Music@Menlo LIVE Releases Russian Reflections, an Eight-CD Collection of Live Recordings from the Festival’s Fourteenth Season

Music@Menlo LIVE is delighted to announce the release of Russian Reflections, a unique collection of eight CDs featuring live recordings from the acclaimed chamber music festival’s fourteenth season. Russia’s history is vividly reflected in its music, and the 2016 LIVE recordings celebrate one of the most remarkable and artistically rich traditions in Western classical music, from the twilight of the empire through the revolution and into the Soviet era.

The diverse programming on the Music@Menlo LIVE 2016 box set features some of classical music's most compelling and beautiful works of self-reflection, including Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence and Rachmaninov's first Trio elegaique, alongside masterpieces that changed the shape and direction of classical music, such as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The bold, audacious new language of Scriabin and Cui provides an ideal contrast to elegant quartets by Mendelssohn and Mozart, and the in turns powerful and delicate nationalist Central European melodies of Dvorak and Janacek. Also included are outstanding performances of vocal works such as Mussorgsky's chilling Songs and Dances of Death, and Shostakovich's Spanish Songs, and familiar favorites from the Russian chamber music canon, including Tchaikovsky's luminous Serenade in C Major.

The title of the 2016 festival and recordings also refers to the parallels between Russian musical works and their Western European counterparts. By juxtaposing Russian masterworks with those of the West, as with the pairing of quintets by Sergei Taneyev and Johannes Brahms on Disc 6, we discover that the very elements that distinguish Russian music—passion, romance, elegance, and more—are universally resonant themes. Through each disc of Music@Menlo LIVE’s 2016 edition, these and other perspectives cast Russia’s musical identity in sharp relief, while also revealing an essential character that transcends any cultural divide.

Produced by Grammy Award-winning engineer Da-Hong Seetoo, the recordings showcase performances from the 2016 summer festival by a roster of the world’s finest chamber musicians. Featured performers include festival founding Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han; the Calidore String Quartet; pianists Alessio Bax, Michael Brown, Gloria Chien, Lucille Chung, Alon Goldstein, Hyeyeon Park and Wu Qian; violinists Ivan Chan, Nicolas Dautricourt, Paul Huang, Katie Hyun, Ani Kavafian, Jessica Lee, Sean Lee, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Arnaud Sussmann and Kyoko Takezawa; violists Matthew Lipman and Paul Neubauer; cellists Dmitri Atapine, Nicholas Canellakis, Clive Greensmith, Keith Robinson and Paul Watkins; double bassist Scott Pingel, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, baritone Nikolay Borchev and soprano Dina Kuznetsova.

About Music@Menlo LIVE

Critics have hailed Music@Menlo LIVE, the festival’s exclusive recording label, as “the most ambitious recording project of any classical music festival in the world” (San Jose Mercury News) and “without question the best CDs I have ever heard” (Positive Feedback Online). Produced by Grammy Award-winning engineer Da-Hong Seetoo using state-of-the-art recording technology, Music@Menlo LIVE releases feature select concert recordings representing Music@Menlo’s signature thematic programming. Its CDs from all Music@Menlo festivals are available for purchase online at www.musicatmenlo.org, and downloads of MP3s are available on iTunes and www.amazon.com.

About the Recording Engineer

Six-time Grammy Award-winning recording producer Da-Hong Seetoo returned to Music@Menlo for the fourteenth consecutive season to record the festival concerts. A Curtis Institute– and Juilliard School trained violinist, Da-Hong Seetoo ranks among today’s elite audio engineers, using his own custom-designed microphones, monitor speakers, and computer software. His recording with the Emerson String Quartet for Deutsche Grammophon, Intimate Letters, garnered the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

Digitally Download LIVE 2016 Recordings

The 2016 edition of Music@Menlo LIVE is available in downloadable digital format as well as on disc. Downloading and streaming are available through a variety of online digital music retailers and streaming services including Amazon.com, iTunes and Spotify. Music@Menlo LIVE’s entire critically acclaimed catalogue, comprising live recordings from all of Music@Menlo’s past festival seasons, can also be found online and features extraordinary recordings of chamber music’s most beloved works alongside numerous rarely recorded gems.

Listen to Sound Clips from LIVE 2016

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Serenade in C Major for Strings, op. 48 (1880)
Dmitry Shostakovich: Piano Trio no. 1 in c minor, op. 8 (1923)
Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet in D Major, op. 44, no. 1 (1838)
Antonín Dvořák: Písně milostné (Love Songs), op. 83 (1888)
Sergei Rachmaninov: Trio élégiaque in d minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, op. 9 (1893)
Johannes Brahms: String Quintet no. 1 in F Major, op. 88 (1882)
Sergei Prokofiev: Sonata in D Major for Flute and Piano, op. 94 (1943)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Souvenir d'un lieu cher for Violin and Piano, op. 42 (1878)

About Music@Menlo

Music@Menlo is an internationally acclaimed chamber music festival and institute in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded by David Finckel and Wu Han as a program of Menlo School, Music@Menlo features unique immersive programming, a roster of world-class artists, and a Chamber Music Institute for emerging and preprofessional musicians. Intimate performance venues and signature offerings such as AudioNotes CDs, Café Conversations, and the Encounter lecture series offer a wide range of opportunities for aficionados and newcomers of all ages to connect with chamber music in new and innovative ways.

For further details, please visit the following links:

Press Inquiries:
Milina Barry PR / 212-420-0200 / office@milinabarrypr.com