chamber Ensemble
with James Campbell
Centrediscs CMCCD 19013

Gravity and Grace is a collection of recent chamber works by Alberta composer Allan Gordon Bell, featuring Calgary’s Land’s End Chamber Ensemble with guest James Campbell on clarinet. Bolstered by great performances by the core piano trio and guests, Bell’s music shimmers and shrieks, grumbles and growls.

Bell is afflicted with delight in sonority and fascinated by the physical fact of consonance, using an effective range of dissonance as a foil. He expresses a kind of gratitude to the world around him in all these works. He is a strongly visual composer; in one piece sounds create images of falcons rising on thermals above the prairie or cascades of water tumbling into pools. In Field Notes he begins with a depiction of two rivers meeting and finishes with a sunset. Sweetgrass wraps paired contrasting images of the prairie around a still central movement that takes a page out of Béla Bartók.

The album title derives from the final work on the disc. Trails of Gravity and Grace, for clarinet cello and piano, was commissioned by Toronto’s Amici ensemble. As good as the title is, it is the weakest part of a strong collection. The limited palate doesn’t suit the composer, and I must confess that at times I found Mr. Campbell’s intonation questionable.

Apart from that, the playing is solid and committed; I especially enjoyed Sweetgrass, (written in 1997, the earliest of these pieces) for a sextet requiring three guests: Calgary musicians flutist Mary Sullivan, Ilana Dahl on clarinets and Kyle Eustace on percussion. Bell is wise to write for some common groupings in the contemporary idiom: here it’s “Pierrot plus percussion.” Field Notes is written for the same group as Quartet for the End of Time.

Both Bartók and Olivier Messiaen could be fellow travellers with Bell. They shared a similar mystical regard for the natural world and made efforts to incorporate that world into their music. Bartók’s Contrasts and the Messiaen Quatuor would ride alongside Field Notes quite comfortably.

Woman Runs with Wolves
Beverley Johnston
Centrediscs CMCCD 18913

This new release by Canadian superstar percussionist Beverley Johnston has everything a listener loves — stellar performances, strong compositions and clear sound quality.

The title track, Woman Runs With Wolves by Alice Ho, is based on the myth La Loba from Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. It is a dramatic work, with Johnston vocalizing a text of an invented language while playing hand-held percussion instruments. The work also involves acting and movement but Johnston’s precise rhythmic patterns and surprising range of vocal colours make it moving even without the visuals.

Christos Hatzis’ In the Fire of Conflict is a two-movement solo marimba and audio playback version of an earlier work also featuring cello. The marimba part adds a contrapuntal melodic line to the haunting rap tracks by Bugsy H. (aka Steve Henry) and tape effects, while the rhythmic component breaks down the boundaries between classical and pop music. Hatzis’ Arctic Dreams also features flutist Susan Hoeppner and soprano Lauren Margison in a soundscape of jazzy marimba, trilling flute and lush vocals against a wilderness-evoking tape part.

David Occhipinti’s moving marimba solo Summit, and three duets with pianist Pamela Reimer — Tim Brady’s rhythmically driven Rant! (based on a Rick Mercer “Rant”), Micheline Roi’s Grieving the Doubts of Angels and the film score-like Up and Down Dubstep by Lauren Silberberg — add compositional contrast and colour.

Johnston’s sense of phrase, tone colour and respect for the composers shine throughout this perfect release from a perfect musician.

Ann Southam 5
Eve Egoyan
Centrediscs CMCCD 19113

There are many reasons to get excited about this recording of late works by maverick Canadian composer Ann Southam. For one thing, no one knew these works existed until they turned up in Southam’s Toronto home after her death in 2010. For another, this is a gorgeous recording.

What struck me the first time I listened – and after many listenings I’m still not ready to put this disc away – was that although these works are strikingly austere, they throb with vitality. Like the water-sculpted fallen trees on the booklet cover, they enchant by stealth, as though they are emerging from another world.

Southam wrote these works with Toronto pianist Eve Egoyan in mind, like the works on Egoyan’s two previous Southam recordings. Egoyan is able to bring special insights from those close collaborations with Southam to her exquisite handling of the lilting, halting and shifting rhythmic patterns which connect these works to each other, and to previous works called Returnings (two of these share the name Returnings, while the rest were left untitled).

The booklet throws light on Southam’s personal sound-world, especially by reproducing pages from her manuscripts. The sound is clear and spacious, allowing the pauses to resonate. But this disc deserves a more meaningful title, especially since it makes such an important addition to the already substantial evidence that Southam is not just one of our finest composers – hers is a significant voice in contemporary music.

Concert Note: Eve Egoyan plays a recital for Music Toronto on November 26 in the Jane Mallett Theatre at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

T. Patrick Carrabré - War of Angels
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra
Centrediscs CMCCD 18513

T. Patrick Carrabré’s accessible, modernist music is characterized by angular lines and apt, dissonant sonorities orchestrated with clarity and balance. Inuit Games (2002) is an engrossing work in which Inuit throat singers Pauline Pemik and Inukshuk Aksalnik together weave continuous vocal patterns. Around them Carrabré emphasizes the low and high orchestra registers in mysterious, menacing sonorities. A unique and strong piece. In Symphony No.1: The War of Angels (1996), the opening movement’s fast triplet motion initially struck me as suggesting a finale. But then, shouldn’t wars happen differently in angel space and time? The sombre slow movement has profound moments, while the concluding one needs more intensity, in my view. The Winnipeg Symphony brass and winds shine in this work.

Hearing the workmanlike first movement of Symphony No.3 (2003) left me with some qualms about the composer’s propensity for the moto perpetuo process. But the second one is richer and more expansive; the Winnipeg winds give their numerous atmospheric solos loving treatment. And the finale is dramatic and varied, with some intricate counterpoint that builds to an impressive climax. The Dragon’s Tail (1997) is the exciting closer on this disc, featuring percussion passages performed energetically as the other sections of the orchestra also generate plenty of menace! Kudos to Carrabré for his compositions and his work (along with conductors Andrey Boreyko and Bramwell Tovey) for the annual Winnipeg New Music Festival, which has helped composers, orchestra and audiences for contemporary music flourish.

Rite
Jon Kimura Parker
Independent FP 0907 (www.jonkimuraparker.com)

Rite is an exciting CD of world premiere transcriptions of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (1913) and the complete ballet Petrouchka (1911) by pianist extraordinaire Jon Kimura Parker. There have been numerous transcriptions of the Rite, notably, by Stravinsky himself, Sam Raphling and Dickran Atamian. There are countless CDs and YouTube versions of three movements from the ballet Petrouchka. Emil Gilels, Grigory Sokolov, Alexis Weissenberg, Maurizio Pollini are excellent, Yuja Wang and Lang Lang with huge followings less so. What makes Parker’s version of Petrouchka a “must listen” is his remarkable and sensitive adaption of the complete ballet for solo piano. The focus is not so much on the pianistic fireworks of the famous dances but more on the pathos and lyrical qualities of melodic passages and the storyline. His attention to detail in transcribing is impeccable and his performance is never rushed but unfolds with singing lines and capricious humour. The ballet breathes in shapes and emotions. I realized at the end of the piece that I had not thought about the orchestra or the dancers because Parker’s transcription works beautifully as an extraordinary solo piano piece. This is definitely a welcome addition to the piano repertoire.

May 29, 2013 is the 100th anniversary of the Rite of Spring premiere performance in Paris, France. Today The Rite of Spring is one of the most influential works of the 20th century. Claude Debussy knew the work well and played it with Stravinsky in the four-hand duet version. Stravinsky himself worked on the score from the piano so it is no surprise that it works well as a solo piano piece. Jon Kimura Parker discovered Stravinsky’s piano duet version, which was used for ballet rehearsals. He felt that it was “less fastidious with details than I had expected.” Parker then began to add instrumental lines that had been left out. Other solo piano versions were deemed either too minimal or unplayable. I like Parker’s version with the encompassing layers of sound, from extreme delicacy and poignant colour to raw sensuality and primitive power. His performance is virtuosic both technically and artistically. I also agree with Parker’s quote about his own inspiration for this project. “Playing the Rite of Spring at the piano I am reminded of the day that I saw an exhibition of Picasso’s pencil sketches side by side with the finished paintings. Despite the absence of colour the angular power of the lines had even a greater impact.” We can use the same words about this CD which is excellent and I recommend it highly.

