What's new in CDs, videos, and books - Music Resources - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, July, 2002

CDs

The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan

Two CDs, SFW CD 40438. Available from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Mail Order, 750 Ninth Street NW, Suite 4100, Washington, D.C. 20560-0953; 800/410-9815, fax 800/ 853-9511, email folkways@aol.com. Web site: www.folkways.si.edu

Yo-Yo Ma has teamed up with choreographer Mark Morris as part of the cellist's Silk Road Project, an exploration of the music of the regions bordering the ancient Europe-to-Asia trade route. If you thrill to the sound of a duduk, dutar, ghijak, or komuz--or even if you've never heard these traditional Central Asian instruments--Smithsonian Folkways offers two CDs of appetite-whetting music. Most of the forty-seven selections feature solo performers; unfortunately, no translations of the songs are provided.

Ballet Elite

Roger Hewett. One CD, PDI 021. Distributed by Double Image Productions, C.P. 23583, C.P. l'Heureux, Beloeil, QU, J3G 6P5, Canada. Web site: www3.sympatico.ca/ roger.hewett

The Best of Ballet for Ballet Class, Volume 5

Dmitri Roudnev and Elena Balyakhova. One CD, no catalog number. Available from Dmitri Roudnev Ballet School of Chicago/Ballet Intensive from Moscow office; 312/440-3389. Web site: www.BalletRussianTeachers.com

Tribute to Madam

Two CDs, CD WLS 255. Available from ASV Direct, ASV Ltd, 1, Lochaline Street, London W6 9SJ, England, UK; 020 8741 9955, fax 020 8748 2488. Web site: www.asv.co.uk

In honor of the late Dame Ninette de Valois, founder of the Sadler's Wells Ballet (later The Royal Ballet), these two CDs offer the scores of four ballets that she choreographed: The Haunted Ballroom (1934), The Rake's Progress (1935), Checkmate (1937), and The Prospect Before Us (1940). The scores by Geoffrey Toye, Gavin Gordon, Sir Arthur Bliss, and William Boyce are performed by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Barry Wordsworth.

New Ballet Music 7 "From the Heart"

Scott Killian. One CD, BDCDNBM7. Available from Ballet Dynamics, Inc., 163 Amsterdam Avenue #234, New York, NY 10023-5001; 800/357-3525, Web site: www. finisjhung.com

The latest in a series of master teacher Finis Jhung's ballet CDs features twenty-four digitally orchestrated selections for barre and center exercises.

Chakra Suite: Music for Sound Healing & Meditation

Steve Halpern. One CD, IPM 8000. Available from Steve Halpern's Inner Peace Music, P.O. Box 2644, San Anselmo, CA 94979-2644; 800/909-0707. Web site: www. innerpeacemusic.com

Esmeralda: Music From the Ballet by Cesare Pugni

One CD, no catalog number. Available from Adro Labs, Inc., 3200-2 Hillside Ave., Birmingham, AL 35205; fax 205/969-3595. Web site: www.adro.com

La Esmeralda, a three-act ballet retelling of the story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, premiered in London in 1844. The tale of the hunchback Quasimodo's doomed love for the Gypsy gift Esmeralda was choreographed by Jules Joseph Perrot to a score by Cesare Pugni (one of his 312 ballets). This CD presents more than an hour of Pugni's music, performed by the Odessa Symphony Orchestra of Opera and Ballet under Igor Shavruk.

The Passion of St. Thomas More

Garrett Fisher. One CD, BIS-CD-1158. Available on the Swedish BIS label through Qualiton Imports Ltd., 24-02 40th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101; 718/937-8515, fax 718/729-3239, email qualiton@qualiton.com. Web site:www. qualiton.com

The American composer Garrett Fisher has based his hourlong "dance opera" on the last days of More, the English statesman who defied King Henry VIII and was executed in 1535 (a tale also recounted in the play and movie A Man for All Seasons). It is sung in English by a three-member cast, each performing multiple roles, and scored for cor anglais, guitar, percussion, and harmonium (played by the composer, who also wrote the libretto). Its two acts are separated by a danced masque, and the character of the Dancer acts as the drama's silent narrator.

Between the Barres

Michael Roberts. Two CDs, MRMUSIC-2. Available from Treble Clef Productions, P.O. Box 94457, Pasadena, CA 91109-4457

Class in the City: Music for Ballet Class

Music by the late pianist Lynn Stanford. One CD, BOD 9955. Available from BODARC Productions, Box 191332, Dallas, TX 75219; 214/526-1062. Web site: www. flash.net/~jaydist

Videos

Dance Hot Salsa, Video 1 (Levels I & II)

by hot new star Josie Neglia. One VHS videocassette. Available from 65 Pine Avenue, Box 200, Long Beach, CA 90802; 800/484-2620, extension 4215. Web site: www.latindance.com

This forty-five-minute video is the first in a set of nine featuring Los Angeles-based instructor Josie Neglia. Volume I comes with a reminder card that, among other things, advises the male partner to "look macho."

Les Affluents

Compagnie Philippe Saire. Video CD. Available from Theatre Sevelin 36, Avenue de Sevelin 36, P.O. Box 110, 1000 Lausanne 20, Switzerland; 41 21 626 38 12, fax 41 21 626 38 14, email cie.saire@bluewin.ch. Web site: www.philippesaire.ch

This fifteen-minute video adaptation of Philippe Saire's Les Affluents (2001) can be played on both PCs and Macintosh computers. It begins with one dancer standing stock-still while another throws shoes at him. As it continues, the eight dancers clear the shoes off the floor with long poles, play with knives, and fondle one another to the mournful strains of a solo cello.