Quarterly Critic’s Choice
The best and most interesting new releases of the previous three months are awarded a place on the Quarterly Critic’s Choice. Evaluation criteria are artistic quality, repertoire value, presentation, and sound quality. From 2014 onward, the Long Lists are stored directly with each Quarterly Critic’s Choice.
NEW: Long List 2/2024, published on 5th April 2024
Crossover Productions
Mia Brentano’s River of Memories – A Mystery Trip
Benyamin Nuss, Andy Miles, Klaus Martin Kopitz, Marie-Noëlle Fileyssant, Timkehet Teffera, Jóhanna Eydís Pórarinsdóttir, Ayo Ajayi, Katrin Gralki, Yun-Kyung Lee, Heiner Reinhardt, Johannes Ernst, Shiori Doi, Hans Dekker. Mons Records MR874621 (NRW Vertrieb)
Blue is the moon in the opening piece, with its blue notes as the colorant. In »River of Memories« we enter a wide listening landscape of stories that our dreams are made of; stories in which the surreal and real, nostalgic-romantic, silky melodic and nightmarish-ghostly meet. Mia Brentano (as the musicologist Klaus Martin Kopitz calls himself when he composes) offers a remarkable range of styles that includes the classic-romantic repertoire as well as jazz and modern electronics with their popular offshoots. Different languages serve as radio drama-like sound material and become a tribute to authors such as André Breton or Paul Auster. Kopitz takes us on a fantastic journey into unheard-of dream and sound worlds. For the jury: Heinz Zietsch