“The familiar prelude to the G major Cello Suite sounding so, so right. Thomas gives the closing Gigue an irresistible swing and finds rare depth and expression in the Allemande. There’s similar magic in Suite No. 3, Bach’s slow Sarabande heart stopping, the double and triple stopping immaculate. You hope he’ll go off and record the remaining four. A multi tracked Thomas completes the album with three Fantasias for Two Viols by Orlando Gibbons, these beautiful, spare works played with elegance and warmth. Absolutely enchanting – do investigate.” The Arts Desk
Peter Thomas and Fred Thomas released their father-son “Duo” record in 2015, to celebrate Peter’s 70th birthday.
Peter Thomas – violin Fred Thomas – piano
With Eduardo Vassallo – cello
Recorded at The Ruddock Performing Arts Centre, Birmingham, 2015 Engineered, Mixed & Mastered by Alex Bonney Produced by Fred Thomas Design by Nuria Torres Dedicated to the memory of Tony Fisher, Alice Corser & David CorserReleased by F-IRE Label, January 9, 2015
Dedicated to the memory of Tony Fisher, Alice Corser & David Corser
Felix Mendelssohn’s music somehow feels like part of my blood and tissue; there’s a powerful (but sleepy) imprint on my memory of being gently woken on countless mornings by his soaring melodies and naive figurations floating from my Dad’s violin up into my bedroom and inhabiting my half-asleep mind. The Piano Trio Opus 49 included in our program holds a nostalgic place in my heart. I played the cello part when I was 16 and it’s no exaggeration to admit that this experience of duetting in lush counterpoint with the violin was transformative. Mendelssohn’s subtle piano writing style was greatly influenced by Robert Schumann, whose songs Peter grew to love when he was a teenager. I’m sure they helped him cultivate his singing style. But perhaps Schumann influenced my dad in more ways than one: the composer lamented, “You have no idea how often I practically throw money out of the window.”
Despite Peter’s childhood fondness for Schumann, Schumann himself believed Franz Schubert should be “the favourite of youth. He gives what youth desires – an overflowing heart, daring thoughts, and speedy deeds.” Brahms, who insisted that “there is no song of Schubert’s from which one cannot learn something”, may not have approved of choosing just two Schubert songs from his six hundred-plus collection. One easy choice, however, was An Sylvia, which Peter often heard his own father Stanley play by ear on the piano.
When Ludwig van Beethoven died, a distraught Schubert was present as torch-bearer. A year later, on his own death-bed aged just thirty-one, Schubert asked to be buried next to his idol. Both Schubert and Beethoven have been Peter’s staple diet for most of seventy years; his beloved ‘Spring’ Sonata Opus 24, dedicated to Count von Fries, appears here in all its battered glory. And although it’s a tricky piece, it seems Beethoven couldn’t have cared less, inquiring “do you believe that I think of a wretched fiddle when the spirit speaks to me?”
Ironically and perhaps hypocritically, the Musical Courier wrote in 1899 of Richard Strauss, “the man who wrote this outrageously hideous noise no longer deserving of the word music, is either lunatic, or he is rapidly approaching idiocy.” Current opinion is a little kinder; a besotted and proselytizing Glenn Gould did his bit by proclaiming Strauss a greater text-setter than Schubert. Of all his own output, Strauss rated his songs the highest, and they’re not bad for a man who considered himself a “first-class second-rate composer”.
When I asked what he misses about playing in orchestras, Peter promptly replied, “nothing.” Followed sheepishly by, “except Mahler.” I’m not sure what I can add about the song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. It’s too big and too profound. Gustav Mahler passed on a deep sense of spiritualised landscape and the transformation of nature to his musical godchild, Anton von Webern. Some years ago, following in the footsteps of Webern and his own son Peter, my Dad and I made a musical pilgrimage to the Austrian Alps – a kind of lads on tour for aspiring muso-walkers. Between schnitzels we listened to Webern’s complete works. This didn’t take long. Captivated by tiny alpine flowers, Webern was a master of miniature; Mahler, by contrast, dealt in the monumental. “If you think you’re boring your audience, go slower not faster”, he said, advice we’ve followed in the making of this record.
If the prospect of listening to all this music resembles an exhausting schlepp up Mount Schwarzenbergspitzen or a headphone-assisted guided tour of the Habsburg Empire, fear not, help is at hand. Alfred Schnittke’s Pantomime and Igor Stravinsky’s Valse pour les Enfants (“my music is best understood by children and animals”) inject a shot of Slavic irony and Orlando Gibbons’ Fantasia à 2 offers perhaps the most exquisitely balanced exposition of equal two-part writing I can think of: disarmingly simple yet aurally beguiling – a distillation of what it means for two voices to sing together. Then, if you can feel Morton Feldman blow a whispered draft of cold, cleansing New York air though this sticky swamp of Austro-German mush, so much the better. His was a search for music that “just cleans everything away” – breathe deep, there’s more swamp to come.
