If you would like to vote for this cd please vote HERE

I propose you an album that was released at the beginning of May, more exactly on 5^th May, 2014, and it reunited some of the most important works signed by Felix Mendelssohn, in the prestigious interpretation of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly. As it is well known, there is very strong connection between Mendelssohn and the Gewadhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, a connection of twelve years between the orchestra and the KapellmeisterMendelssohn - the musician received this position in 1835 and he kept it until 1847 the year he died.

Surely, for the broad audience, Mendelssohn is the author of the stage music A Midsummer Night's Dream - the emblematic work with an overture written by Mendelssohn in 1826 when he was seventeen years old, and other pieces added in 1842, including the Wedding March.

The performance proposed by the Gewandhaus Orchestra expresses a lot of brightness, but the Italian inspiration of Riccardo Chailly highlights this brightness even more.

The pianist Saleem Ashkar

I have also enjoyed very much, the performance of those two concerts for piano and orchestra by Mendessohn, which is included in the album of the 'Vote the Best Classical Music album of 2014' campaign. I invite you to vote the albums in this competition.

The soloist is the pianist Saleem Ashkar, born in Nazareth in 1976, whom we had the chance to listen to in Bucharest, in one of the editions of the 'George Enescu' International Festival. Having a career that began when he was seventeen years old and with a debut at Carnegie Hall in New York at twenty years old, we can say that Saleem Ashkar is today a great artist, that it can be felt in his performance, in addition to an unmistakably virtuoso manner.

The conductor Riccardo Chailly

In December 2013, a rumor, that had been heard for many months, was confirmed: that in January 2015, the main conductor of the famous La Scala Theatre would be Riccardo Chailly, being the next person that would take over the music director`s responsibilities starting with 2017. Now, the current music director of La Scala Theatre is Daniel Barenboim. Chailly started to work at this theatre forty years ago, when he was twenty one years old, as Claudio Abbado`s assistant. Recently, it has been announced that Chaily will continue his collaboration with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, a new contract until 2020, being signed.