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Sandrine Cantoreggi & Sheila Arnold | Mel Bonis: Entre Soir et Matin
Release date: December 1st 2023 | C-Avi Music

A late discovery of a most important female composer from France for the musical world. Melanie Helene Bonis, known by her artistic pseudonym Mel Bonis (21 January 1858 – 18 March 1937), was a Romantic composer in the late years of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century.

Her oeuvre includes more than 300 pieces: music for piano, chamber music in various formats, organ pieces, Lieder, choral music, a mass, and works for orchestra. Her teachers at the Paris Conservatoire included Cesar Franck, Ernest Guiraud and Auguste Bazille.

To her contemporaries’ surprise, Mel Bonis succeeded in the Paris society and was well regarded by her male composer fellows Camille Saint-Saens, her fellow student Claude Debussy and others. Some of her works have been officially published.

Sheila Arnold and Sandrine Cantoreggi initiated this album and discovered not only a piece – Soir – that was never played or recorded before, but kept her choice to play on period instruments (notably on a Bluethner Fortepiano 1871). Two Trios (one with Cello, the other with flute) embrace the program of small short pieces for Violin and Fortepiano, highlighting in particular the larger Violin Sonata, Op. 112.

Sascha Ley, Laurent Payfert, Murat Öztürk, Jean-Pascal Boffo | AXIS MUNDI
Release date: 19 January 2024

Four years after the release of their last album, Sascha Ley and Laurent Payfert break away from the duo formula for an experiment in instant compositions with long-time friends and colleagues Jean Pascal Boffo and Murat Öztürk, whom they had already invited as special guests on the album It’s Alright To be Everywhere (JHM 2019). After the shock and repercussions of the great pandemic, the desire to dedicate themselves to improvisation during this recording in February 2023 was very strong.

With an intuitive spirit, the four virtuoso artists from different fields play with a high degree of freedom to invent sounds and melodies that reflect both their individuality and the universality of being in the present.

Their communication is a dialogue between themselves and the audience, stories that are told and shared, their music, an experimental blend of their sources of inspiration which range from jazz, progressive rock, chanson, classical and contemporary, to the performing arts and poetry.