A word on the order of program. It’s devised not only to juxtapose pieces in flattering ways, but also to suggest links between composers: Webern adored Schubert and orchestrated several of his songs in his youth; Mendelssohn was largely responsible for the mainstream popularisation of Bach in the nineteenth century; Schnittke may well have been thinking of the Alberti bass-lines of Mozart and Beethoven when composing his roguish Suite in the Old Style; and Stravinsky wanted to banish the operas of Strauss to “whichever purgatory punishes triumphant banality” – the temptation to pair them together was just too delicious to resist.
Morton Feldman once mused, “for years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart”. It’s a common complaint that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart remains the most interpretatively challenging composer of all, easy to listen to but uniquely difficult to actualise. Interpreters may spend a lifetime searching for the perfect proportions, the appropriate intensity and pitch, and all this within an extremely focussed sphere of expression – a kind of musical Goldilocks Zone where only Mozart lives. His Sonata No. 12 in G Major, K27 was written when he was eleven years old.
And finally, Johann Sebastian Bach, the old master. My first inkling of his importance was when, aged ten, I was unsuccessfully bribed by Peter to learn his 371 harmonised chorales (my favourite of which concludes this program). Later, upon receiving CDs of Bach’s complete keyboard music from my uncle Ezekiel, I was hooked, in the same way Peter was as a teenager studying with Eli Goren. For so many people Bach’s music means the cosmos. It’s the most transcendent and all-encompassing thing we know. Significantly, all the composers mentioned above seem to have felt the same. Mendelssohn: “The greatest music in the world.” Schumann: “Studying Bach convinces us that we are all numbskulls.” Schubert: “Bach has done everything completely.” Beethoven: “Not brook but sea should be his name.” Mahler: “In Bach the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.” Webern: “Bach composed everything.” Mozart: “Now there is music from which a man can learn something.” And Wagner, whose work it pains me (and relieves many) to exclude: “The most stupendous miracle in all music!”
What’s the relevant common thread linking all these Bach-worshipping composers? For our purposes, it’s their profound significance to us somewhere along the way and the continuity of musical love handed down through a generation. Mendelssohn believed – and I suspect my Dad does too – that music “fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.” In celebration of Peter’s monumental accomplishment of lingering on for seventy years, of everything he has taught me, of the diversity of music and of generous friends’ charitable giving, we hope you will consign these words, in the spirit of old age, to mental oblivion, and take simple pleasure in the sounds within.
Fred Thomas’ album The Beguilers weaves crafted song-writing into the narratives of poems by William Blake, Emily Brontë, William Shakespeare, James Joyce, Walter Savage Landor and Thomas Carew. Drawing on a wonderfully strange repository of musical influences – English folk, Joao Gilberto, Minimalism, the Aka Pigmies, The Beatles, and the English Madrigal School – Fred Thomas’ settings delicately bring the poets’ images and metaphors to life with finely wrought harmonies and luscious melodies. ‘The Beguilers’ features vocals from Ellie Rusbridge and instrumental contributions from Dave Shulman, Liam Byrne, and Malte Hage.
“A beautiful thing….The Beguilers is absolutely gorgeous” Guy Garvey, BBC Radio 6
“A beautiful, unique album that dazzlingly recasts these poems in new and unexpected ways” Resonance FM
“A beautiful, unique album that dazzlingly recasts these poems in new and unexpected ways” Nest Collective Hour,Resonance FM
“The Beguilers’ version of Blake’s ‘London’ is the finest setting of the poem that I know – the human ear adorned with manacles more beautiful than any earring” The Blake Society
“The Beguilers create a mellifluous, graceful sound that entirely justifies their band name. Rose has a touching, pure, sweet voice, well suited to the affecting melodies Thomas writes, and Shulman provides just the right amount of textural and tonal variety.The Beguilers plough a singularly rich furrow and clearly entranced an attentive Vortex audience” London Jazz News
“The Beguilers took William Blake’s poetry and wove a rich tapestry of intricate acoustic guitar and clarinet, over which Ellie Rose’s exquisite vocals were allowed to shine. Blake’s work was given new life with this simple but textured approach, which made these classic works come to life” The Liminal
“The Beguilers start with songs based on some of the greatest poetry in the English language, but it’s the combination of Ellie Rose’s haunting voice with Fred Thomas’s beautiful compositions that give this band its unique and unclassifiable quality – a treat equally for lovers of poetry, jazz, classical music and folksong” Peter Slavid (UK Jazz Radio)
Since its foundation in 2007, the Jiri Slavik/Fred Thomas Duo has been exploring the common ground between improvised and contemporary classical music. Much of this ensemble’s soundworld is produced by experimenting with instrumental techniques, always within an acoustic setting. Their debut album Repose was released on the F-IRE Collective label in 2009. Buy Reposehere.
Jiri Slavik – double bass
Fred Thomas – piano
“’Repose’ is the debut CD of Jiri Slavik’s music with the fine pianist Fred Thomas who, together, are in sync with a clear multiple vision of sonic beauty” Mark Dresser
“This is music requiring patience and application, but it is rich and original enough to reward both” Chris Parker
“There is a sense of spontaneity and originality which runs through this album” Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
“These were musicians that were indeed in creative synergy. Particularly virtuosic was the dynamic control and pacing, with incredible breadth made possible by their superb technique. Their set was compelling and the audience were nothing but mesmerised by their programme….an evening of colourful pieces, virtuosic in their construction with inventive sonorities as much as the technique of the playing” Steve Berryman (I Care if You Listen)
“High class” The Telegraph
“Composition and Improvisation exquisitely merge as these two young masters converse, creating dramatic musical landscapes of extraordinary colour and dynamic contrast. At once intense, primal and highly sophisticated, this is contemporary music at it’s most inspiring best. A visionary work made by great artists with a lot to say.” Oren Marshall
Jamie Doe and Fred Thomas have been making music together since they were 11 years old.
The Magic Lantern is the musical moniker of British Australian singer-songwriter and composer Jamie Doe, an artist dedicated to examining the limitless depth of human experience in our search for meaning.
To Everything A Season is his unashamedly emotional fifth album written in the months following his daughters birth and his fathers death six weeks later. Describing their brief meeting in a dementia nursing home Jamie says:
“In that cathartic moment I saw myself in my father, and my daughter in me and I felt joy and grief in overlapping waves, beautiful and complicated, which continue to ripple outward. These songs are my attempt to make sense of this incredible time where both ends of the circle of life touched.”
To Everything A Season crackles with the quiet intensity of a family’s rawest and most intimate moments. Recorded live over over four days at the legendary La Buissonne studio in France by Gérard de Haro, the sound of To Everything A Seasoncaptures a vivid emotional immediacy, the richness of the ensemble arrangements and spirited improvisation belying the devastating songwriting. Working with a septet drawn from London’s thriving jazz scene To Everything A Season is both dreamy and direct, making use of the space around Jamie’s arresting voice to emphasis it’s emotional weight.
Lyrically, To Everything A Seasonis The Magic Lantern’s most powerful and accomplished achievement, a mature work that establishes Doe as one of the most confident lyricists writing today. With themes of loops and cycles threaded through the album, the lyric draws on references as diverse as the Bible, the records of John Coltrane and the helix structure of DNA.
Born in Australia, before moving to the UK at 12, Jamie adopted the stage name of The Magic Lanternand began writing songs while studying philosophy in Bristol. He lives in London and has released four full length albums and two EPs in addition to a compilation of other artists versions of his songs for the male suicide prevention charity CALM. He has toured the UK, Europe and Australia with acts as diverse as folk singer This is The Kit, Sam Lee, and Alabaster Deplume. He is a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and teaches on the songwriting faculty at the Institute for Contemporary Music Performance.
The Magic Lantern has received praise from numerous publications including The Guardian, Songlines, Acoustic Magazine and Folk Radio UK as well as BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens, BBC 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne, Guy Garvey, Tom Robinson, BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction , Night Tracks and BBC Radio 2’s Jamie Cullum, Mark Radcliffe and Bob Harris among others.
To Everything A Season is out via Hectic Eclectic / La Buissonne Records
“Extraordinary. Beautiful poised singing, amazing lyrics and hypnotic production” Tom Robinson, BBC Radio 6 Music
“Gorgeous, beautiful. This stopped me in my tracks. Slightly surreal, in all the right ways” Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio 2
“Dreamy, beautiful. Something very, very special” Lauren Laverne, BBC6 Music
“Bitter sweet, beautiful music” Verity Sharp, BBC Radio 3 Late Juntion
“A classic album. I love it!” Bob Harris, BBC Radio 2
“Pretty special i think you’ll agree” Tom Robinson, BBC 6 Music
“Warmly recommended, especially to anyone who thinks meaningful eccentricity and sheer originality are rare commodities in contemporary music” Chris Parker, The Vortex
“Quirky and charming” Timeout
“The Magic Lantern fuse delicate folk flickerings with the depth a richness of a jazz timbre. Their sounds combine to provide a refreshingly deep and mysterious atmosphere, full of imagery….extremely accessible, but in no way due to the following of common formulae” Pejhy
“The Magic Lantern’s set was a heightened sensory experience that contained all of the dramatics of a piece of theatre. There is a certain Jeff Buckley quality to the arrangements and diction, a songwriting capacity that, like Joanna Newsom’s, is utterly otherworldly and densely descriptive….a symphonic fuzziness to the band’s sound in which the instrumentation intermingles to create an overwhelming experience” Folk Radio Live Review
“They’re making bold, heartwrenching (and still bloody clever) songs” Neu Magazine
“9/10 – Something quite special, The Magic Lantern have produced a remarkable, enchanting and genuinely affecting album that’s sure to bring them the attention they deserve” Planetnotion.com
“An 11-Track Stunner. There’s no real way of putting this in a subtle manner, so it’s better to be blunt and open about it from the off – ‘A World in a Grain of Sand’ is a must-buy” Clixie.co.uk
This duo played improvised compositions using prepared piano – bluetac, rubbers, pegs, coins, plectrums, mallets, and cymbals – filtered through live electronics. Their debut album, ‘Below the Blue Whale’, is out now on the Loop Collective label. Buy it here.
Fred Thomas has been collaborating with Albanian/Swiss singer Elina Duni since 2017. Their album ‘Lost Ships’ was released on ECM Records in 2020, featuring Rob Luft, Mathieu Michel and Fred Thomas. Their second album together, ‘A Time to Remember’, was released on 2023 on ECM, recorded at La Buissonne Studios by legendary engineer Gérard de Haro.
Elina Duni – Vocals Rob Luft – Guitar Mathieu Michel – Flugelhorn Fred Thomas – Piano and Drums
Born into an artistic family in Tirana, Albania, in 1981, Elina Duni made her first steps on the stage as a singer aged five, singing for National Radio and Television. In 1992, after the fall of the communist regime, she settled in Geneva, Switzerland, with her mother, where she started studying classical piano and thereafter discovered jazz.
As part of his research into the music of J.S.Bach, Fred Thomas has delved into the world of the organ. Electrofeit is an album of J.S. Bach solo organ music released by music publisher and record label The Silent Howl. This was followed by ‘Cut From Air‘, released in 2023.
“In a word: sublime”SilenceAndSound
Some words on ‘Electrofeit’:
There were several sources of inspiration for this recording: a sudden love affair with church organs, Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and Glenn Gould’s obsession with technology and how it relates to classical music. Then I heard some lectures by the historian Hayden White that seemed relevant to the interpretation of art from the past. His ideas are a gift to anybody interested in period performance practice.
Here are some of Hayden White’s thoughts (paraphrased):
– How can a creative student of the past use imagination to supplement the kind of knowledge, always fragmentary, always incomplete, often hidden, that historical methodologies dig up? Is there an essence that you can derive from a combination of so-called scientific enquiry and poetic imagination, without transforming fact into fiction? In fact, what is the status of fact and fiction? Can they even be clearly demarcated?
– History can be an artistic treatment of reality. Novelist Toni Morrison says her book ‘Beloved’ is “historically true in essence, but not strictly factual”.
– Literary devices such as the anecdote or epigraph are instruments for treating the past artistically, for interpreting facts poetically, for drawing attention to your message by giving it formal coherence. Form articulates or even enacts message. These literary devices are poetic precisely in so far as they draw attention to their own processes of production. They tell you something about the text itself.
– To tell things chronologically results in a chronicle. To relate a history you must violate chronology, and it’s this that gives it narrative force. Why do we want a narrative or story? Because identifying the structure that holds events together in a particular pattern of cause and effect or functional relationship is not enough; the dramatisation of events is key i.e. to separate agents into protagonists/antagonists, strong/weak, agents/patients and thus extract meaning.
All of this relates deeply to recording music of the past. In the case of ‘Electrofeit’, I recorded the fugues by over-dubbing (multi-tracking) the voices. Starting off by recording a whole fugue with all its voices, I then replaced each voice individually, finally removing the original template from underneath – a bit like drawing on tracing paper on top of an original.
This ‘device’ tells the listener how I feel about the text. It draws attention to itself, through technological tricks such as panning, distance, eq and timbre. It dramatises the music by separating the voices into their ever-changing roles of protagonist or antagonist, leader or follower. And the device itself enacts the polyphonic nature of the music.
“These pieces take on a deep and magical dimension…each detail revealed in overwhelming relief thanks to quality sound recording and mixing, supported by an interpretative finesse that brings to mind the contemporary and subtle games of a Glenn Gould. More than yet another standard interpretation of the works of J.S. Bach, ‘Electrofeit’ is a brilliant renewal of his work’s modernism, a wonderful bridge between past and present, a moment of auditory peace and contemplation. In a word: sublime” SilenceAndSound
“Fred Thomas…is utilizing modern recording and post-production technologies to create unique compositions and reinventions of traditional classical music. By utilizing this kind of creative experimentation and exploring the realm of multi-track recording, Thomas is challenging the status quo of the classical music genre…Electrofeit is…a creative product and work of art wholly his own. Just as Brian Eno considers himself a composer beholden to the studio and constantly evolving recording technologies, Thomas is now pioneering this methodology in the classical genre. Electrofeit has a sound that is both more full and resonant than typical Bach recordings, with a sonic depth that can only be paralleled in music and film genres outside of the traditional“The Creators Project
“Richard Wagner has met his musical match in the person of the present-day Fred Thomas, an astonishingly versatile composer, arranger and producer…This is someone with a strong instinct to make new things happen in a brilliantly individual way…..a master of many instruments.” London JazzNews.
‘Dick Wag – a Tribute to Richard Wagner’ is a jazz trio dedicated to the notorious German composer, despised and idolised in equal measure. Comprised of the most unlikely collaborators, this tribute band attempts to reconcile itself to opera’s most depraved, politically divisive and love-hated little man. With huge dramatic scenes boiled down to discreet miniatures, each expressed on a single piece of paper and treated like found objects as a jazz musician might, the resulting improvisations teeter surreally between the playful lyricism of swing and the abstraction of modernist prepared piano grooves.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Fred Thomas has masterminded these respectfully profane interpretations of Wagner’s sublime, bombastic, time-stopping, sexually suggestive and earth-shatteringly beautiful creations by assembling a seemingly dysfunctional trio of motley talents. Prepared piano legend Benoît Delbecq’s child-like and profoundly vocal outbursts miraculously synthesise with Ewan Bleach’s unparalleled sense of melody and tone, glued together by Fred Thomas’ foundational bass playing. Deadly serious and and deadly silly, ’Dick Wag’ serves up chunks hacked off masterpieces such as Tristan and Isolde, transforming them into grotesque parodies of Teutonic pomp, luscious jazz ballads, jingoistic marches and Ellingtonian jungle grooves. And if you listen closely, just audible between the cracks of these affectionate caricatures, is the unmistakable sound of Richard Wagner turning in his grave.
“Jazz listeners will be happy to hear that you don’t have to like Wagner to like Dick Wag but ironically it actually might be a good entry point…..an affectionate parody” – Jazzwise Magazine
“Transformation is the word! Unlike the case of the straight-forward transcription of Wagner´s music undertaken by the Uri Caine Ensemble, the Dick Wag Trio explores it in search of new paths towards an unknown musical space…This throbbing sonority acts a musical trough in which Wagner’s material is first drained and then reassembled as a constellation of darkness and light permeated by a movingly sensitive touch of humour – a kind of ironic new age minimalism viewed through the eyes of Debussy and, as always, Ellington. I left the Vortex as satisfied as I do after a good performance in Bayreuth, with some of the most original paraphrasing of Wagnerian tunes I ever heard ringing in my ears” MundoClasico
ReadLondon Jazz News‘ extensive piece on this project.
Fred Thomas – double bass and arrangements Ewan Bleach – reeds Benoît Delbecq – piano
Recorded at Alice’s Loft Studios, London, December 2017 Engineered and mixed by Alex Bonney Mastered by Peter Beckmann Artwork by Peter Beatty Produced by Fred Thomas
This trio produced sounds that were a synthesis of Fred’s compositions and free improv, exploring those made possible by delving into the bowels of a grand piano – using bluetac, rubbers, pegs, coins, plectrums, mallets, and cymbals – and uniting these discoveries with the exquisite playing of Robin Fincker and Ben Bryant. Their E.P. ‘It’s Time’ came out in 2006 and was Fred Thomas’ first ever release. Buy it here.
Fred Thomas – (prepared) piano
Robin Fincker – clarinet
Ben Bryant – percussion
“The Fred Thomas Trio captures the imagination of the listener with hypnotic soundscapes, whilst challenging boundaries and traditional roles of the instruments within the genres of improvised music and contemporary composition. Most importantly though, it’s beautiful music” Gerard Presencer
“A revelation” Apple Music “Utterly beguiles”BBC Music Magazine
Here is Johann Sebastian Bach in transfigured light: with organ chorale preludes, vocal cantata movements and orchestral sinfonias – 24 pieces in all – transcribed for trio and solo piano by Fred Thomas, and threaded into a compelling new sequence by Manfred Eicher.
On Three Or One, Bach’s idiom is respectfully explored by three innovative players, a process Thomas describes as “quietly joyful,” and the trio pieces, primarily drawn from Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, acquire a fresh character in the hands of Kazakh violinist Aisha Orazbayeva and British cellist Lucy Railton, musicians more often associated with contemporary composition’s cutting edge.
Fred Thomas, who makes his ECM New Series debut here, has always worked across contexts and genres, and considers the trio’s wide-ranging experience “an incitement to creativity. Bach often re-used his own material and it is no surprise it came out differently each time. With his imaginative, technical and improvisatory powers, do we really believe that Bach would play the same thing the same way twice?” It’s a good question, and the key to the approach taken on Three Or One. www.ecm.lnk.to/ThreeOrOne
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Transcriptions by Fred Thomas, published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen and available to buy here.
Video playlist of Fred Thomas discussing ‘Three or One’:
“Mesmerizing…utterly beguiles…an illuminating if idiosyncratic Bachian” BBC Music Magazine
“Lyrical and haunting….very much like nothing anyone has heard before” All Music
“Let this programme sink in over several hearings and the music will quietly insinuate itself into your next playlist” Gramophone
“One of the most transportive albums of the year” Between Sound and Space
“A Bach record to be remembered” RTBF Belgium
“Fred Thomas is an astonishingly fine musician…highly effective, and deeply affecting” The Arts Desk
“Magnificent sonorities and meticulous transcriptions from Fred Thomas” France Musique
“Fred Thomas transfigures the master…interpreted with nuance and extreme sensitivity” FIP Radio
“There is something purifying about their simple beauty. With historical performance knowledge, musical sensitivity, while paying attention to the theological content, he carefully reorganized them with a multitude of different compositional techniques…subtly executed interpretations…stimulating transcriptions” Wolfgang Sandner, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“Thomas’ ECM debut sees him elegantly arrange and reinvent a series of Bach sinfonias, vocal cantata and organ preludes” The Guardian
“Immaculately conceived” Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk
“Wonderfully musical, sensitively communicative” Fono Forum
“Those led by their emotional response will be touched by Bach’s calm and grace. Church music becomes chamber music” Stern
“Magnificently performed…Thomas manages to play Bach perfectly, or better still intimately…lively, current, eclectic, contemporary…A precious recording” Giornale della Musica
“Be prepared for something different from what you can possibly imagine” Yellow Box
“This is a beautiful album that is flawless in its conception and execution and plunges the listener into Bach’s world with a fresh perspective and set of ears. Essential listening” JazzViews
“Thomas has shown himself to be both fearless and deferential in his interpretations. He remains faithful to the source, radical in execution but beholden to the intention…an easy, joyful listen” Stereophile *****
“Thomas’s solo flights are memorable…the three engage deeply with Bach’s material and execute it with the majesty, respect, and affection it deserves. The impression ultimately left is of musicians luxuriating in the splendour of the magnificent material they’re playing and savouring every moment of their real-time interactions” Textura
Inhabiting their own stylistic realm encompassing mediterranean folk song, chamber music, improvisation and the world of acoustic jazz, this trio comprises the award-winning singer, multi-instrumentalist and song-writer Alice Zawadzki, joined by two of London’s most distinguished musicians, Fred Thomas and Misha Mullov-Abbado. The clear synergy harnessed by these three musicians is the result of almost a decade’s work together, drawing upon the successes and singular abilities of its members: multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Fred Thomas, whose recent exceptional album for ECM Records received 5 stars from Gramophone Magazine, Misha Mullov-Abbado, whose stature as bassist and composer has garnered commissions from the BBC Concert Orchestra, and Alice Zawadzki, described by The Guardian as “a genuine original”. The group plays acoustic chamber music, guided by a special emphasis on intimacy, delicacy of sound, space and subtle interaction, qualities which have led them to ECM Records, whose founder Manfred Eicher produced their debut album ‘Za Górami’ in Lugano in 2023.