Ives/Brant - A Concord Symphony; Copland - Organ Symphony
San Francisco Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas
SFSMedia 821936-0038-2

The four movements of Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata for piano (published in 1919 at Ives’s own expense along with his philosophical Essays Before A Sonata) are entitled Emerson, Hawthorne, The Alcotts and Thoreau – all leading authors of the American Transcendentalist school. Ives’ visionary writing is similarly “transcendent” and extremely challenging for performer and listener alike. Canadian-born composer, teacher and professional orchestrator Henry Brant had a particular affection for this groundbreaking work and set out to transcribe it for orchestra, a labour of love that occupied him off and on over the course of 35 years. The resulting 50-minute work was completed in 1994. Brant explained his intent was “to create a symphonic idiom which would ride in the orchestra with athletic sure-footedness and present Ives’s music in clear, vivid and intense sonorities.” Brant’s transcription is masterful and highly imaginative. He freely shifts the contours of melodic lines from one register to another and occasionally constructs inner voices to enhance his orchestral palette while remaining true to the content of Ives’s original piano score which, with its multiple staves, extreme density and general absence of time signatures, clearly suggests a blueprint in the form of an orchestral short score. The result could hardly be in more capable hands than those of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, both of whom have an outstanding record of support for contemporary American music.

The disc also includes Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony of 1925, a work commissioned and first performed by his mentor Nadia Boulanger. It is a remarkably assured accomplishment by the then 24-year-old composer and was the first of his works to receive wide public acclaim. Organist Paul Jacobs delivers a knockout performance of this intriguing and surprisingly intimate work. Superlative SACD quality sound throughout makes this disc a must-have item.

Cage - Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano       
Henry Kucharzyk         
Artifact Music ART-041 (www.arraymusic.com)
What to say about John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano? The piece has been recorded scores of times. Cage “invented” the prepared piano by inserting bolts, screws, pieces of rubber and other objects between the piano’s strings at precise points along the strings’ lengths in order to change the instrument’s timbre and tuning in unexpected ways. He described the result as a percussion ensemble under the hands of a single player. Cage’s insight and ingenuity in creating the prepared piano are a legendary moment in 20th century music. He had been exploring the possibilities of the prepared piano for some years up until the date of Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48) and continued to write for it for some years afterward. The prepared piano is the signature instrument of this early-to-middle phase of the composer’s career. 
What do we listen for in each new interpretation of the Sonatas and Interludes? Often, we tend to listen to the surface of this music – the novel sounds that result from Cage’s preparations. But Henry Kucharzyk’s performance takes us deeper into a new world of sound possibilities to approach the music’s essential motives. Cage’s “subject” was the nine “permanent” emotions of the Hindu tradition: the heroic, the erotic, the wondrous, the mirthful, sorrow, fear, anger, the odious and tranquility, to which the others all tend and aspire. Cage does not specify whether a particular sonata or interlude was intended to depict one or more of these nine. The overall effect of this very beautiful CD suggests that Henry Kucharzyk was especially highlighting tranquility, without short-changing any of the others. The erotic and the wondrous would be my next choices as guidelines/impulses in Kucharzyk’s interpretation, which has its mirthful and sorrowful moments, too.
I don’t remember now why I wasn’t there to hear this performance at the Premiere Dance Theatre 23 years ago. It must have been wondrous indeed. But we have this unique recording thanks to Artifact Music, Arraymusic, recording technicians John Oswald and Christopher Butterfield and, most of all, to Henry Kucharzyk for his deeply intelligent and elegantly realized rendition – emotional in just the way Cage intended.

Rota - Clarinet Sonata; Clarinet Trio
Goran Gojevic; Mary Kenedi; Lynn Kuo; Winona Zelenka; Michael Sweeney
Naxos 8.572778

The name Nino Rota may not be all that familiar, but if you’ve ever seen The Godfather or heard the famous love theme from the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, you’ve heard his music.

Born in Milan, Rota studied composition with Pizzetti and later at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Although he is chiefly known today for his film scores, his output also includes a large number of chamber and orchestral works, all of it written in a contemporary but thoroughly accessible style. And what better way to sample some of his non-commercial output than through this fine Naxos recording with music performed by some of Toronto’s top musicians? Among the pieces presented here are the Clarinet Sonata, the Clarinet Trio, Improvviso, Toccata for Bassoon and Piano and the Fantasia for Piano, admirably performed by Goran Gojevic, clarinet, Mary Kenedi, piano, Lynn Kuo, violin, Winona Zelenka, cello, and Michael Sweeney, bassoon.

This is a charming disc, its appeal not only in the high level of performance, but in the inherent contrasts found within the music. The Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano from 1973 is pure cheekiness, with two playful outer movements surrounding a languorous andante. In contrast, the lyrical Clarinet Sonata, written 18 years earlier, clearly looks back to the 19th century with its expansive melodies and mood of introspection. Gojevic’s warm tone and Kenedi’s solid command of the score result in a fine performance. Equally romantic is the Fantasia for Piano, also from 1945. A recent discovery, this piece seems to draw from numerous sources, but few of them from the 20th century – do I detect a snippet of Schubert at times? A touch of French impressionism?

This collection is a most welcome addition to the catalogue, and ample proof that there is much more to Nino Rota than what we’ve heard on the big screen during the last 45 years. Bravo to all performers involved for some fine music making.

Elżbieta Sikora - Solo and Electronics
Various Artists
DUX 0679a (www.dux.pl)

The soundworlds of the four works composed by Polish born Elżbieta Sikora emerge in this album out of the inspiration generated by the poetry of Zbigniew Herbert. Through the skilful interweaving of instrumental and electroacoustic timbres, each piece is an evocative sonic image stimulated by Herbert’s words: a striding Orpheus-Apollo; a hesitant Nike beckoning; a waking dream shimmering; a collection of stones distilling midair.

Although celebrated in Europe Sikora is relatively unknown in this country, but if you love listening to new sounds and are intrigued and curious about the electroacoustic genre, this CD offers music of breathtaking imagination and compelling sonic textures. Each piece presents an interaction between a solo instrument – flute, cello, harpsichord, piano – and electronic sources generated within a studio environment. 

This interaction takes varying forms: question and answer, expression of opposite polarities, or one sonic plane enhanced by the other. And within each of the pieces, she has carefully crafted various approaches to creating a sense of open flexibility within the realm of a fixed time frame -- always a compositional challenge with electroacoustic works for live players and pre-recorded electronics.

Even though the pieces were created over a period of 25 years, at no time do you feel as if the older technologies used are a limitation. In fact, quite the opposite. Each piece offers a window into a rich and diverse sonic language, and is full of dramatic vigour and intensity. Definitely a composer worth discovering.

On the Nature of Electricity & Acoustics
Electro-Acoustic Music from Ireland
Curated by Daniel Figgis
Heresy 010
www.heresyrecords.com

Imagine the sound of a traditional Irish jig or reel in the hands of someone who loves playing with electronic instruments and recording devices. Think of all the possible combinations that could arise. That’s exactly what you will hear on the CD On the Nature of Electricity & Acoustics. Curated by Daniel Figgis, this album is a compilation and sampling of 23 pieces, each created by a different Irish composer or musician. And to add to the mix, these musicians come from a wide range of backgrounds and influences: contemporary classical composers, rock musicians, sound experimentalists, traditional music virtuosi and visual artists. The fascinating images in the accompanying booklet offer glimpses into early instruments — both acoustic and electric in nature.

