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Leaf Music Distribution Presents Anders Muskens and Eclectic New Early Music, Army of Generals Volume II

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music announces the distribution of two distribution from early music specialist Anders Muskens. The two recordings are all being released on December 1.

Anders Muskens is a Canadian early keyboard specialist and ensemble director, who performs throughout North America and Europe. One of his two new releases, Army of Generals Volume II: Carl Theodor’s Court Orchestra in Mannheim 1742-1778, revives the eighteenth-century’s Mannheim Court Orchestra. Revered across Europe as one of the finest musical institutions of its day, the revolutionary style of the orchestra’s composers coupled with its awe-inducing performances inspired an entire musical generation, including Mozart. The Mannheim court sought to create a harmonious society built on knowledge, reason, and artistic expression. Composers Anton Fils, Johann Stamitz, Christian Cannabich, Nicolo Jommelli, Gian Francesco de Majo and Anton Schweitzer are featured with the Neue Mannheimer Orchester, Muskens on harpsichord, concertmaster Mojca Gal and Elisabeth Hetherington (Canadian soprano). The CD was recorded at the German Evangelical Church in The Hague, Netherlands, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. 

Listen to Army of Generals Volume II: Carl Theodor’s Court Orchestra in Mannheim 1742-1778 wherever you stream your music: https://leaf-music.lnk.to/dnmo003.

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell). 

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Leaf Music and ICOT Present: “Recurrence”

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and ICOT (formerly known as The Iranian Canadian Composers of Toronto) are delighted to announce their forthcoming album Recurrence, recorded in May at Humbercrest United Church in Toronto.

Recurrence had its genesis at the beginning of the pandemic, when the notion of repetition assumed a novel and unsettling meaning for many people. The album explores the idea of repetition through different iterations in the natural and artificial worlds. In five new, far-reaching compositions, the concept of repetition and its consequences are teased apart in myriad ways through the unique lens of each composer; some took to ecology, some to politics, and one was inspired by the late fashion designer, Alexander McQueen. The result is five exceptional artistic works, each unique in its aesthetic and sonic exploration into the vortex of repetition. Shahi’s Eroded imagines musically the cycle of coastal erosion, while Kayan Emami has created a musical reflection of a young Iranian boy and his boat in Kian in Rainbows, (also paying homage to recently deceased composer, Jocelyn Morlock). Maziar Heidari’s piece, Arrays, alludes to the beauty and potential in mathematics and music of recurrence. 

Speaking about the album, ICOT executive director and composer Saman Shahi says, “Recurrence is one of ICOT’s most ambitious projects in scale and concept. Some of Canada’s best and brightest composers and performers are paired with a powerful core concept: how much of our human experience is shaped by patterns, cycles, and routines. Humans find meaning, comfort, dread, fear, and expression in repetition be it in our memories, our daily lives, the politics we witness, the traumas we face, or the nature we behold; this is what this album is trying to investigate and probe.” 

Recurrence features the compositions of renowned composers Maziar Heidari (also a conductor), Saman Shahi (also a pianist), Keyan Emami, Jordan Nobles, and Nicole Lizée and will be available everywhere on October 13. The project was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and FACTOR. 

The recording features a stellar group of Canada’s finest musicians, including the New Orford String Quartet (Jonathan Crow (violin), Andrew Wan (violin), Sharon Wei (viola) and Brian Charles Manker (cello); Scott Peterson (double/electric bass); Leslie Allt (flute); Peter Stoll (clarinet); Beverly Johnson and Ryan Scott (percussion). 

ICOT (icot.ca) is a non-profit arts organization founded in 2011 by five Toronto-based composers and musicians with the mission of creating new works that bridge Canadian and Iranian culture through music and art. ICOT’s current members are Saman Shahi (executive director), Keyan Emami (artistic director), and Maziar Heidari (music director). ICOT has produced two operas, two ballets, twelve orchestral works, dozens of chambers and vocal works, and three calls for scores that allowed ICOT to collaborate with over twenty composers from eight different countries. ICOT’s music has been performed by Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra, Symphony on the Bay, Soundstreams, and Ton Beau String Quartet and they’ve taken part in Toronto Symphony’s 2022 Open House, Tirgan Festival, 2017 Ottawa Chamberfest, and Hamilton Philharmonic’s 2014 “What Next” Festival. ICOT’s first commercial recording, Persian Piano Night, was released in 2018 by Pardis Records.  

