| Label: ATMA
Catalog: ACD22368
Format: CD Wholenote Dsicoveries - July 2009
This CD features the winners of the Molinari’s third international composition competition. The competition has become a biennial staple on the Montreal scene and the most recent edition will culminate in a concert of the laureates in January 2010. For the Third Concours Molinari presented here, the guest jurors who joined the members of the quartet were composers Isabelle Panneton and Serge Provost. Their daunting task was to select four winners from the 92 string quartet entries by composers under 40 received from 32 different countries. As in past years the results were truly international, with the first prize ($3,000) going to Kazutomo Yamamoto (Japan), second ($2,000) to José Luis Hurtado (Mexico), and a tie for third ($500 each) to Luca Antignani (Italy) and Stephen Yip (Hong Kong). To my ears this is “good old-fashioned” new music, uncompromising stuff which doesn’t bow to recent trends of trying to befriend the listener. Personally I would have awarded the prizes in the reverse order, with Yip’s more abrasive Yi Bi my preferred work. Kudos to Olga Ranzenhofer and the Molinari quartet for their dedication to expanding the string quartet repertoire, and for reminding us that Western Art Music is alive and well in just about every corner of the earth. David Olds  Price: $20.98 |
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