GRAMMY® Award winning Yarlung Records brings fresh musicians to the classical music world using minimalist audiophile recording techniques to deliver sound as close to living performance as possible.  Rather than using recording studios, engineer Bob Attiyeh produces these albums in concert halls famous for their acoustics, including Walt Disney Concert Hall and Ambassador Hall in Los Angeles.  Yarlung uses both analog tape and high resolution digital media for CDs made with special alloys, high resolution digital downloads, and 180 Gram vinyl LPs, mastered by Steve Hoffman.

Yarlung repertoire ranges from the 11th century through the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras, with a special focus on new music from the 20th and 21st centuries.  Artists include top soloists as well as superstar young musicians at the beginnings of their international concert careers.  Yarlung brings artists into your living room; you can hear their music, their breathing, and almost their heartbeats.

Yarlung Records congratulates Lalo Schifrin and Antonio Lysy on their GRAMMY for Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina.  Bravi!

Smoke & Mirrors
Debut

Orion Weiss
solo piano

If You Love For Beauty
Sasha Cooke
The Colburn Orchestra

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Martin Chalifour and the
Los Angeles Philharmonic

David Fung
Evening Conversations

Suryodaya
The Coming of Light
Robert Vijay Gupta & Badal Roy
Video Link

Ciaramella: Music from the Court of Burgundy

Frédéric Rosselet
Modern and Baroque 'cello
Bach, Berio, Dutilleux, Ligeti

Inner World
Music by David S. Lefkowitz

A Tribute to Pierre Fournier
John Walz

David Howard
clarinet

Ciaramella:Dance
Coming Soon

Elinor Frey & David Fung
Dialogues for 'cello and piano

Joanne Pearce Martin
Barefoot

Petteri Iivonen
Art of the Sonata
Video Link

Janaki String Trio
debut

David Fung
The Piano: A Journey

Antonio Lysy at The Broad
Music from Argentina
Video Link

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
40th Anniversary

Ryan McCullough
in Concert

Eric Zeisl, UCLA Philharmonia
Neal Stulberg, Antonio Lysy

The Art of the Violin
Petteri Iivonen
Video Link

Yarlung Records is delighted to be the first US record label selected by world-renowned Linn Records to provide high resolution studio master 24-bit 88.2 kHz music files for music lovers with high resolution music servers, as well as full CD quality and 320k MP3 downloadable files.

We believe that select late twentieth and early twenty-first century composers can write music as rich and beautiful as the masters of earlier eras. Note Steven Stucky's Dialoghi, Meditation and Dance, and Tres Pinturas. Also Jason Barabba’s String Trio, and works by David Lefkowitz and Krzysztof Penderecki happily along side Beethoven on the Janaki debut release Enjoy music by Tan Dun comfortably at home with Mozart, Scarlatti, Rachmaninov and Schumann on David Fung’s Evening Conversations.

Dialoghi offers masterpieces by Lutoslawski, Saariaho, Stucky, Rouse and Lefkowitz alongside J. S. Bach, Machaut, and Leonin. Orion includes the magnificent Elliott Carter sonata. David Howard includes works by Steve Stucky, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Galina Ustvolskaya along with the monumental Brahms Clarinet Quintet. Ryan MacEvoy McCullough introduces us to Milosz Magin on his debut recital which also includes Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Debussy.

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One of our missions at Yarlung Records is to record young artists at an early stage in their international concert careers.

• We believe these early recordings are often the most technically proficient and emotionally sincere recordings an artist makes during the span of a long and successful career.

• We also know how important it is for young concert musicians to have high quality recordings available for their concert audiences. In previous eras, major labels fought to record the best young musicians. This kind of interest from a major label is rare in today’s market, and Yarlung Records is taking steps to provide this critical service.

There is a distinct breed of recording connoisseur that feels the best-recorded sound comes from the least amount of equipment.  One must use the fewest microphones required to capture the sound, and they must be placed in perfect locations. This is the “less is more,” “minimalist,” or “purist” school. Many microphones, multiple-track mixers, miles of microphone cable can add noise and what audiophiles call a blanket over the sound and over the music. This makes the music seem distant and un-engaging. There are extraordinary recordings made this way. But they are rare, and their engineers walk on water.

In these most recent Yarlung Records releases, I use either one stereo or two mono vacuum tube microphones, which record directly to two tracks (left and right, for stereo playback). We use microphones like the legendary AKG C-24, and matched Neumann U-47s. I believe that these minimalist recording techniques will give you, the listener, the most transparent sound, the most accurate soundstage and the most life-like ambiance of these great artists in a concert hall.

We use customized vacuum tube microphone preamplifiers instead of a mixer, and our custom interconnect cables. We record separate paths of analog tape and high definition digital audio.  Producer Bob Attiyeh works with Steve Hoffman to master our recordings.

Eric Myers reviewed Sasha Cooke and Colburn Orchestra’s first recording in the February, 2013 edition of Opera News.  Excerpts:  “The high point of her [Metropolitan Opera] performance was her seductive love duet with Gerald Finley's Oppenheimer, which included her aria 'Am I in Your Light?' Cooke leads with that piece on her excellent debut solo CD, If You Love for Beauty, in which she is sensitively accompanied by Yehuda Gilad and the Colburn Orchestra.