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. We are also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.  

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For media only: 

Icot.ca 

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt, peggy@leaf-music.ca  (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell). 

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Leaf Music & Essential Opera Present: “Etiquette”

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Composer Monica Pearce’s one-act opera Etiquette is being released by Leaf Music and Essential Opera. The twenty-one minute work features three influential 1920s women: author, critic and satirist Dorothy Parker (known for her wit and wisecracks), author and socialite Emily Post, and American-born British politician Nancy Astor. Etiquette in Society, in Business, in politics, and At Home (the book by Emily Post) was published in 1922, noting the importance of etiquette in all aspects of life: “Consideration for the rights and feelings of others is not merely a rule for behavior in public but the very foundation upon which social life is built.” When reviewing the work, however, Parker observed that, “Those who have mastered etiquette seem to arrive at exquisite dullness.” 

Commissioned by Essential Opera, this world-premiere recording was made possible with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Nova Scotia. The album was recorded at St. Andrew’s United Church in Halifax. A stylish short film is also being released in the coming months.  

Monica Pearce composed the music, and the librettist is John Terauds. The recording features sopranos Maureen Batt and Erin Bardua, Mezzo-soprano Lucy Hayes Davis, pianist Tara Scott, and clarinetist Brad Reid. 

Essential Opera’s recent productions include short opera films by Canadian women composers. Founded in 2010 in Toronto by Erin Bardua and Maureen Batt, the company has commissioned many new works, receiving support from SOCAN, Ontario Arts Council, Arts Nova Scotia, and The Canada Council for the Arts. Their mission is to give audiences opportunities to experience opera at its most essential, with a dynamic and evolving definition of what is essential. 

Monica Pearce is a Canadian composer specializing in opera, chamber music and everything toy-piano-related. After completing her Bachelor of Music at Mount Allison University with a focus on piano and composition, Monica has a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Toronto and co-founded emerging composer collective, the Toy Piano Composers, with Chris Thornborrow. Her compositions have been performed and commissioned by many leading ensembles. She won the Harry Freedman Award for her harpsichord work toile de jouy and was nominated for Classical Composer of the Year by the 2022 East Coast Music Awards for Maureen Batt’s recording of Aunt Helen. In 2022 she released her debut album Textile Fantasies, a multi-work piece including eight works inspired by textiles and patterns. Called “vivid,” “pleasantly intricate,” “imaginative and meaningful,” by reviewers, this recording features performances by keyboardists Cheryl Duvall, Wesley Chen, Barbara Pritchard, and Joseph Ferretti, tabla player Shawn Mativetsky, and renowned ensembles TorQ Percussion and SHHH!! Ensemble. Monica is active as a librettist and worked with composer Cecilia Livingston on the Dora-nominated opera on the life of Anne Frank entitled Singing Only Softly.  

essentialopera.com 

MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews, please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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Leaf Music & Tutta Musica Orchestra Present: Ovation

(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Two years into Covid-19, New Brunswick’s Tutta Musica Orchestra celebrated everyday heroes of the pandemic, presenting six concerts in various New Brunswick communities. Each concert included a newly commissioned musical piece by Vancouver composer Jaelem Bhate, using themes of courage, resilience, and community. Now the orchestra brings these works to a wider audience through their soon-to-be-released recording, Ovation, on the Leaf Music label.

Tutta Musica consists of sixty musicians who are the Teaching Artists of Sistema New Brunswick, a highly successful program of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra. The musicians are graduates of some of the finest university and conservatory music programs in North and South America. They strive to make live music more accessible, more engaging, and more relevant to more people throughout the region. Working in many genres from rock and roll to Acadian music to opera, Tutta Musica collaborates with artist in creative writing, comedy, theatre, and dance, creating original content which features New Brunswick themes, culture, and people. The ensemble is conducted by Maestro Antonio Delgado, who is also Musical Director of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra and of Sistema NB.

The two major works on this recording are Manuel de Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat, Suite No. 2 and Jaelem Bhate’s contemporary work, Ovation. This new piece was composed in just seven weeks, consisting of three aptly named movements: i. Courage, ii. Resilience and iii. Community. The melodies and harmonies of these movements are generated by the same chord construction (a C minor 11 tetrachord) in which the intervals between notes are those of fourths). The effect is strongly allusive to the subject of Covid. To quote the composer: “It was difficult to find a balance between triumph and sorry…I wanted to write something that we could all relate to, despite the sometimes-intense feeling surrounding how Covid was handled by different entities. All three movement speak to some of the base human emotions I think we all felt through the past two and a half years, no matter our politics or beliefs.”

Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).

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ICOT to Release “Recurrence” on October 13

Leaf Music and ICOT (formerly known as The Iranian-Canadian Composers of Toronto) are delighted to announce their forthcoming album Recurrence, to be recorded in May at Humbercrest United Church in Toronto.  

Recurrence had its genesis at the beginning of the pandemic, when the notion of repetition assumed a novel and unsettling meaning for many people. The album explores the idea of repetition through different iterations in the natural and artificial worlds. Over the course of five new, far-reaching compositions, the concept of repetition and its consequences are teased apart in myriad ways through the unique lens of each composer, each of whom was tasked with examining an aspect of repetition and finding ways to express its manifestations musically. The result is five exceptional artistic works, each unique in its aesthetic and sonic exploration into the vortex of repetition.  

Speaking about the album, ICOT executive director Saman Shahi says, “This album is one of ICOT’s most ambitious projects both in scale and concept. Some of Canada’s best and brightest composers and performers are paired with a powerful core concept that truly elevates our artistic practice as a group and also as individual composers and musicians. This project gave us total creative freedom to pursue what repetition meant to each of us as individual creators, in turn creating a set of fresh and compelling works.”  

Recurrence features the compositions of renowned composers Maziar Heidari (also a conductor), Saman Shahi (also a pianist), Keyan Emami, Jordan Nobles, and Nicole Lizée and will be available everywhere on October 13.  

Pre-Save here – https://leaf-music.lnk.to/lm256

ICOT is a non-profit arts organization founded in 2011 by five Toronto-based composers and musicians with the mission of creating new works that bridge Canadian and Iranian culture through music and art. ICOT’s current members are Saman Shahi (executive director), Keyan Emami (artistic director), and Maziar Heidari (music director). ICOT has produced two operas, two ballets, twelve orchestral works, dozens of chamber and vocal works, as well as three calls for scores that allowed ICOT to collaborate with over twenty composers from eight different countries. ICOT’s music has been performed by Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra, Symphony on the Bay, Soundstreams, and Ton Beau String Quartet and has taken part in Toronto Symphony’s 2022 Open House, Tirgan Festival, 2017 Ottawa Chamberfest, and Hamilton Philharmonic’s 2014 “What Next” Festival. ICOT’s first commercial recording, Persian Piano Night, was released in 2018 by Pardis Records, and their second commercial album, Recurrence, is slated for release in fall of 2023. 

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ICOT 

Release Date: October 13, 2023 

Digital Release 

 Icot.ca 

leaf-music.ca 

MEDIA CONTACT: Andrew Brown | andrew@leaf-music.ca 

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Jaap Nico Hamburger & Leaf Music Present: “Concerto Antico: à travers un miroir fumé”

‘Concerto Antico: à travers un miroir fumé’ from celebrated composer Jaap Nico Hamburger – featuring Matthias Maute conducting Orchestre classique de Montreal and Ensemble Caprice –  is set to be released April 7, 2023, through Leaf Music. Produced by Jeremy VanSlyke, this multi-faceted concerto was recorded at Salle Claude Champagne in Montreal, Quebec. ’Concerto Antico’ was commissioned by the OCM, Ensemble Caprice, and supported by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. 

Reflecting on the historical relevance of music Hamburger says, “What makes a work a distinct reflection of its own time? In the early 18th century, music made much use of dance forms, and was often created to be entertainment for ‘the privileged’ in society. So how are we different from people in the eighteenth century? If anything, the socio-economic developments of the past two hundred years have significantly widened not just the circle of listeners to music but, as the recent pandemic has shown, the mass participation of the entire society in the dominant conversations of the day.” 

“Concerto Antico is written in five short movements that start in the here and now, then return to the style of the 18th century, and gradually work their way back to the future. The music ends where it started but is transformed. History may repeat itself, but we as an audience, affected by our shared experiences, have changed.”   

‘Concerto Antico: à travers un miroir fumé’ is dedicated to the memory of Maestro Boris Brott and the first single from Hamburger’s forthcoming album ‘Tzimtzum’, arriving on Leaf Music in September 2023. 

