In The Studio
Grammy winners!
While I Dream - Liszt Songs and Schumann Dicterliebe with Barbara Bonney
Decca Music Group Acadamy Award Nominees
Bond – on tour, on tv and on ice!
Russell Watson on the Rosie O'Donnell show
Russell Watson announces UK tourdates

In the Studio
This month, Aikiko Suwanai is in Birmingham, UK recording Walton's Violin Concerto, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner is in Watford, UK recording Weber's Oberon.
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Grammy winners!
Cecilia Bartoli has won a Grammy award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for Dreams and Fables: Gluck Italian Arias, a follow up to last year’s Grammy winner, The Vivaldi Album. An exquisite CD of arias by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) performed with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the record is the result of Bartoli’s ongoing quest to uncover rare jewels from the Baroque repertoire. The album features no less than six world-premiere recordings. At the top of her field for almost a decade, the mezzo-soprano continues to reach new artistic heights with each performance. The critically acclaimed CD topped numerous Best-of-the-Year lists, including The New York Times.
For more information about this recording, see our special Gluck feature at ceciliabartolionline.com

The Angeles String Quartet’s Haydn: The Complete String Quartets has won in the category of Best Chamber Music Performance for this mammoth achievement, recorded over a 5 year period on 21 CDs. The Angeles String Quartet, formed in 1988 in Los Angeles, delivers a marvelously consistent and authoritative performance within each work and across the set as a whole. see more details here
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While I Dream – Liszt Songs and Schumann Dicterliebe with Barbara Bonney

Barbara Bonney’s new recording of Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Liszt songs is released this month. More details are available in our New Release Section. Reviews have already started coming in, such as this one from The New York Times' radio station WQXR

The music world boasts few delights as reliable as soprano Barbara Bonney’s silvery tone and intimate eloquence. Here she bestows those talents on a program of art songs by Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt, and the results are superb.
Joining Bonney is Antonio Pappano, the rising young pianist and opera conductor who was recently appointed music director of London's Covent Garden. He previously accompanied her on the Nordic recital album “Diamonds in the Snow” and proves a sensitive partner here in Schumann’s grand Dichterliebe (“Poet’s Love”). Each of the cycle’s 16 settings to Heinrich Heine are deeply emotional ruminations on love and loss; though it has long been the domain of baritones and tenors, Bonney demonstrates that its sentiments are hardly gender-driven. In the scherzo-like third song, “Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne” (“The Rose, the Lily, the Dove, the Sun”) her light soprano conveys the giddiness of the poetry, while in the seventh, “Ich grolle nicht” (“I bear no grudge”), she forgoes the aggressive or brooding manner favored by baritones for greater sadness and vulnerability.
Songs by Liszt are equally revelatory. The opening “Oh! quand je dors” (“Oh! when I sleep”) is a Victor Hugo setting presented in both French and in German versions, each unique in phrasing and accompaniment. Even more revealing are two versions of “Im Rhein, im schönen Strome” (“In the Rhein, in the beautiful river”). The first, by Liszt, is awash in pre-Wagnerian harmonies and cascading piano arpeggios to illustrate the rushing river. The same text reappears as the sixth song of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, and takes on a hushed, even foreboding quality, with stark chords depicting a barren view of the river and cathedral.
Such couplings show that Bonney and Pappano not only offer a fresh context for two 19th-century contemporaries, but also prove an engaging pair in their own right. One can only hope that this pair will collaborate again, and soon.
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Decca Music Group Academy Awards nominees.
The recent Oscar nominations included the following:
A BEAUTIFUL MIND received 8 nominations: BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (James Horner), Best Picture, Best Director (Ron Howard), Best Actor (Russell Crowe), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly), Best Adapted Screenplay (Akiva Goldsman), Best Film Editing, Best Makeup. 
GOSFORD PARK received 7 nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Altman), Best Supporting Actress (Helen Mirren), Best Supporting Actress (Maggie Smith), Best Original Screenplay (Julian Fellowes), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design. 
BLACK HAWK DOWN received 4 nominations: Best Director (Ridley Scott), Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Film Editing. 
ALI received 2 nominations: Best Actor (Will Smith), Best Supporting Actor (Jon Voight). 
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Bond – on tour, on tv and on ice!

Bond have been in the news across the world over the past month. Firstly, they were invited to play at the prestigious MTV Asia awards in Singapore. Bond stole the show and MTV reviewed them by saying …
"...the show got off to an electrifying start with the lasses from U.K., Bond. Their combined performance with Danish percussionists Safri Duo set the tone for the rest of the evening, as one of the highlights of the MTV Asia Awards was the bringing together of Asian and International talents and music."
See the pictures below

Bond wave to the crowd
Wowing the audience
Hanging out backstage with Safri Duo

Gold medal hopeful Alexi Yagudin from Russia skated his short program to bond’s rousing tune, “Winter.” Earlier in the week, the group’s unmistakable hit “Victory” was used during pair skating - the same song prominently featured on Raymond Weil watches multi-million dollar television ad campaign, which used visuals of bond performing the track as well.

Bond’s tourdates for Asia - March & April 2002
Wed 13 Mar 2002
Seoul Korea

Fri 15 Mar
Queens Sirikit, Bangkok

Sun 17 Mar
PWTC Kuala Lumpur

Mon 18 Mar
Suntec Hall, Singapore

Wed 20 Mar
Tennis Indoor, Jakarta

Sun 24 Mar
Grand Hall at HKCEC, Hong Kong

Tue 26 Mar
Int. Conservation Centre, Osaka

Wed 27 Mar
Aichi Prefectual Hall, Nagoya

Thu 28 Mar
Lilia Hall, Kawaguchi

Fri 29 Mar
Kanagawa Prefectual Hall, Yokohama

Sat 30 Mar
Orchard Hall, Tokyo

Sun 31 Mar
Orchard Hall, Tokyo

Tue 2 Apr
Seoul

Thu 4 Apr
Workers Indoor Stadium, Beijing

Sat 6 Apr
Gymnasium, Shanghai

Mon 8 Apr
Tjanhe Stadium,Guangzhou


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Russell Watson on the Rosie O'Donnell show
Russell Watson will be appearing on the Rosie O'Donnell show (TV), one of the most popular talkshows in the USA on March 13th. Check local listings for broadcast times
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Russell Watson announces UK tourdates
Russell Watson has just confirmed six new live concert dates in the UK together with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (at Newcastle and Glasgow). The dates are: