Photo: Carsten Boe

GRATEFULNESS…

 Notes by Joshua Cheek

“It seems that finally the world is starting to get back to normal after the long period of corona lock downs, and that the music scene is slowly opening up. All around the globe, performers and audiences are anxiously looking forward to being together again – this magical encounter is the DNA of the musical experience: the special intimate communication shared by players and listeners in real time in the same room!”
This Month’s Newsletter offers a special focus on OUR Recordings releases with guitar, both as a solo instrument and in combination with various other instruments. On the front-page of the new OUR Recordings catalogue you see our 14 albums with guitar so far. 

Click on the image above to watch OUR new catalogue.

On June 1 we will release a very special album: ”Ta´ mig med – Kim Larsen Songs for Classical Guitar” performed by Jesper Sivebæk, senior lecturer and head of the classical guitar department at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. The first reviews are already IN!  Many thanks again to our friends at Fanfare Magazine for perceptive and insightful comments, and for summarizing: 
“The guitarist plays the melodies with the utmost respect and love, striking an ideal balance between the roles of vocalist and virtuoso guitarist” 
Read the full review on our website as well as much more information about this special project and the enduring musical influence of Kim Larsen on Danish musical culture. And while you are there, check out a short video trailer we’ve just made!
Stay tuned for additional music videos featuring Jesper Sivebæk performing his arrangements.
 

From OUR Back Catalogue:
The Glorious Guitar

OUR Recordings’ very first release was Siesta, featuring the Petri/Hannibal Duo performing a Spanish-themed program. In the years since that brave first step, the beloved duo have released 5 additional  albums drawing on their extensive repertoire of baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary masterworks.  The Petri/Hannibal Duo played their first concert in 1992 and has played nearly 2,000 concerts around the world since then. 

For the combination of guitar and violin, OUR Recordings has released 4 critically albums: 3 with Kim Sjøgren and Lars Hannibal (who performed together as  Duo Concertante), playing the music of Lalo, Giuliani and contemporary Danish composers, and one with the Award-winning Chinese virtuoso Chen Yi in a program of classical music evergreens. Hannibal’s work with Duo Concertante has even inspired artists in other disciplines! Check out how “Journey,” featuring the music of Palle Mikkeborg, was used by the Houston Ballet Company with choreography by Christopher Bruce!

With a Latin Touch

At the 2016 meeting of Classical:NEXT in Vienna, Lars Hannibal had the opportunity to meet the distinguished great Brazilian guitarist and composer Daniel Murray. The two musicians hit it right off and Hannibal invited Murray to Copenhagen to discuss a possible collaboration with Michala Petri. This resulted in a project devoted to explore the origins of the bossa Nova. To their surprise they learned that back in the late 19th century, bar pianists in Brazil were “jazzing up” the romantic piano music of Chopin adding a bit of Brazilian “Choro-feeling.” Over the next 3 generations, the bossa nova gradually developed. On the album Brazilian Landscapes you find Brazilian music from 1880 to present day arranged by Daniel Murray. Michala Petri and Daniel Murray invited former Miles Davis percussionist Marilyn Mazur to join them as well. The video below was recorded in connection to the recording in December 2017 and was one of our first 360-degree video recordings.
 

As part of the Dialogue – East meets West project, OUR Recordings released SPIRITS with Chen Yue, one of China’s foremost Chinese Xiao bamboo flute players, and Lars Hannibal. They did this recording in a single session on a very special night in Beijing in autumn 2006, where they selected music from each other’s traditions – China and Europe - for a very special international concert of duets. Some of the music recorded that night was selected for the album SPIRITS. The video below is from a live performance at the museum Glyptoteket in Copenhagen 2007.

With an Eye to the Future

One of the largest projects that OUR Recordings has undertaken to date is a multi-disc series documenting the music of the Danish modernist composer Axel Borup-Jørgensen. Among Borup-Jørgensen’s works was a number of highly distinctive, demanding pieces for guitar. We recorded a representative selection with Danish guitarist Frederik Munk Larsen, who is the head of the guitar department at the Academy of Music in Aarhus. The recording was made in the outstanding acoustic of the Church of the Queens Castle in Fredensborg. In the video below Frederik Munk Larsen explains about the guitar music of Axel Borup-Jørgensen.

The album BLUE – compositions and arrangements by Lars Hannibal with the Petri/Hannibal Duo is the first disc dedicated entirely to the music of Lars Hannibal, released October 2020 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hannibal’s multifaceted public career as a “Servant of Music.” BLUE is recorded surrounded by water and nature at Baltic Studios on the Island of Bornholm and contains atmospheric new and old compositions as well as instrumental arrangements of classical Danish songs. On the video below, Hannibal reflects on this special album.

Looking Back and Moving Forward

While waiting during the recent lock down period, Hannibal found a recording he did back in 2005 of the first two pieces from Mario Castelnouvo-Tedesco`s Platero y Yo – a rare work of 28 pieces for guitar and narrator – a combination used in very few works in music history.   His original idea was to record all pieces with narrator in Danish, English and German, but other projects and concerts took priority. These 2 pieces were remastered in DXD format, and released in February this year as OUR Recordings first digital EP. There will be more Digital EP´s in the future, so stay tuned!

Click on the cover below to listen on Spotify.