Opera News on If You Love for Beauty: “Cooke's attractive, erotic stage presence struck plenty of sparks in Doctor Atomic, but without question she also delivers the vocal goods. She possesses a firm fruity mezzo, straight-toned in quality, which allows the listener to luxuriate in her unerring sense of pitch. And she has a strong yet subtle interpretive ability, one that draws the listener in. She doesn't play to the balconies; she makes you come to her, as did the much-lamented Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

--Eric Myers

With generous underwriting from Raulee Marcus, Yarlung commissioned Derek Tywoniuk,  to write Happenstance for our debut album with Smoke & Mirrors Percussion Ensemble.  Jerry and Adi Greenberg underwrote Yarlung’s commission of Eli Eli by
David S. Lefkowitz, Linda Joyce Hodge funded Badal Roy’s
Calcutta Sunrise, and David and Margie Barry underwrote
Raga Jaunpuri on Robert Gupta’s album Suryodaya. Yarlung continues to commission new work and welcomes underwriting from serious music lovers around the world.

Janaki String Trio commissioned a new work from Pierre Jalbert scheduled for premiere in 2009. This follows Alabaster Rounds, commissioned from Andrew Norman, which premiered triumphantly in New York in Carnegie’s Weill Hall in January 2007. You can also hear Jason Barabba’s String Trio, commissioned by Janaki for their Yarlung Records debut album, in live Janaki Trio performances. Look also for Janaki’s Taneyev and Vanhal releases on Naxos Records.

Robert Levi of Positive Feedback Online calls Janaki’s debut recording with Yarlung Records "intensely musical and analog-like." John Casler writes "Janaki String Trio is also 'beyond' audiophile quality and standards, in every area."

Referring to David Fung's Evening Conversations under the heading "Best PIANO Recording I have ever heard," AudioCircle writes: "The Piano just sounds like it is as big as the whole room.... And what a performance it is!"

Dialoghi includes the world premiere recordings of Steve Stucky’s Dialoghi, studi su un nome, Christopher Rouse’s Ricordanza, and David Lefkowitz’s Amour et biauté parfaite, commissioned by Yarlung Artists. Ryan MacEvoy McCullough in Concert includes Milosz Magin’s Five Preludes for piano. David Howard includes the world premiere recording of Steve Stucky’s Meditation and Dance.

Yarlung Records purchases green energy offsets through Native Energy in our attempt to compensate for the electrical power consumed in our recording and manufacturing operations and for our administration.  

We hope your albums last forever.  Should you eventually wish to recycle them, GreenDisk can help by recycling your jewel cases and the polycarbonate used in the manufacture of items like CDs and DVDs. 

Yarlung Artists is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of young classical musicians as they begin their international concert careers. With the help of Special Advisors Margaret Batjer, Harry Bicket, Martin Chalifour, Roberto Diaz and Michala Petri, Yarlung Artists records, markets and distributes debut albums for select young concert artists to help them gain stature and visibility with their audiences, critics and peers.

In Princeton Alumni Weekly (April 2007) Kathy Greenwood writes “Concert artists… need quality CDs to sign for audience members after their performances. ‘Without such albums, audiences and critics seem not to take… musicians as seriously,’ says Attiyeh. ‘And it helps the musicians [know they are] legitimate and that they have made it onto the international stage.’”

For more information, please telephone (310) 431-9175 or send an email message to support@yarlungartists.org. If you would like to make a donation to Yarlung Artists, tax deductible to the full extent of the law, please click the Donate button below. Yarlung Artists is a separate organization from Yarlung Records.

Yarlung Records takes its name from the Yarlung Valley in Central Tibet, where the royal houses buried Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen (two of the great early Kings in the historical record) in the Tibetan "Valley of the Kings." Legends claim the Yarlung Valley as the magical birthplace of the Tibetan people and as a meeting place between heaven and earth. It is in this valley, at the site of  Yambulakhang Castle in our Yarlung Records logo, where Heaven and Earth touched in order to transform humanity.  What could be a better metaphor for the transformative power of great music?

Photo: Yarlung Records © 2004
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Yarlung Records
10920 Wilshire Boulevard
#150-9162
Los Angeles, California 90024
(310) 692-4575
info@yarlungrecords.com

Smoke&Mirrors
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The percussion ensemble, Smoke and Mirrors plays as if all five musicians were one person. The musical selections on this album are refreshingly fully-developed works, each very different from the others, each with its own story. As a whole, these pieces illustrate the breadth of contemporary classical music written for percussionists, as well as the flexibility and virtuosity of Smoke and Mirrors percussion ensemble.

Smoke and Mirrors uses rhythm, pitch and timbre to create intensely effective experiences. The recording includes compositions by Steve Reich, Eric Whitacre, Happenstance, a world premiere recording by Derek Tywoniuk, and works by Toru Takemitsu and Ravel.  It opens with Reich’s complex Nagoya Marimbas which shows off the virtuosity of the ensemble. Together the five musicians weave into filaments of sound and rhythm as if they were one person.

Sleep is based on Whitacre’s beautiful choral work; this stunning arrangement preserves the essence of the choir, creating an equally beautiful percussion soundscape. Toru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree is a quiet contemporary work which continuously metamorphoses itself in a smooth sea of tonality. Closing the album is Ravel’s Sonatine, a naturally rhythmic composition that showcases the true spirit of Ravel’s music.

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Orion Weiss, piano
24 Karat Gold Audiophile CD

$19.99 + S/H

Scriabin's fiery fifth sonata showcases Orion's dynamism and delicacy as well as his ability to produce a breathtakingly broad range of warm, mid-keyboard colors contained within this impressionistic piece that ends as furiously (and explosively) as it begins.

…the recording compellingly communicates every deft keyboard stroke of a young virtuoso…

...if your system can handle the piano's prodigious low frequency energy and intense dynamics, you will be presented with a realistic rendering of a piano in all of its sonic and physical glory....
Michael Fremer, Stereophile

“Weiss’ phrases had more happening in them than other pianists do in an entire piece.  He showed color and sensitivity, clarity and evenness of technique, and a dynamic level that was more the range found on a fortepiano.”
Geraldine Freedman, The Daily Gazette

Orion Weiss combines exacting perfectionism with genuine affability and Midwestern charm. Orion offers high voltage electricity as a performer, linked with intellectual and musical maturity as a poet at the keyboard. In his writing Michael Fremer compares Orion Weiss to Gustavo Dudamel. Indeed we are fortunate; this appears to be the beginning of another musical golden era, in which young and extremely talented musicians enrich our enjoyment of the nuances in concert music by bringing fresh vitality to seasoned masterpieces and new compositions alike.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Acoustic Image

Sasha Cooke & Colburn Orchestra
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Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has been recognized as a young superstar in concert and opera for many years now, but it was as Kitty Oppenheimer in The Metropolitan Opera’s 2008 production of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic that I first heard her. Half way through her first act aria “Am I in Your Light?” I knew I wanted to work with her.  Despite her ferociously busy schedule Sasha responded immediately with a “Yes!” to my suggestion we make her debut album. Since then we had the great pleasure to hear Sasha in Southern California in her debut performances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Sasha won her first GRAMMY® Award for Sony’s DVD release of Doctor Atomic from The Met. 

The Colburn Orchestra, close to home but international in quality, proved an equally powerful draw. These musicians, all members of the Colburn Conservatory conducted by Music Director Yehuda Gilad and led by concertmaster Caitlin Kelley, enrich our lives in Los Angeles.  When I hear these musicians live, and on this recording, I am happily reminded of the successful recordings Mercury Records created with Howard Hanson and the Eastman Rochester Orchestra. Or of the sound of the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle. Like these other youthful musicians in Berlin, the members of Colburn Orchestra create a distinct orchestral sound (a great one), and Maestro Gilad elicits sensitive and lyrical interpretations of the repertoire. This recording of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder won the Audio Oasis Award at THE SHOW in Newport, 2012.

--Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
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“In Germany, one rarely encounters an orchestra whose members take the stage smiling happily, almost radiantly. Not only did the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra do just that at its appearance on Monday, it worked itself up into even higher spirits with every measure….”
Die Welt, Hamburg

“The orchestra’s reputation for subtlety and precision, which had preceded it, came through in its elegant and clear phrasing. The sensitive paraphrasing of the themes and the transparency…along with its warm tone, gave the orchestra’s sound an unexpected fullness…The woodwinds…displayed exemplary virtuosity and musicality (flute, oboe, trumpet…), and the violins were perfect.”
Resmusica, Paris

When Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sang the opening recitative of Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut during the first rehearsal for the performance with Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. The musicians sat in silence after the movement ended. At first, the musicians wiped tears from their eyes while some clapped timidly. Then followed uproarious applause from the orchestra and the few lucky guests. That first run-through was good enough for the final performance. Lorraine made it seem as if she were singing this music directly to you and to you alone.

--Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Martin Chalifour and the
Los Angeles Philharmonic
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Sir Neville Marriner and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 with soloist Martin Chalifour in magnificent Walt Disney Concert Hall.  Andrey Boreyko conducts the orchestra and Chalifour in Lutoslawski’s violin concerto Chain 2. This album also includes the world premiere recording of Steven Stucky’s Tres Pinturas, and Esa Pekka Salonen’s now iconic Lachen verlernt.

Working in Walt Disney Concert Hall is a recording engineer’s dream, with excellent acoustics thanks to Yasuhisa Toyota. And thanks to architect Frank Gehry, the hall is an inspiring and beautiful place to work.  Our friends Jerry and Terri Kohl once again allowed us to use their magnificent golden period Stradivarius for this recording.  Martin plays this legendary Nathan Milstein Strad(the “ex Goldmann” from 1716) with Sir Neville Marriner in the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5.  Thank you Jerry and Terri, for making this violin available to your friend Martin, and for being so generous to us at Yarlung Records.  In talking about this instrument with me, Martin said “I ended up choosing several violins for this recording because of the way they made me feel. The Milstein Stradivarius of 1716 had the nobility and steady luster of sound needed in the "old world" works…. A sort of smoky color that is rich and mysterious…. This is one of the greatest string instruments on earth and I feel privileged to play it.” 

Martin chose the famous 1729 “Joachim,” or “Petschnikoff” or “Jack Benny” Strad owned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the premiere Green Umbrella performance of Lachen verlernt. And Martin played his Miralles (made for Martin in 2007) in Tres Pinturas. Brenda and Mario Miralles have been friends of Martin’s (and mine) for many years, and they make some of the finest contemporary violins, violas and ‘cellos in the world.  Many extraordinary Miralles instruments sing alongside the Strads, Guarneris and Amatis in the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras. Martin wrote “My Miralles violin is to this day the most comfortable violin I have ever played.  It was made just for me and I am so proud of it (and him!) I will never part with it.”

Martin and I especially want to thank Jerry and Terri Kohl, Michelle Rohe, Marilyn and Don Conlan, and Bruce and Marty Coffey, all good friends, who made it possible to release this album. 

-- Bob Attiyeh, producer

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David Fung
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Evening Conversations
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"...The surprise for the evening was David Fung. From the very first moment, he demonstrated a marvelous temperament. Fung told an interesting and fascinating story throughout all three movements, which was full of colors and nuances...He was a hit!"
Ora Binur, MAARIV Israel Philharmonic, Mozart Concerto No. 25 in C Major

"He did not only dazzle the crowd with his virtuosity … but did not fail to move the audience with his excitement, and lyrical warmth."
Ursula Augustin, Kreis Cochem-Zell, Koblenz, Germany

The eighteenth-century…was an age of conversation. And music, modeled on this principal pastime, was a medium for wit, sentiment, and rhetorical flourish. Mozart's Fantasy and Scarlatti's sonatas, which bracket this recital by David Fung, remind us why the keyboard was considered such an ideal vehicle for a composer's flights of fancy.
…Like Schumann and Scarlatti, Chopin, Mozart, and Rachmaninov before him, Tan Dun was learning to master the secret of the miniature - a compositional form he has likened both to zen calligraphy and to the watercolor: "capturing essences with the minimum of gesture." This is a fitting epigraph for this collection of short pieces, jewels of the composer's craft and worthy tests of a performer's taste and skill.
Christopher Hailey, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey

It is always rewarding to work with an artist like David, whose musical interpretations are rich and fresh without being eccentric, and always completely sincere.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Suryodaya: Robert Gupta & Badal Roy
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Robert Vijay Gupta, a beacon for the City of Los Angeles, serves as the youngest and one of most vibrant members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Robert won his audition and joined the orchestra when he was 19 years old).  And as a TED Senior Fellow, Robert speaks internationally on his work with Nathaniel Ayers (the formerly homeless musician whose story is told in the book and movie “The Soloist.”  Robert continues to be Nathaniel’s real-life violin teacher).

The CD cover shows Robert Gupta and Badal Roy standing in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall organ. It looks like the image above. The download version of Suryodaya has a cover that looks like the album image at the top of this website, with Robert holding the Nathan Milstein Stradivarius, which he plays in this recording.

The famous tabla player Badal Roy, Robert’s illustrious cousin, joins us for many of the works on this album. This record is Badal’s umpteenth disc.  We follow in the footsteps of the performances and recordings Badal made with Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman. Badal does not offer us free jazz on this album; rather he offers a combination of East and West, in ways that channel centuries of Indian and specifically Hindustani musical tradition. Badal blends this inheritance comfortably with new music written in the West in the 21st Century.  Badal opens our album with Calcutta Sunrise, a work for solo tabla. Calcutta Sunrise won the Audio Oasis Award at THE SHOW in Newport, 2012.

Raga Jaunpuri is a salutation to the late morning. The roots of Hindustani music stretch back four millennia in history and this particular melody originated in the 15th century. Feel the slow burn as it begins quietly, builds incrementally to its ecstatic climax, and then ends just as quietly and serenely as it began. This is what “Suryodaya,” the coming of light in the late morning, is all about. Robert felt strongly that we should record this raga at the time it should be heard, in the late morning.  And so we did.  We began our takes at 10:15 in the morning on July 6th, 2011, and we were finished before noon.

--Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Ciaramella
Music from the Court of Burgundy
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The fifteenth-century Valois Dukes of Burgundy forged and lost a powerful kingdom (in all but name) that included a wealthy duchy famous for its wine, and much of the Low Countries, including modern Belgium, Holland, and parts of Northern France.... Burgundy has come to embody a time of ruthless intrigue, lavish wealth, and an uncompromising love of beauty and ornament. Some of its greatest treasures lay in its musicians: its singers, composers and minstrels.
Adam Knight Gilbert

Ciaramella plays brilliantly on shawms, sackbuts, bagpipes and recorders — this is some of the best Renaissance wind playing in the world. Their new recording... includes old favorites like Josquin’s “La Spagna,” along with some brand new 15th-century style improvisations for wind band by Adam Gilbert. The music is sometimes raucous, sometimes sweet, but always compelling.
Maria Coldwell, Early Music America

From their smooth conjuring of the sound of solemn grandeur to their obvious ease with the most wildly virtuosic compositional and improvisational techniques of the day, the members of Ciaramella are masters of 15th-century Burgundian music, earthly, earthy, and divine.
Marsha Genensky, Anonymous 4
 
Ciaramella offers us Burgundian music both transcendent and baudy. This confluence of spiritual and sexual imagery intrigues the modern listener just as it did fifteenth-century audiences, and informs the rich layers of meaning inherent in the interwoven melodies of the polyphony.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Frédéric Rosselet
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Frédéric Rosselet plays subtly and athletically.  He is not a showy performer, but his technical prowess rivals the great virtuosi.  He uses this skill tastefully and reservedly. 

Frédéric’s modern ‘cello, which he plays in the pieces by Berio, Ligeti and Dutilleux, used to belong to his grandfather and was made about 130 years ago by a student of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.  For our two Bach ‘cello suites, our friend Brenda Miralles suggested several instruments, configured as they would have been played in the Baroque era, without a peg, a lighter sound post on the interior of the instrument, gut strings and a Baroque bow.  Frédéric chose a glorious instrument made by Carlos Moreno in Madrid in 2004, copied from a 1725 Grancino. 

Frederic follows Elinor Frey and Antonio Lysy with two more works in the “eSACHERe” cycle commissioned by Rostropovich in honor of Paul Sacher’s 70th birthday.  Our recording opens with Berio’s haunting Les mots sont allés…. and concludes with Dutilleux’ Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher.

--Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Martin Chalifour
in Walt Disney Concert Hall
24 Karat Gold Audiophile CD
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Trésors Ensevelis, Hidden Treasures
I am fortunate to spend much of my working life in Walt Disney Concert Hall, where I serve as Principal Concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was a treat for me to record this album in our auditorium, one of the modern world’s acoustic treasures.

Many violinists, myself included, perform the Poulenc sonata for violin. However I have long wanted to introduce the magnificent Poulenc Flute Sonata into the string repertoire. The idea first came to me when I heard the slow movement in concert and imagined the violin being able to slide and have a gutsier sound in the lower register. In my arrangement of the sonata I add double stops, pizzicati, and transpositions to lower registers in areas where the flute has less power than a bowed instrument. In the Cantilena I take it further and tune the violin’s G string a half step lower, giving the violin a deeper resonance throughout the key of B-Flat Minor.
Martin Chalifour

Within the first few bars of Chalifour’s violin transcription of Poulenc’s flute sonata performed on a 1716 Stradivarius once owned by Nathan Milstein, you’ll know you’re in one of the world’s finest sounding concert halls. Both Mr. Chalifour’s violin and Joanne Pearce Martin’s piano come through with uncanny timbral accuracy, textural clarity and three-dimensional focus and palpability. The presence of a large, open, delicately reverberant space behind the musicians can be both heard and felt on this acoustically transparent recording.
Michael Fremer, Stereophile and musicangle.com

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Inner World
Music by David S. Lefkowitz
24 Karat Gold Audiophile CD
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Music originates in the “inner world” of the composer. Great music emanates from this private psychic space within the composer, and inspires us to explore our own inner worlds, if we let it....

As it is with poets, painters and sculptors, so it is for composers: their inner worlds erupt in an outpouring of what we call “art” to be shared by audiences, readers, gallery and museum-goers in so special a way that it can feel spiritual.
Martin Perlich

Inner World is our first Yarlung Records album dedicated to one composer's music. Before the album's release, I played two minutes of Deep Dreams, the first track on this album, at the summer Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society meeting in 2008 where I was asked to do a presentation. Robert Levi, the society's president, leapt out of his chair and asked “What is that?” And “When can I have a copy?” I handed him my demo track. I hope you enjoy this music as much as Mr. Levi did.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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John Walz
A Tribute to Pierre Fournier
$19.99 + S/H

John Walz possesses not only musicianship; he also possesses showmanship. He plays the cello with a… flair that is hard to match, and that remains his legacy when the concert is over….
Walz imposes his presence. There is something romantic about him…. He has a fine lyrical sense, balancing shading with warmth. And he has a fine dramatic sense, marking contrast and dynamic changes with a skill that shows a knowledge of the piece’s structure.
Jean-Pierre Barricelli, Press Enterprise

…the pianist Edith Orloff, the cellist John Walz… play with warmth, expertise and unanimity.
Tim Page, New York Times

His radiant, full tone and flawless technique were matched by an extraordinary degree of expressivity. [Walz] savored every note and every phrase, but his playing never lost its momentum and sense of purpose.
Terry McQuilkin, Los Angeles Times

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David Howard
clarinet
$19.99 + S/H

Midway in an all-Brahms chamber concert by Philharmonic members came the Clarinet Quintet, a late work not often heard, music of lavender and deep purple, shot through with burnished-bronze outcries from the solo wind player….  …waves of deep, penetrating beauty.  Midway in the slow movement David Howard's solo clarinet unwound its slithering melodic line across the musical spectrum; the strings answered with passionate shivers, and their moonstruck conversation continues to echo in my skull days later.  That's Brahms.
Alan Rich

