Gramophone Classical Music Podcast

Jan Lisiecki, a former Gramophone Young Artist of the Year, has recorded his eighth album for Deutsche Grammophon, the complete Chopin Nocturnes (his third Chopin recording for the DG). James Jolly caught up with him by video call in Poland where he's spent a long period during the pandemic and from where he has maintained a busy schedule. Gramophone Podcasts are given in association with Tomplay Sheet Music.

With the voting open for the 2021 Orchestra of the Year Award, music journalist and broadcaster Rob Cowan joins Gramophone's Editor in Chief, James Jolly, to talk about ensembles from Germany, the USA, Singapore and Switzerland. This is the only award chosen by our readers and an international audience of music-lovers. Visit our Awards pages for the list of the ten nominated orchestras and to vote. But before you do, listen to the ensembles on ten specially curated playlists and our dynamic playlist on Apple Music in lossless audio. Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

With the voting open for the 2021 Orchestra of the Year Award, Copenhagen-based music journalist and broadcaster Andrew Mellor joins Gramophone's Editor in Chief, James Jolly, to talk about ensembles from the UK, Italy, Germany and Canada. This is the only award chosen by our readers and an international audience of music-lovers. Visit our Gramophone Awards 2021for the list of the ten nominated orchestras and to vote. But before you do, listen to the ensembles on ten specially curated playlists on Gramophone on Apple Music in lossless audio. Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

The BBC Proms opens this time next week - July 30 - with a packed six-week schedule of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, as well as chamber concerts in Cadogan Hall and broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, online and on television. Editor Martin Cullingford met with the Proms' Director David Pickard to talk about some of the themes and highlights, and about the challenges of planning and staging a season in a time of Covid. Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

Nicola Benedetti's new album is out today on Decca Classics focussing on two composers of the Italian Baroque, Francesco Geminiani, and Antonio Vivaldi, and accompanied by eight live performances at Battersea Arts Centre and an online education project, the Baroque Virtual Sessions. Then on August 14 the violinist begins a residency at this year's Edinburgh International Festival, featuring music spanning the breadth of her instrument's repertoire and history. She talks to Editor Martin Cullingford about all these projects, as well what it feels like to return to live performance.

Kit Armstrong has recorded an album for DG of keyboard music by William Byrd and John Bull, under the title 'The Visionaries of Piano Music'. James Jolly caught up with him to talk about what drew him to a repertoire from over 100 years before Bach, playing music written for virginals on a modern piano and the distinct musical personalities of these two great composers. Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall, where having streamed more than 200 concerts over the past year, the venue's doors are once again open.

This week's guest is pianist Angela Hewitt, who tells Editor Martin Cullingford about her beautiful new album 'Love Songs', transcriptions of songs by composers including Schumann, Schubert, Richard Strauss, Gluck, Grieg and De Falla - with arrangements by pianists and composers including Liszt, Godowsky, Grainger and Hewitt herself. The album is out today on the Hyperion label. Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

When Randall Goosby signed to Decca Classics, his forthcoming first album was described as being a 'journey across more than a century of African-American music for violin, tracing its roots in the spiritual through to the present day'. That fascinating and personal project - called Roots - is released today, and to explore its themes - as well as the music of composers including William Grant Still, Florence Price and Xavier Foley - the young virtuoso joined Editor Martin Cullingford in this week's Gramophone Podcast.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director of New York's Metropolitan Opera, The Philadelphia Orchestra and Montreal's Orchestre Métropolitain, makes his solo piano debut on record for DG with an album entitled 'Introspection'. Recorded during lockdown near his home in Montreal, the album is dedicated to his late piano teacher Anisia Campos. James Jolly spoke to Yannick Nézet-Séguin about 'Introspection' but also about his relationship with the piano from his early years studying it to how he can keep it part of his busy schedule as one of the world's most sought-after conductors. This solo album follows a recent recording of Schubert's Winterreise with the mezzo Joyce DiDonato (who also spoke to us about the project for another Gramophone Podcast). The Philadelphia Orchestra is currently Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year.

For the next album in his universally acclaimed series for Chandos with the Sinfonia of London, John Wilson turns to the music of Henri Dutilleux. He talks to Gramophone's James Jolly about his love of the French composer's music, the art of orchestration and gives a sneak preview of some of the recording projects in the pipeline. His new album couples Kenneth Hesketh's orchestration of three works for solo instrument and piano – the Flute Sonatine, Oboe Sonata and Sarabande et cortège – with Dutilleux's 1953 ballet, written for Roland Petit, Le Loup.