Over the last three or four decades, traditional Irish music influences have swept across the globe, bringing their unique identity to the pop, rock and world music genres. With this album we are treated to the inimitable Irish sound under the influence of experimentation and boundary pushing. It opens with a very early electroacoustic work, created in 1978 using classic tape techniques, by one of the country’s leading composers, Roger Doyle. We immediately land in the familiar soundworld of the piano presented with a driving rhythmic force so characteristic of the Irish essence. These strong rhythmic qualities, along with looping and repetitive melodic or harmonic patterns, textural layering and the presence of a recognizable instrument are present in almost every work on the album. The distinctive instrumental sounds heard include the fiddle, bagpipes, bodhrán, accordion, electric guitar, cello, as well as a few flashes of a Celtic vocal presence. Electronic sounds include the presence of lush synthesizer textures, wild electric guitar riffs, static and noise articulations and gliding filter sweeps.

The final track by the curator Daniel Figgis really sums up the spirit of the whole album. If I were to lift a pint of beer to my mouth and close my eyes, I could easily imagine I was sitting in a traditional Irish pub, tapping my toes in time with the music. Yet my ears would be overjoyed to hear the unusual and mind-bending twists and turns that unfolded before me. There would be no denying that I was in the presence of an ancient musical tradition whose indelible spirit penetrates through time, technologies and trends.

Dompierre – 24 Préludes
Alain Lefèvre
Analekta AN 2 9292-3

Canadian composer François Dompierre has had an eclectic career to say the least. Born in Ottawa in 1943, he studied music at the University of Ottawa and the Conservatoire de Montréal in addition to his private lessons with Claude Champagne, Clermont Pépin and Gilles Tremblay. Since then, his career has taken him on several paths, including those of conductor, composer, CD producer and travel writer. His own compositions demonstrate a myriad of genres – soundtracks for more than 60 films, a full-scale opera and upwards of 30 concert works.

Dompierre’s 24 Préludes were inspired by longtime family friend “Bob” whose keyboard dexterity and interest in boogie-woogie were a source of great fascination to the young François. Hence, it was with Bob in mind that Dompierre created this enticing collection of miniatures, engagingly performed here by Alain Lefèvre on a two-disc Analekta recording.

The set opens with a prelude aptly titled Frénétique which features a rollicking boogie-woogie style bass, very much à la 1940s. From here, many of the preludes pay homage to a particular dance or pop style, one for each of the major and minor keys of the tonal system, and all as diverse as the set of 24 preludes by Frédéric Chopin. For example, the eighth, titled Déterminé (Tango) is a rhythmic and bombastic interpretation of the famous Argentinean dance form, while No.12, Immobile (Cool) lies at the other end of the spectrum, minimal and introspective. Lefèvre demonstrates a real feeling for the music, capturing the mood of each piece with great panache. Many of them contain complex cross rhythms, syncopations and chromatic harmonies, elements best addressed by only the most musically adept of pianists.

In all, the disc is an appealing case of “new wine in old bottles” with composer and performer perfectly complementing each other. Bob would surely have approved!

Brundibár – Music by composers
in Theresienstadt (1941–1945)
The Nash Ensemble
Hyperion CDA67973

The outstanding Nash Ensemble presents a compelling tribute to four Jewish composers based in Czechoslovakia and held in the Theresienstadt ghetto for prisoners often Auschwitz-bound. Hearing these works we mourn the untimely deaths of Holocaust victims Hans Krása, Victor Ullman, Gideon Klein and Pavel Haas.

The concise String Quartet No.3 by Ullman (1898–1944) is particularly accomplished. Expressiveness akin to Alban Berg’s pervades the opening movement. The colourful finale opens march-like and in canon, then takes off with many grainy sul ponticello effects and pizzicato chords. All is handled expertly by the Nash’s strings: Stephanie Gonley and Laura Samuel, violins; Lawrence Power, viola; and Paul Watkins, cello.

Their performances of the String Quartet No.2 “From the Monkey Mountains” by Haas (1899–1944) and the String Trio by Klein (1919–1945) also deserve accolades. In the Haas quartet’s opening movement, “Landscape,” intonation of violinists Samuel and Gonley is superb in high, difficult figures reminiscent of Haas’ teacher Janáček. In the hilarious “Coach, Coachman and Horse,” all players provide suitably grotesque glissandi to portray the sliding cart!

