For immediate release – London – May 28, 2021
RMN Classical is proud and excited to announce “In Focus 4” the fourth volume of the editorial line “In Focus”. This new album, like the previous editions, fully embrace diversity and showcases composers and performers from different countries and backgrounds: China, Hong Kong, Italy, Republic of Korea, and the USA. With contemporary chamber music, its various expressions and ramifications, at its core, the album is set to be released on June 26th 2021, on a worldwide distribution on all the digital platforms, including Apple Music, Spotify, Youtube Music, Deezer, Amazon Music, just to name a few.
All the composers and performers featured are winners of prestigious international competitions and recipient of acclaimed awards. Some are professors, assistant professors and lecturers in academies and Universities in their respective countries or abroad. They are usually commissioned works that are performed by renowned names, with premieres in distinguished theatres, venues and concert halls.
Anna Vienna Ho is a Hong Kong-born pianist and vocalist who received her Master of Music in Piano Performance with distinction from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. She is the winner of numerous competition including International Robert Schumann Klavier Welttbert, Rome International Music Competition, Schumann International Youth Piano Competition, London Grand Prize Virtuoso International Music Competition, to name just a few. As a pianist, Anna has given solo recitals and performed in many concert venue in Asia and Europe, including Royal Albert Hall (London), Birmingham Town Hall, Parco della Musica (Rome) and Hong Kong City Hall, and has performed in various chamber recitals and collaborated with many choirs and orchestras. Her compositions include piano, vocal, and chamber works.
Antonio Fraioli (b. 1966) is an award-winning composer and clarinettist who performs regularly in Italy and abroad (Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Poland, US, Canada) both as a soloist and as a member of various ensembles. He recorded for Tactus, Edipan, EurArte, Duchesne Liegi (Belgium), Accademia Italiana del Clarinetto, Agenda Edizioni Musicali, Musica Viva, AFM Roma, and played for Rai-RadioTre, Rai-TV1, Radio Nacional de Espana, Radio Vaticana and numerous others. He has written compositions, transcriptions, revisions and arrangements that have been performed and recorded worldwide, and have been published by various record labels. He is Professor of Music for Wind Ensembles at the “Giuseppe Martucci” Conservatoire in Salerno (Italy), vice president of the Accademia Italiana del Clarinetto (Italian clarinet Academy), and has taught various music subjects in several masterclasses and conferences all over Europe. He is also the author and the presenter of several TV and radio programmes dedicated to music.
Georgi Dimitrov (b. 1989) earned a Master in Music in Composition degree from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. In 2019 he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition degree at the same school. He writes acoustic music that explores the relationships between distinctive sound moulds and the ways in which they relate, mix, and complement each other in order to create a viable sense of form. His pieces occasionally enjoy the high-definition purr that results from the inclusion of intervals tuned in just intonation. Georgi is currently an adjunct theory, aural skills, and orchestration instructor at the University of Southern California. He also has minors in instrumental conducting, viola performance, and theory and analysis.
Born in China, Hao Zou displayed an enormous enthusiasm for music from his earliest childhood. He studied both in his natal country as well as in the US, with Dr Jesse Jones, Dr Stephen Hartke, Dr Chen Yi and Dr Zhou Long. In almost every career stage of Zou, he has been awarded by international competitions in the fields of piano performance and composition. He is now actively participating in commissions. Zou aims to encapsulate, and extract the very essence from traditional Chinese music and present it in his own works. With his iconic and implicit compositional concept, he intends to forge a personal but unmistakably Chinese style and portray the profound aesthetic appeals of oriental music culture.
Sung-Hyun Yun is a Korean composer who played the piano from an early age and had studied music composition throughout his youth both in Korea and in the US, where he attended and graduated from The San Fransisco Conservatory of Music (B.M.), Yale School of Music (M.M.), and the Eastman School of Music (PhD). Yun is also an award-winning composer who, among other competitions, won the Washington International Competition for Composers and the Deutsche Oper Berlin Chamber Music Competition. Yun is currently a professor of composition at the Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, where he remains active composing for the likes of the Festival Ensemble of Seoul, the Hwaeum Chamber Ensemble, the Yonsei Sinfonietta, and the Korean National Choir.
The music of Hong Kong-American composer Chin Ting (Patrick) Chan (b. 1986) is motivated by a search for an expression of the free minds that cannot be described but imagined, often inspired by abstract patterns he discovers in daily objects, as well as imaginary landscapes and human interactions depicted from unexpected perspectives. Chan is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Composition at Ball State University. He has been a fellow and guest composer at international festivals such as IRCAM’s ManiFeste (Paris, 2013/2018), the ISCM World Music Days Festival (Tongyeong, 2016; Tallinn, 2019), and UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (Tallinn, 2015). He has held residencies and commissions from national and international organisations, and has worked with ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Mise-en, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, and Mivos Quartet (to name just a few), with international performances in Europe, Asia and America. He is an award-winning composer whose works have been awarded at more than 15 international competitions and have been published by various record labels.
The full track-list of In Focus 4 includes:
01. Medusa
Composed and performed by Anna Vienna Ho
02. Resurgence
Composed by Antonio Fraioli
Performed by Dimitri Bokolishvili
03. – 06. Whitman Songs
Composed by Georgi Dimitrov
Performed by Pablo Ochoa, Georgi Dimitrov, Ellen Pavliska
07. Menagerie
Composed by Hao Zou
Performed by Tyler Smith, Zach Strong, Thomas Li
08. Eastern Light
Composed by Sung-Hyun Yun
Performed by Sonorite Woodwind Quintet
09. Flare
Composed by Chin Ting Chan
Performed by Yu-Fang Chen
“In Focus 4” will be available on every digital outlet and platform on June 26th, 2021, on RMN Classical.
More information on the album, the composers, all the talents featured in the release and their past accomplishments can be found on the RMN Classical official pages.
About RMN Classical
RMN Classical is a specialised label launched by composer-producer Rick Romano to promote and nurture the contemporary and sound-art music scene and all its ramifications developing and producing original ideas and voices through a range of projects and releases curating a growing catalogue of works and artists.
About RMN Music
London-based RMN Music is an independent music company created to empower contemporary artists and audience through a series of strategic services and projects, connecting music and people crafting unique experiences, fuelling dreams, ideas, and imagination.
Its labels (RMN Records, RMN Classical) promote musical diversity through production, promotion and development of a variety of different projects, including new album releases and events across a wide range of genres with no distinction of countries, age or background.