~ 

Jaap Nico Hamburger is the current Composer in Residence with Mécénat Musica in Montréal. His compositions include commissions for orchestra, opera, chamber music and solo works. His music has been performed and recorded in Canada, The Netherlands and Israel. In 2021, he was commissioned by the United Nations and the Government of the Netherlands to compose a new concerto on occasion of the 75th anniversary of the International Court of Justice.  Other commissions include works for Discovery Channel as well as European broadcasting companies. He is a Canadian Music Centre Associate Composer. His Chamber Symphony No. 2 ‘Children’s War Diaries’ was nominated for the Matthijs Vermeulen Award (2021) and received a JUNO nomination for classical composition of the year (2022).  

Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, he started his musical education at the age of 3, and studied piano with Ruben Lifschitz, Alexandre Hrisanide and Youri Egorov. He graduated from the Royal Sweelinck Conservatorium of Music in Amsterdam, with a soloist degree in piano. He has lived in Canada since August 2000.   

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MEDIA CONTACT:  

For more information/photos or to arrange interviews please contact Peggy Walt,  peggy@leaf-music.ca (902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell). 

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Jaap Nico Hamburger: “Piano Concerto”

Jaap Nico Hamburger: Piano Concerto from celebrated composer Jaap Nico Hamburger – performed by pianist Assaff Weisman.
The recording was produced by Vancouver-based Misha Aster and the work was performed by pianist Assaff Weisman and l’Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal under the direction of Vincent de Kort. This dramatic concerto is full of drive, explosive energy and pathos. While reminiscent of great works by Prokofiev and Shostakovich, it is truly a unique work among Canadian piano concertos and  modern classical compositions. 






Jaap Nico Hamburger is the current Composer in Residence with Mécénat Musica in Montréal. His compositions include commissions from Turning Point Ensemble, Ensemble Caprice, the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, and an original contribution for the project ‘400 years of Dutch Keyboard Music’. He was recently commissioned by the Dutch Government and the United Nations to compose a new concerto for harp and orchestra, to be premiered by Lavinia Meijer and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2021. Other commissions include works for Discovery Channel, and broadcasting companies in the UK and the Netherlands. He is a Canadian Music Centre Associate Composer, President and CEO, Orange Music Inc., a Vancouver music production company; and, a former Director of City Opera Vancouver.

Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, he started his musical education at the age of 3, and studied piano with Ruben Lifschitz, Alexandre Hrisanide and Youri Egorov. He graduated from the Royal Sweelinck Conservatorium of Music, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with a soloist degree in piano. He has lived in Canada since August 2000. Anticipated recordings include the release of Jaap Nico Hamburger: Chamber Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. (November 6, 2020)

Pianist Assaff Weisman has been captivating audiences with his intensity, lyricism and communicative style since his solo debut at the age of twelve. The Greenville News observed “this piano virtuoso has facile fingers that toss off daredevil passages with ease and a mind for music that is as nimble as his fingers.” Mr. Weisman is a graduate of the Juilliard School where he studied with Herbert Stessin and where he is a member of the Evening Division piano faculty.  Prior to his studies in New York Mr. Weisman studied with Professor Victor Derevianko in Israel and was supported by scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. http://www.assaffweisman.com/

Conductor Vincent de Kort, born in the Netherlands, is very much in demand as a symphonic as well as an opera conductor. Recently he made very successful debuts at the famous Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow as well as at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg (invited by Valery Gergiev). He is a regular guest at the opera houses of Dresden, Stockholm, Edinburg, Leipzig, Tokyo, Vienna, Vilnius, Tours, Luzern, Bern, Magdeburg, Johannesburg, Hawaii, Kazan. He studied with Mariss Jansons in Oslo and in St. Petersburg with the legendary Professor Ilya Musin, who was also the teacher of Valery Gergiev, and was the assistant conductor to Bernard Haitink, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and William Christie. http://www.vincentdekort.com/ 

One of Quebec’s leading cultural ambassadors, the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal was founded in 1981 on a bold gamble: that the best way to promote symphonic music is by creating strong ties with the public. For 20 years now, the OM has grown alongside its artistic director and principal conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, whose career continues to reach new heights. Their exceptional collaborative relationship has given rise to many ambitious musical projects, some of them quite daring, under the leadership of the Montreal conductor. https://orchestremetropolitain.com/en/