The young Klein’s trio includes deft and imaginative variations on a Moravian folksong. Finally, the full Nash Ensemble including winds, piano and percussion gives an energetic reading of a suite from the children’s opera Brundibár by Krása (1899–1944). It is a delightful work with witty allusions to popular styles. Brundibár stands as a brilliant testimony to the resilience of cultural life in Theresienstadt.

Britten – Les Illuminations; Variations; Serenade; Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal
Barbara Hannigan; James Gilchrist;
Jasper de Waal; Amsterdam Sinfonietta; Candida Thompson
Channel Classics CCS SA 32213

It’s centennial season again and it’s Benjamin Britten’s well-deserved turn to hog the limelight. This new disc from the Amsterdam Sinfonietta brings us two familiar song cycles and an early work for string orchestra. A knockout performance of Les Illuminations, ten sophisticated settings of the poetry of Artur Rimbaud from 1939, opens the disc. Soprano Barbara Hannigan is in fine fettle here, singing very beautifully in excellent French while the virtuoso string orchestra blooms luxuriantly in the warm acoustics of Haarlem’s Philharmonie Hall. Hannigan, renowned for her expertise in contemporary music, is one of Canada’s most celebrated vocalists and though that information figures quite prominently on her personal website, the liner notes ruthlessly delete any reference to her nationality!

An eclectic parody of myriad musical styles for string orchestra follows, the 1937 Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, dedicated to Britten’s first composition teacher and “musical father.” Bridge was an outlier in the parochial British music scene and one of the very few who appreciated the progressive music of continental Europe, knowledge he passed down to his eager teenage pupil. The recording cleaves quite closely to the timings and interpretation of Britten’s own 1966 recording though the modern sound, recorded in the Stadsgehoorzaal in Leiden, is excessively reverberant and over-modulated, though I suppose this might be considered a virtue for SACD fanatics.

Superior microphone placement makes this less of a problem in the closing item, the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings from 1943. It features James Gilchrist, a fine singer with more heft to his voice and less affectations than most English tenors, partnered with the assured playing of the principal horn of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Jasper de Waal.

David Tanner; Jose Elizondo –
Of Birds and Lemons
Moravian Philharmonic; Vit Micka,
Petr Vronsky; Millennium Symphony; Robert Ian Winstin
Navona Records 96931
www.navonarecords.com

For those who have always tended to shy away from contemporary music for fear it’s too “avant-garde,” this disc titled Of Birds and Lemons featuring music by two composers may be just the thing. The two in question — David Tanner (born in 1950) and José Elizondo (born in 1972) both write in a style that may rightly be described as “contemporary conservative.” Indeed, there isn’t a tone cluster or a trace of electronica to be heard anywhere on this CD.

Born in the UK, Tanner came to Canada as a child, and while in his 20s, earned fame as a member of the rock group Lighthouse. He is also known as a fine saxophonist and has taught the instrument at the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music. Tanner’s approach — that music should be enjoyed by performers and audiences alike — is very much reflected in the pieces included on this disc — Pocket Symphony, Tango of the Lemons, I’ll Come to Thee by Moonlight and Tyger — performed by the Moravian Philharmonic and the Millennium Symphony. Together, they embody a buoyant and optimistic spirit, perfect for the community groups for which many of them were intended.

Mexican-born José Elizondo shares a similar outlook. In addition to his musical studies, Elizondo also studied electrical engineering at MIT and Harvard. He too, writes in an affable, contemporary style which he claims might be “too simple” for certain tastes. But his pieces Estampas Mexicanas, Leyenda del Quetzal y la Serpiente and Danzas Latinoamericanas — clearly reflecting his roots — are joyful and engaging and the two orchestras conducted by Petr Vronsky, Vit Micka and Robert Ian Winstin perform with great bravado.

This is definitely “music with a smile on its face” — and who’s to say we don’t need more of that these days?