The 2021 inaugural edition of the Bayfront Jazz Festival takes place in Miami’s Bayfront Park. The festival’s mission is to honor and celebrate the current and future giants of Jazz, Afro-Cuban, Latin and electronic music. This year’s unique line-up includes Roy Ayers, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Chucho Valdés, Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Aymée Nuviola and Mark Guiliana’s Beat Music. One of the most visible and winning vibraphonists since the 1960s and part of the Bay Front Festival 2021 is Roy Ayers. Ayers’ 1976 neo-soul album Everybody Loves the Sunshine is one of the most heavily sampled records in hip-hop history.
Magic Moments of Music – Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle “Spirituals”
When Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle took the stage of Carnegie Hall March 18, 1990 a breath of history wafted through America‘s most famous concert hall. It is a camera view of the audience that makes clear how long the road to this moment in music history was: there, the now very old African-American opera singer Marian Anderson, one of the great voices of her generation. In 1939, she had been barred from singing in Constitution Hall, because she was black. The twelve-year-old Jessye Norman had absorbed Anderson‘s biography, just like the music she performed that evening together with her great colleague and competitor Kathleen Battle: Spirituals. That evening in March 1990 was under enormous pressure of expectation and the tension crackled at all corners. For one thing: Would the two compete? Where did the competition lie? Divas who would actually manage to sing together and not against each other? But the two divas take Carnegie Hall by storm; critics and audiences alike pay homage to them: It is a musical feast of charisma, virtuosity, liveliness and show. Jessye Norman dominates the stage with her authentic timbre and an African colourful costume, Kathleen Battle still hits the finest high coloraturas.
Lea Salonga: Live at Sydney Opera House
Captured in peak performance from the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Salonga performs the beloved songs she made famous throughout her Broadway career as well as her signature songs from the animated movie blockbusters, “Aladdin” and “Mulan”. Renowned worldwide for her powerhouse voice and perfect pitch, Salonga entered the Broadway musical scene with her 1991 Tony-winning performance as Kim in “Miss Saigon” and most recently starred in the Tony-winning 2017 revival of “Once on This Island.” She was the first Asian cast member to play Eponine in the musical “Les Misérables” on Broadway and later returned to the beloved show as Fantine in the 2006 revival. Including songs from movies and musicals like Aladdin, Mulan, Anastasia, Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, The Greatest Showman …
Carnival of the Animals – A music piece tells the story
The “Carnival of the Animals” is his best known work. Camille Saint-Saëns never wanted to publish it during his lifetime. On the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death in December 2021, the music piece itself tells us how the dwindling act of birth occurred in the composer’s mind. It is the notes that tell us of its suffering and of its triumph on the great stages of the musical world. According to the will of its creator, “Carnival of the Animals” was to be performed only once, in March 1886, on Shrove Tuesday. And now this piece has stolen the show from Camille Saint-Saëns’ other works for a hundred years. Directors have brought Saint-Saëns’ music to Hollywood. At the Cannes International Film Festival, “The Aquarium” is the signature tune. The film shows that “Carnival” is more than the musical characterization and exaggeration of various species. The role of the narrator was taken over by German actor Sebastian Koch. An orchestra specially assembled for the film lets the music of the “Carnival of the Animals” resound.
Serenata Latina – Rolando Villazón & Xavier de Maistre
At the beautiful Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Rolando Villazón partners with star French harpist Xavier de Maistre for a concert of intimate arrangements of Latin American songs for tenor and harp. Latin American song-writing, where indigenous, European and African cultures meet, offers a tantalising collage of sounds, rhythm, melody and narrative.
7 Lives of Music – The Kanneh-Mason Familiy
Seven siblings whom nobody expected – but the classical music world desperately needed. The story of the Kanneh-Mason Family reads like a fairytale. They have dealt with prejudice, they have been overlooked, they have been made to feel out of place. But they have picked themselves up and they have proven themselves time and time again. The Kanneh-Masons light up every room they enter and they have found this to ensure the support of people like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who invited Sheku to play at their wedding, and Elton John, who supported Isata with a scholarship. This film accompanies this family on their path and join them on and behind the stages of the world as they conquer it together, as they grow into their own as a family of talented musicians.
Julian Rachlin & Denis Matsuev in Moscow
Pianist Denis Matsuev and his good friend, the violinist Julian Rachlin, perform in the venerable Moscow Conservatory. On this occasion, the artists dare to try something new: instead of his violin, Julian Rachlin reaches for the conductor’s baton to conduct a piece which he, with his violin, would neve approach. Together and for the first time, they give an interpretation of a work put to paper by Pyotr Tchaikovsky in the Moscow of 1874: his Piano Concerto No. 1. The film accompanies the rehearsals and concert which, together with the youthful and vibrant energy of the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, turns out to be very special indeed.
Magic Moments of Music – Nigel Kennedy and the Four Seasons
It is a recording that is shaking up the classical music scene. Suddenly, an audience feels addressed that until then had heard little of classical music, of Bach or Vivaldi. Nigel Kennedy succeeds in overcoming the fears of an audience for whom Schubert and Beethoven had previously been too elitist and too aloof. He inspires as many and as varied people as probably few classical music stars before him. The CD with a recording of the Four Seasons becomes the best-selling classical album of all time. Nigel Kennedy enter the Guinness Book of Records: more than 3 million records sold. The album stays at the top of the UK classical charts for over a year and also reaches high positions in the pop charts. The tabloids and magazines pounce on the young artist. The recording of this tour, which sells out within minutes, becomes one of music‘s finest moments. With wildly gelled hair and in unusual designer garb, Nigel Kennedy appears before his audience. He succeeds in addressing his listeners simply, without airs and graces, and in introducing them to his world without creating any hurdles.
Moment Musical – Albrecht Mayer
As concert halls are silent and theatres dark during the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic, bringing performers and audiences together demands creative solutions. C Major Entertainment, in collaboration with Arte Concert and DG, is set to launch a series of professional live relays of concerts given by artists at Berlin’s legendary Meistersaal. The programmes focus on solo or duo works. This approach limit the number of artists, technicians and backstage staff involved, in compliance with government regulations, while drawing on the endlessly rich repertoire of chamber pieces past and present. Using remote cameras, members of the audio and video crew are safely dispersed in different rooms. The third episode featuring Berlin-based oboist Albrecht Mayer and pianist Kimiko Iman.
Moment Musical – Seong-Jin Cho
As concert halls are silent and theatres dark during the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic, bringing performers and audiences together demands creative solutions. C Major Entertainment, in collaboration with Arte Concert and DG, is set to launch a series of professional live relays of concerts given by artists at Berlin’s legendary Meistersaal. The programmes focus on solo or duo works. This approach limit the number of artists, technicians and backstage staff involved, in compliance with government regulations, while drawing on the endlessly rich repertoire of chamber pieces past and present. Using remote cameras, members of the audio and video crew are safely dispersed in different rooms. The fifth episode featuring Berlin-based Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho.