French singer-songwriter who mixes jazzy styles, French variety, soul and acoustic. She is famous for her hit "Je veux", from her first album, Zaz, released on 10 May 2010…

The most successful British girl group in pop history, Bananarama formed in London in late 1981. Drawing equal inspiration for their name from the children's television program The Banana Splits and the Roxy Music song "Pyjamarama," the trio was comprised of lifelong friends Keren Woodward and Sarah Dallin along with Siobhan Fahey, whom Dallin befriended at the London College of Fashion…

The RAI Pasquale of 1955 is almost as good as the two Verdis [#4 Otello and #551 Traviata], marred only by Italo Tajo's overdone mugging in the title-part. Alda Noni, remembered affectionately by older opera-goers in the same part at London's Cambridge Theatre in the late 1940s, remains a charming, minxish though now more buxom Norina. Sesto Bruscantini is a model of a Malatesta, Cesare Valletti even better as an Ernesto in the class of his teacher, Tito Schipa. Erede's seasoned conducting and a resourceful staging makes this a delightful experience.

Sir David Coverdale has returned with a new album that is a true return to Whitesnake’s 1980’s dominance. It is not a simple case of saying this is the next 1987 or Slide It In as Forevermore stands on it’s own merits. That said, it does sit nicely on a shelf next to these two classics…

Despite almost universal critical hatred, Transvision Vamp briefly rose to the top of the U.K. charts in the late '80s, thanks largely to the media image of lead singer Wendy James, who fashioned herself as a sexually provocative, rebellious, fashion-conscious punk – sort of a mixture of Madonna, Blondie's Deborah Harry, T. Rex, and the Clash…

Seven-time GRAMMY Award-winning pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim performs Sonatas 29 to 32 of the so-called 'New Testament' of music, Ludwig van Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas. Composed over twenty-five years and embodying the shift of musical taste from the Classic to the Romantic, their performance requires a musician of extraordinary versatility. Daniel Barenboim is one such pianist – his recordings run the gamut from Bach and Mozart to Bruckner and Bartók. Infollowing in the footsteps of such masters as Artur Schnabel, Barenboim truly shows himself to be among the greatest living musicians.

Rising from the ashes of late-'90s teen pop ephemera, Marion Elise Ravn (known as simply Marion Raven) has been around for a while. In 1994, the ten-year-old Raven recorded a collection of children's songs for EMI Norway with her friend Marit Larsen. The pair went on to form M2M in 1998, a doe-eyed addition to an overstuffed pop scene reigned over by Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera…

After rising to fame at the helm of the popular folk-rock band 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant enjoyed even greater success as a solo artist during the mid-'90s. Her literate, socially conscious songs established her among the preeminent women in pop music, while her solo debut – 1995's Tigerlily – helped pave the way for a number of female performers in a pre-Lilith Fair market. She continued releasing albums well into the 2000s, often examining specific genres or subjects, although Tigerlily remained her biggest-selling record…

Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and poet. Classically trained on piano as a child, Apple began composing her own songs when she was 8 years old. Her debut album, Tidal, written when Apple was 17, was released in 1996 and received a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Criminal". She followed with When the Pawn… (1999), produced by Jon Brion, which was also critically and commercially successful and was certified platinum…

This is, by operatic standards of fidelity, a very faithful musical treatment of Edmond Rostand's classic drama about the swashbuckling poet and swordsman with the big nose. The music is competent but not spectacular; that quality is found in the libretto. The title role is expertly filled by Roberto Alagna, who not only has the best tenor voice in France but also turns out to be an accomplished actor in a demanding role. He is well-supported by a cast that clearly loves the story, its various characters and its often brilliant dialogue.

In this 2003 performance from the Austin City Limits series, New England's Susan Tedeschi demonstrates a range that extends well beyond her blues base. Following the blueprint employed by Bonnie Raitt a few decades earlier, she covers John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery" (a signature tune for Raitt), inserting a snippet from the Grateful Dead's "Sugaree." The piano balladry of her "Wrapped in the Arms of Another" could fit just fine on a Raitt album. The set also finds her sampling from the songbooks of Sly Stone ("You Can Make It If You Try"), Bob Dylan ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"), and Stevie Wonder ("Love's in Need of Love Today"), in addition to the more straightforward blues of Koko Taylor ("Voodoo Woman"). Though Tedeschi's stinging lead guitar provides the focus, she receives strong support from a band featuring the interplay of electric pianist Jason Crosby (who doubles on violin) and William Green on Hammond B-3 organ. Highlights include a tribute to jam-band inspiration Col. Bruce Hampton on "Hampmotized" and the simmering "Wait for Me," with its echoes of Aretha Franklin.

1980s pop diva Sheena Easton was born Sheena Shirley Orr in Bellshill, Scotland on April 27, 1959. Inspired to pursue a singing career after seeing Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were, she later attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama while moonlighting with the group Something Else. Exposure on the BBC television production The Big Time: Pop Singer not only resulted in a record deal with EMI but also pushed Easton's 1980 debut singles, "Modern Girl" and "9 to 5," into the U.K. Top Ten, and she became the first female artist to score two simultaneous Top Ten hits…

Brahms’s two piano concertos are from opposite ends of his creative years… The first work evinces a titanic struggle, while the second is warmer and rounder, but no less passionate, and shows Brahms at his consummate best. Today Daniel Barenboim is internationally recognized and revered as an orchestral and operatic conductor, pianist, and a musical ambassador and also as a humanitarian. Partnering him is the remarkable conductor Sergiu Celibidache. “He was one of the greatest musicians I ever encountered”, says Barenboim.

Like music lovers the world over, John Nelson believes Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor is a pinnacle of Western music. For years, he has cherished the dream of performing this masterwork in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris whose renown has grown constantly since he began conducting with them eight years ago. In addition to John Nelson and his Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Mass in B minor brings together the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame choir conducted by Nicole Corti as well as internationally recognized soloists Ruth Ziesak (soprano), Joyce DiDonato (mezzo), Daniel Taylor (alto), Paul Agnew (tenor) and Dietrich Henschel (baritone).