“Beautiful music and absorbing stories…beautifully conveyed wistful songs, but only exploratory and jazz-immersed musicians could have delivered them this way” The Guardian – Jazz Album of the Month – 4****
“Perhaps this track best sums up the intimate beauty and expansive mystery of this exquisite trio” Downbeat Magazine
“The recordings of this trio are a model of cliché-free beauty and gossamer-fine musical communication, which thrives on Alice Zawadzki’s velvety, clear voice and yet is a triangle of equally important partners… A musical experience of lasting beauty“ Bayerische Rundfunk Radio
“It’s a delicate free-flowing, spacious, still-of-the-night affair with a sensitive less-is-more approach to ensemble dialogue…An exquisite recording that penetrates a little deeper with every listen”Jazzwise Magazine 4****
“The trio, in their debut recording together, cast a wide net reaching from Poland to Argentina and enchant with a selection of works for Zawadzki’s entrancing vocals, supported by plaintive piano, percussion, vielle and bass. Folk? Jazz? Chamber? World music? Who cares?”BBC Music Magazine 5*****
“A magnificent CD, full of a deep existential melancholy, of a timeless constructive wisdom, of a human stoicism built on the truth of contemporary living” Spettakulo
“A remarkably successful and credible genre fusion of jazz and folklore, classical and early music, and a highly musical and very profound affair that brings the listener under its spell” Jazz Podium
“A deep well of folk-inspired music and poetic lyrics that is drawn upon to create original interpretations that fit the ECM imprimatur like a glove” UK Jazz News
“Za Górami is an exceptionally compact and at the same time transparent combination of intimacy and intensity. And thus, quite independently of the lyrics of these songs, a love story of its own” Die Weltwoche
“Intimate, ad libitum, folk-rinsed and haunting music” Jazz Journal
“An extraordinary debut album from a trio of extraordinary musicians…utterly spellbinding” Jazzviews
“From start to finish the album is expansive, acting as a vessel enabling the listener to dream and contemplate. Throughout Za Górami the trio unearth fresh listening avenues for the ear, pioneering and reviving unexplored music from different pockets of the world” Presto Music
“These are lieder for a modern world in which echoes of the past are inescapable…The clarity and subtle shadings of Zawadzki’s soprano, the handsomely shaped bass sound and calm phrasing of Mullov-Abbado, and Thomas’s reflective piano and subtle percussion work together to create a pan-national music in which elegance, economy and ardour are held in perfect balance. In its quiet way, this is one of the year’s outstanding albums” Blue Moment blog
“A mix of impressive individual talents” UK Jazz News
“This is a haunting genre-busting project that deserves to be heard” The Honest Broker
“Za Górami incorporates folk songs, chamber music and improvisational jazz styles to meld a mesmerizing sound” All About Jazz
“A beautiful album full of subtle nuances” Jazz Forum
“A remarkably successful and credible genre fusion of jazz and folklore, classical and early music, and a highly musical and very profound affair that brings the listener under its spell” Jazz Podium
“The fact that it all comes together as if from a single mould is what makes this album truly magical and deserving of great interest far beyond the jazz scene!” Zeitschrift für Kultur und Gesellschaft ‘CD Tipp’
“The British-Polish singer and violinist Alice Zawadzki, who, together with pianist Fred Thomas and bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, takes on old Sephardic songs with great empathy and a sense of lyrical intensity on her debut album “Za Górami”, released by ECM, is truly a new voice” ORF Spielräume
“These are moments when not only the musicians, but also listeners hold their breath. Moments full of eloquence” Trouw 4****
Album Liner Notes:
Za Górami (Behind the Mountains) is much more than a geographical place, though the cautionary tale of the young Maɫgorzatka certainly paints the Polish Carpathians vividly. An ancient rallying cry, this cryptic phrase summons something transcendental, reminiscent of ’Once upon a time…’ It’s in this spirit of openness that the ten stories of our album Za Górami unfold.
Collected on our travels and taught to us by our friends, these are songs we have learnt and loved together. Though our musical and cultural backgrounds encompass Europe, Russia and South America, we were all three born in England. This happenstance was the product of love, war, exile, the arbitrariness of borders and the yearning for a new life – all themes which are themselves woven through the narratives you’ll hear within. Gathered from Argentina, France, Venezuela, Poland and the deep well of Sephardic culture, these folk tales speak to the moon, the mountains, the rain, the madness of humans and the prophecies of birds.
Our trio relies on the intimacy of deep listening and a trust in our long-standing friendship. The discovery of what each song wanted to be was a patient process of contemplation, omission and distillation of ideas, animated by the flexibility of our instrumentation: voice, piano, double bass, violin, vielle and percussion. Za Górami was recorded behind the mountains of the Lugano Alps, under the nurturing guidance of Manfred Eicher. In a concert hall whose unique acoustic encourages delicacy of sound and space, we strived to be both free and controlled, to tread softly and to summon the night.
Fred Thomas and South African cellist Abel Selaocoe have been collaborating since 2021, when they recorded the album Where is Home?(Hae Ke Kae) for Warner Classics. Fred Thomas produced and played multiple instruments on this internationally acclaimed album, which featured Yo-Yo Ma and won Songlines Magazine best album of 2022. In a quartet with Dudu Kouate and Alan Keary, Thomas and Selaocoe have toured Europe’s most prestigious concert halls, including the Berlin Philarmonie, Köhlner Philarmonie, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall, as well as appearing on Later with Jools Holland.
Abel Selaocoe is an exclusive recording artist with Warner Classics and his debut album Where is Home?(Hae Ke Kae) was released on Friday 23 September 2022. His second album is coming in 2025. Selaocoe is redefining the parameters of the cello. He moves seamlessly across a plethora of genres and styles, from collaborations with world musicians and beatboxers, to concerto performances and solo classical recitals.
Fred Thomas writes strings and choral arrangements for Abel Selaocoe. Contact Fred here.
Fred Thomas and Alice Zawadzki present a program of Schubert Lieder, lovingly chosen from the early 19th Century Viennese composer’s 600-strong songbook. Their project takes inspiration from film-maker David Lynch’s maxim: having caught an idea, don’t let it go! As Fred describes, “We’re trying to access a simpler way – both ancient and contemporary – of delivering song, one that sidesteps assumptions and embraces music lovers of all kinds. With the sound intimately close to the listener, our innermost thoughts are exposed by the tiniest details; in this micro universe, nuances become earth-shattering. The songs do their work through virtuosities of sound, stillness and psychology.”
Schubert is perhaps the subtlest songwriter in the Western classical music canon, a quality harnessed by Thomas and Zawadzki in their search for this hushed intensity. In this interior mode, audiences have the chance to hear what emerges when the unquestioned tropes of classical music performance practice are gently dismantled. Taking inspiration from the Schubertiades (intimate concerts held at people’s homes) of 1820s Vienna, this duo treat Schubert’s songs as living and breathing compositions, available to everybody.
Beloved favourites such as Death and the Maiden are reevaluated alongside lesser known jewels, bringing to life the transformative Romantic poetry of Schubert’s young friends and contemporaries: Goethe, Müller, Schiller and many others. Long term collaborators, Fred and Alice have numerous albums out on ECM Records, including ‘Three or One’ and the recently released ‘Za Górami’. 2025 will see them record this Schubert program.
About Fred Thomas:
“A boundary-blurring composer and improviser” Gramophone Magazine
“Remarkable” International Piano Magazine
“Thomas is challenging the status quo of the classical music genre”Vice
“a revelation” Apple Music
“mesmerising” BBC Music Magazine
About Alice Zawadzki:
“A genuine original”The Guardian
“Tender in spirit and defiantly anti-genre”Jazzwise Magazine
“Zawadzki’s larynx is a supple, expressive, rousing delight”Mojo Magazine
“A force to be reckoned with”CLASH
“A voice of velvet suppleness and gutsy emotional power” The Arts Desk
Kees Boeke and Fred Thomas play French and Italian medieval duos from the Modena & Squarcialupi Codices, as well as the music of Paolo da Firenze, Matteo da Perugia, Giovanni da Cascia, Ciconia, Francesco Landini, Lorenzo Masini and Guillaume de Machaut.
Kees Boeke – recorders
Fred Thomas – vielle
Kees Boeke is an internationally acclaimed artist in the field of early music, specialising in recorders and medieval fiddle both as a performer, teacher and director. He has recorded over 80 CDs with various labels including his own record label, Olive Music, founded in 2001. He has been published as a composer and editor of renaissance and medieval music (Zen-On, Schott, Donemus, Olive Music Editions).
His activities in the realm of medieval music began as a member of Kees Otten’s ensemble Syntagma Musicum in the mid 1970’s, continuing with the renowned ensembles Quadro Hotteterre (1968), Sour Cream (1972), and later Little Consort Amsterdam (1978) and Mala Punica (1989). In 2003 he founded his medieval ensemble Tetraktys.
Professor at the Institut fur Alte Music in Trossingen, Germany, Kees Boeke became Director of the Medieval/Renaissance program there. He was also professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Zurich for 25 years. Presently, he is in his seventh year as director of the medieval summer course Settimana musicale del Trecento in Arezzo, Italy. He regularly gives master classes all over the world including Amsterdam, The Hague, Tokyo, Seoul, Taiwan, Tel Aviv, Palermo and Innsbruck. Kees has lived in Toscana for over 40 years, where he makes organic olive oil. www.o-livemusic.com
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