NEW ON NAXOS | MAY 2023
8.574411 Release Date: 26 May 2023
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Neil Thomson © Rafaella Pessoa
Key Features: • This release makes the 15th instalment in Naxos’ ‘ Music of Brazil ’ series, also celebrating the 80th anniversary of Almeida Prado’s birth. • Almeida Prado’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Aurora and Concerto Fribourgeois are on 8.574225: ‘This collection of works for piano and orchestra showcases the composer’s startling musical imagination and is performed with mastery and poise by Brazilian pianist Sonia Rubinsky and the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra.’ ( BBC Music Magazine ). • Conductor Neil Thomson has been principal conductor and artistic director of the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra since 2014, leading the orchestra to national prominence with its championing of Brazilian and contemporary repertoire. • The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra is approaching the 70th anniversary of its foundation in 1954. Conducted since 2020 by Marin Alsop, the orchestra’s recording of the symphonies of Villa-Lobos (8.506039), conducted by Isaac Karabtchevsky, won CONCERTO magazine’s Grand Prize and the Prêmio da Música Brasileira. • To mark the bicentenary of Brazilian independence on 7 September 2022, Gramophone published a playlist from Naxos’ ‘Music of Brazil’ series, playable on Apple: www.gramophone. co.uk/features/article/discover-the-music-of-brazil-a-playlist. José Antônio de ALMEIDA PRADO (1943–2010) Sinfonia dos Orixás Pequenos funerais cantantes * Clarissa Cabral, Mezzo-soprano * • Sabah Teixeira, Bass-baritone * São Paulo Symphony Choir • São Paulo Symphony Orchestra Neil Thomson José Antônio de Almeida Prado was one of the most admired Brazilian composers of his time. The two stylistically diverse works featured on this album exemplify different creative periods in the composer’s life. The prize-winning Pequenos funerais cantantes , which was Almeida Prado’s breakthrough as a composer, is a lament full of unique soundworlds forged from different combinations of choral and orchestral writing. The superbly orchestrated Sinfonia dos Orixás takes as its subject the Orishas (deities in the Yoruba religion) – and is a personal tribute to the rich Afro-Brazilian religious traditions, a sumptuous melodic and rhythmic feast celebrating the forces of nature.
LISTEN
Click to listen to Pequenos funerais cantantes ao poeta Carlos Maria de Araújo: Corpo de terra VI
About Neil Thomson, Conductor Neil Thomson enjoys a busy international career working with all the major UK orchestras and with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, WDR Rundfunkorchester, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, and the Romanian National Orchestra. He has performed with many distinguished soloists including Dame Felicity Lott, Sir Thomas Allen, Sir James Galway, Nelson Freire, Jean Louis Steuerman and Antonio Meneses. From 1992 to 2006 he was Professor of Conducting at the Royal College of Music, London, the youngest person ever to hold this position. He was made an Honorary Member of the RCM in recognition of his services to the institution.
São Paulo Symphony Orchestra
Companion Titles – The Music of Brazil Series
NEW
8.574409
8.574225
8.574197
8.574310
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