Daniel Hope SPHERES Einaudi - Glass - Nyman - Pärt - Richter

For as long as mankind has gazed up into the night sky at the stars and planets following their ordained course, the imagination has been set free. In ancient days, people spoke of “music of the spheres”, ghostly sounds that were long thought to have been created by the planetary bodies brushing past each other. The music they made was ethereal and, quite literally, otherworldly.

“I’ve been fascinated for a long time by this idea of ‘spherical music’ and by the philosophers, mathematicians and musicians who expounded their theory of musica universalis over the centuries,” explains Daniel Hope. “It started with Pythagoras and extended to some of those extraordinary German thinkers such as Johannes Kepler who were convinced that music was created when planets move or collide, and that music had a mathematical foundation, a kind of astronomical harmony. I thought it was significant that these were brilliant scientists and mathematicians, not just soothsayers. My aim was to make an album touching on this sublime theme, while also discovering what composers nowadays might write when thinking in this context.”

“Spheres” can be interpreted in a number of ways, beginning with the exploration of pieces that ally themselves to the concept of extraterrestial music which can as easily come from the 17th century as from the 21st. But the circularity of a sphere, the shape’s roundness, can also be related to the use of repetition in much of modern music – from the minimalism of Philip Glass via the fusing of the minimal with a more overtly emotional language, as in Michael Nyman’s Trysting Fields (music from the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway’s film Drowning by Numbers), to the quirky and immediately communicative Eliza Aria by Elena Kats-Chernin. (James Jolly)

Jolente De Maeyer / Nikolaas Kende KREUTZER SONATA

Jolente De Maeyer received her first violin lessons at the age of four. When she was 14 years old, Jolente was invited by Yehudi Menuhin to pursue her musical studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School near London. She continued her studies with Natasha Boyarsky at the Royal College of Music in London,  Stephan Picard at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin and Augustin Dumay at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium.

At the age of 6, Jolente started participating in several national and international competitions. That year she became the youngest ever laureate of the Jong Tenuto Competition and also received First Prizes in the Charles de Bériot Competition Brussels. Later on Jolente became a prizewinner in several international competitions like Cardona International Competition in Portugal, International Violin Competition Liana Issakadze in Russia (2004) and the Benjamin Britten International Violin competition in London (2005). She  also became a semi-finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2009.

Since 2003, Jolente has formed a duo with pianist Nikolaas Kende.  Together they formed the Rubensensemble in 2007.

Jolente recorded the 6th Violinconcerto of Henri Vieuxtemps in 2010 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège with Patrick Davin. This recording received the René Snepvangersprijs from the Belgian Music Press in 2011.

In 2013 Jolente recorded de 2nd Violinconcerto of Saint Saëns with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège with Christian Arming.