David plays nickel-plated Buffet R13 clarinets. For our recording he used a Vandoren B40 mouthpiece, Vandoren traditional number 3 reeds, and a Rovner dark ligature. For the works by Steve Stucky and Esa-Pekka Salonen which we recorded in Zipper Hall at Colburn School, Vicki Ray plays Steinway Concer & Artists piano number 599 made in New York. For the trio by Galina Ustvolskaya, Vicki plays New York Steinway 562930, chosen for the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall with the help of Hélène Grimaud. Violinist Johnny Lee plays an instrument made in 1807 by Pirot. In the Brahms quintet, first violinist Lyndon Taylor plays the Perkins Stradivarius from 1708, Kristine Hedwall plays a Carletti violin made in 1941, John Hayhurst plays a Sgarabotto viola from 1908, and ‘cellist Gloria Lum plays a Vincenzo Postiglione, built in 1877.

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Ciaramella:Dance
COMING SOON.

Ciaramella Ensemble ventures "toward modern times" with intoxicating dance melodies from musicians who lived from the 1500s into the Baroque era, and includes new compositions by Adam Gilbert as well.  Ground bass patterns underlie all of this music; sometimes one can hear it clearly and sometimes the ground bass line is veiled within the polyphony.  Ciaramella artistic directors Adam and Rotem Gilbert lead the ensemble, which includes music on theorbo, Baroque guitar, viola da gamba, drums and percussion, harpsichord, wind instruments (including recorders, Renaissance brass, shawms), and hurdy gurdy.

"...Ciaramella plays this music with conviction and expressiveness and makes it accessible for contemporary audiences. One certainly can’t ask for more.

"...Ciaramella makes it fun. They bring a sense of history to the works they play, but their concerts aren’t dry academic exercises. They bring the music of the renaissance to life. A concert by Ciaramella is a delightful and entertaining excursion to a bygone era.
"And the... members of the group obviously enjoy what they’re doing. For them this music is as much alive today as it was in Richard III’s time – and that attitude and approach are what set them apart from many other early music ensembles."
Edward Reichel

“From the nobility of Europe, to the petit bourgeoisie reading Thonoit’s Arbeau’s Orchesographie, to the already pregnant bride in Brueghel’s The Peasant Wedding, everybody danced their way through the rituals of life…. Their music, like their dance, reflected a delicate balance between the restraints of culture and convention, and ingenious flourishes of improvisation….”
Adam Gilbert

Dialoghi
Elinor Frey & David Fung
Dialogues for 'cello and piano
German Audiophile Pressing
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“a superb cellist”
Syracuse Post Standard

"Impeccable American cellist"
La Presse

"…David Fung performed strongly, showing off velocity, volume, stamina and a wide range of color and mood."
Wayne Lee Gay, The Star Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas

Elinor Frey plays a 1962 Mario Gadda Italian ‘cello from Mantua. She uses a baroque bow (made by Louis Bégin in Montreal) for Bach’s ‘cello suite and for Amour et Biauté Parfaite.

There are no equalization adjustments on this album. We made all “EQ adjustments” with microphone placement at the start. It is always our goal to record this way: we succeeded similarly with David Fung’s Evening Conversations, and also with Orion, Joanne Pearce Martin: Barefoot, and Ryan MacEvoy McCullough in Concert.

Thanks to our friend and supporter Jon Fisher, Gearworks Pro Audio gave us the use of an Austrian AKG C-24 stereo microphone, one of the few still using the original brass surround CK12 tube in excellent condition. For this recording we used Yarlung-Records-designed interconnects with a flat silver ribbon suspended in air for the dialectric, customized vacuum tube preamplifiers, and recorded directly to two tracks without a mixer.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Joanne Pearce Martin
Barefoot
$19.99 + S/H

Joanne’s album takes us from the fiery brilliance of the coda of the G Minor Ballade to the pristine airiness of the opening of Mozart’s Sonata, K 332. This magical transition feels like the pianist invites us into a warm haven after rescuing us from the thunder and lightning of a raging storm…. Meyer Kupferman’s …Distances, full of deliciously altered chords, alternates between moody and placid with but one tiny outburst. The two Nocturnes on Joanne’s program occupy a special place in pianists’ hearts. The E-Flat, Op. 9, No.2 may be the most familiar to us, but that doesn’t detract from its simple attractiveness. The less familiar D-Flat Nocturne, Op. 27, No. 2 captures titular moonlight, and gripping tension which Chopin creates through harmonic means and the beauty of his gorgeous ornamentation. This one is a true gem.
Orrin Howard

Joanne Pearce Martin serves as principal keyboardist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and plays regularly as guest soloist with many orchestras in the United States and Europe. Joanne performed John Adams’ China Gates in a Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella concert celebrating the composer’s 60th birthday. It was this performance, and her collaboration with Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Mozart’s Concerto for 2 Pianos in E-Flat Major that gave me the idea for this album. We recorded Orion and Joanne Pearce Martin: Barefoot with the same piano, same hall, and same equipment setup. Orion and Joanne, both virtuosic titans of the keyboard, sound very different in these recordings. Recording them as we did should enable you to enjoy them as distinct individuals with unique messages, colors and musical voices.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Petteri Iivonen & Kevin Fitz-Gerald
Art of the Sonata
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Thanks to the generosity of our friend and benefactor Ann Moore Mulally, Yarlung Records brings you the long anticipated second recording featuring Finnish violinist Petteri Iivonen and Canadian master pianist Kevin Fitz-Gerald. The album includes Bach's G Minor sonata for solo violin, the Cesar Franck sonata for violin and piano in A Major, Miniature VIII, a gem for solo violin by David S. Lefkowitz, and the titanic Brahms Sonata No. 3 in D Minor for violin and piano. Revel in this journey.

Petteri was born in 1987, and began to study the violin at the Helsinki Conservatory when he was four years old.  Petteri also studied the piano as a student and remains an accomplished pianist. Since 1997, Petteri’s principal teachers have been Tuomas Haapanen and Hagai Shaham.  Iivonen has performed with Paul Neubauer and David Grossman of the New York Philharmonic, and raised money for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a special Choral room benefit at Walt Disney Concert Hall.  Petteri was invited to perform with pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough  to open The Broad Stage in Santa Monica in 2008. Iivonen performed the Tchaikovsky violin concerto under the baton of Zubin Mehta in 2010, and toured South America with Mehta the following year. 

While much of Petteri’s playing is exceptionally beautiful, he never tries to make the sound "pretty," I have heard very few violinist’s with Petteri’s ability to control color and timbre, and even fewer who use this ability for such musical and appropriate ends. Petteri plays a Ferdinandus Gagliano violin, built in 1767, kindly loaned to him by OKO Bank Art Foundation. Kevin plays New York Steinway serial number 567908.

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Janaki String Trio
debut
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Janaki String Trio brings together three friends and virtuoso musicians whose passion and commitment captivate their audiences as they tackle their music with freshness, energy and maturity. Founded at The Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles in early 2005, the group soon won the 59th Annual Coleman Chamber Music Competition, and in March 2006, the threesome came to national attention as the first string trio ever to win the Concert Artists Guild International Competition. The Trio also garnered the inaugural BMI Foundation Commission Prize.

The Janaki Trio was selected to participate in Canada's Banff Music Festival in June 2006. This honor follows an exciting 2005-06 season, highlighted by performances on such series as Sundays Live at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Lagerstrom Chamber Music at Caltech, South Bay Chamber Music Society and the Music Guild Chamber Music Series. Janaki Trio made its New York recital debut in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in January 2007.

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David Fung
The Piano: A Journey
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Yarlung Records recorded this American Debut Album for pianist David Fung in advance of his 2005 world concert tour. Following his celebrated concerts with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, David won the International Klaviersommer Festival Competition in Germany in 2004. And after also capturing the festival's People's Choice Award, David quickly became a young artist in demand around the world.

We recorded this album on June 27th and 28th, 2005 in Herbert Zipper Hall in the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles. David started with the Liszt B-Minor Sonata, and played it straight through in one take.

In his own words, David Fung describes his intention with A Journey from Hubris to Humility: "When making this recording, we wanted to give the listener the experience of a concert performance in a great concert hall, not the surgical "in-your-face" sound one hears so often in new recordings. I hope you feel like you are sitting in the tenth row of magnificent Zipper Hall."

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Antonio Lysy at The Broad
Music from Argentina
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“I LIKE IT A LOT. It’s definitely dirty enough, especially as it gets into the tough tango section. It's a beautiful interpretation.... Carlos Gardel, the mythical tango singer, was young, handsome, and at the pinnacle of his popularity when the plane that was carrying him to a concert crashed and he died in 1935.... Omaramor is a fantasy on 'My Beloved Buenos Aires' ” by Gardel.
Osvaldo Golijov

There it was: a fresh and exhilarating arrangement of Piazzolla's
Le Grand Tango for strings and piano obbligato “to keep the colors and authentic nature of this work alive.” What a treasure, and what an unexpected gift!  My personal interest in this music emanates from my heritage: my father Alberto, to whom I lovingly and respectfully dedicate this album, was born in Argentina and returned there frequently throughout his distinguished career as a concert violinist and pedagogue.
Antonio Lysy

We commissioned famed Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin to write Pampas for this recording. The work evokes the rich grasslands stretching from Buenos Aires to Patagonia. Schifrin writes “The first theme is distant and evocative which leads to a contrasting section of rhythmic energy... This work was commissioned by violoncello Master Antonio Lysy for which I’m very grateful.” 
Lalo Schifrin

Antonio Lysy captures the cultural range of this country in our recording. He chose these particular works because they all draw inspiration from the folk music traditions of Argentina. This album highlights the ‘cello as a solo instrument and illustrates the impact of pre-Hispanic Amerindian traditions and Spanish based Creole influences as well as the effect of more modern musical developments like the tango on Argentine composers.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
40th Anniversary
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The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has a way of getting under your skin. LACO got under mine, and I am grateful. There is something intimate and personal about this Orchestra, something that brings audiences and musicians closer together. No doubt this electricity existed when Neville Marriner founded the ensemble as its first music director 40 years ago. Now that Sir Neville has been knighted, it is fun to think of the royal succession of music directors from him to Jeffrey Kahane and realize that LACO’s special charm remains unbroken across the dynasties of leadership.

Jeff grew up in Los Angeles and was twelve years old when he heard Sir Neville conduct LACO for the first time. It had been Jeff’s dream to perform with Sir Neville ever since, and the collaboration in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on the opening night of LACO’s 40th anniversary season was a great pleasure for him and for everyone who heard that remarkable performance. In fact, it was witnessing that friendly collaboration of musical titans which inspired us to release this archival recording.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Ryan McCullough
in Concert
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2008 has been busy for Ryan. In the aftermath of Ryan’s successful Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 in Ambassador Hall, and right before beginning orchestra rehearsals for the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2, he gave an intimate recital for a few friends at Colburn School in Los Angeles. Yarlung Records was privileged to record this repertoire. Ryan’s opening track, Debussy’s rain-scented Jardins sous la Pluie, set the tone for the concert. This was a recital conceived by a conductor, not just a pianist. Yes, one can feel the refreshing as well as violent aspects of nature in this piece, but one can also hear the forces of an orchestra coming through Ryan’s approach to his instrument. Ryan focuses on the over-arching musical architecture of the works on this program and deemphasizes ornaments that show off virtuosity.

I spoke with Jeffrey Kahane shortly before Ryan’s performance of the Beethoven Fourth. Ryan had asked Jeff to listen to his approach before the concert. Jeff told me he was deeply moved, and wrote later “I was enormously impressed and genuinely touched by the depth of Ryan McCullough’s musicianship, the authenticity and sincerity of his musical voice and his burgeoning mastery of his chosen instrument.”

Whether Ryan remains a concert pianist or also becomes a conductor, I suspect this approach to his music will remain with him always. Ryan’s concert takes us on a journey from outer landscapes (literally with the Debussy) to inner landscapes and the most private parts of the soul, in Beethoven sonata opus 101 and Schubert’s F Minor impromptu.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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Eric Zeisl, UCLA Philharmonia
Neal Stulberg, Antonio Lysy
COMING SOON.

Music Director Neal Stulberg conducts the UCLA Philharmonia in ... three hitherto unrecorded orchestral compositions by Eric Zeisl. Representing his Viennese years are his bold, richly scored (and not so little) Little Symphony: After Pictures of Roswitha Bitterlich (1935-36) and the intimate November: Six Sketches for Chamber Orchestra (1937-40). Epitomizing Zeisl’s maturity in Los Angeles is the dramatic Concerto Grosso for 'Cello and Orchestra (1955-56), his last large-scale orchestral work [performed here by Yarlung star and GRAMMY winning 'cellist Antonio Lysy].


In 1935, Zeisl attended a wildly popular exhibition of art works by Roswitha Bitterlich, a fourteen-year-old Tyrolean girl. Struck by her singular visions, the young composer feverishly drafted what proved to be his only symphony. He later recalled, “The paintings, that is rather the ideas behind the paintings, provided such a stimulus that immediately after coming home from the exhibition I started out to set these ideas in music and completed the work … in 4 days.”
--Malcolm S. Cole

The Bitterlich painting on the cover of the album, "The Madman," is the image which inspired the first movement of Zeisl's symphony. 

Petteri Iivonen
Art of the Violin
24 Karat Gold Audiophile CD
$19.99 + S/H

"...extremely gifted and polished....  Petteri plays with natural raw talent and extraordinary technical and musical finesse... his personality infuses his music with a charm and depth especially welcome today.  A young master."
Hagai Shaham

"wonderfully talented"
Midori

Writing about Petteri's triumphant debut with Zubin Mehta conducting the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Noam Ben-Ze'ev writes about "the fantastic young Finnish soloist Petteri Iivonen."
(בנגינה נהדרת של הסולן הפיני הצעיר)
Haaretz

The audience broke into wild and uncustomary applause after the first movement, and leapt to their feet after the third, insisting on four curtain calls for the soloist. Bravo Petteri!


I remember the first time I heard the name “Petteri Iivonen.” It was late in the evening, and my phone rang at home. “Hello Bob,” a dark voice greeted me, before I could say hello myself.  “My name is Hagai Shaham... I know a young violinist you must hear right away. He comes from Finland. His name is Petteri Iivonen.” Petteri’s affable personality galvanized as much support for this debut recording as did his exceptional talent with the violin. Listen to the colors Petteri employs in the first movement of the Debussy sonata, especially in the flautando sections. Or the extreme tenderness of the second movement of Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 2. And then compare that with the icy brilliance of the same sonata’s fourth movement after the one-minute mark. Note too the yearning of an entire nation, perhaps the entire Twentieth Century, in the arrival of the Eli Eli theme in tracks twelve and thirteen. (Yarlung Artists commissioned David Lefkowitz to write Eli Eli for Petteri, in honor of Hagai Shaham.) And then evaluate this music in comparison with the titanic Bach Partita, and enjoy the world of color and emotion that Petteri delivers in this final work on his recording.
Bob Attiyeh, producer

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