THE MUSIC OF GEORGE FREDERICK MCKAY (2025)
by the FORMOSA QUARTET
In 2023, the Formosa Quartet, winners of the prestigious Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, embarked on a new recording project featuring the four string quartets of American composer George Frederick McKay. Renowned for their adventurous programming, the quartet recorded these reflective, playful, and intricate works at the historic Bastyr Chapel in Kenmore, Washington, with GRAMMY award-winning producer David Sabee. This world-premiere recording will be the first commercial release of these string quartets (said to be McKay's favourite compositional form) and will celebrate the 125th anniversary of his birth. Written between the 1930s and 1950s, McKay's quartets reflect his distinctive musical language, shaped by influences ranging from Civil War-era folk songs and Native American melodies to avant-garde satire from Seattle's urban scene.
“Just gorgeous, perfect really…”
MASTERPIECES AMONGST PEERS: TRIOS BY FRANK BRIDGE AND JOHANNES BRAHMS (2020)
by the NAMIROVSKY-LARK-PAE TRIO
Winner of the 2020 Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik PdSK | The German Record Critics' Award in the category of chamber music and Fono Forums’s Top 5 Albums of 2020, NLP Trio’s debut recording revives Frank Bridge's second piano trio and pairs it with another incredible masterpiece of the piano trio repertoire, Brahms Trio No. 1 in B major.
“The Namirovsky trio does everything with fiery playing full of intensive fantasy and warm glow...Only Pires, Dumay and Wang and Katchen, Suk and Starker remain as main rivals for those who prefer to have both Brahms Piano Trios together.”
CON ANIMA (2020)
“Conceived jointly by violinist Movses Pogossian and violist Kim Kashkashian on the occasion of Tigran Mansurian’s 80th birthday, the Con anima project brings together a dedicated cast of players to perform the Armenian composer’s chamber music. The emphasis is on newer pieces - only the Third String Quartet dates from the 20th century - but there is a timeless quality to Mansurian’s work, all of which resounds with the spirit of his homeland.”
— ECM Records
*Pae served as producer for Tigran Mansurian’s “Con anima” for String Sextet
“Chant-like repetitions...play a protagonic role in Con anima (2006–7), a single-movement string sextet in which the first viola assumes the role of a cantor leading the congregation. This part is taken here by Kim Kashkashian, a veritable prima inter pares who shapes her every phrase with overwhelming expressivity, communicating with such immediacy that one fancies overhearing words of prayer in her playing.”
SILVERGRASS & OTHER ORCHESTRAL WORKS (2020)
featuring the FORMOSA QUARTET
The Formosa Quartet appeared as special guests on this recording. They led Houston-based chamber orchestra Loop38 in the orchestral version of A Plea to Lady Chang’e for Nanguan Pipa and Chamber Orchestra.
“Intercultural composition is no longer a novelty. It has become a familiar, even commonplace, phenomenon. With this recording, Shih-Hui Chen (b 1962) breathes fresh air into this important genre. In more ways than one, her transcultural work has blurred the lines between individual cultures and represents our rich musical horizon today.”
— New World Records
FROM HUNGARY TO TAIWAN (2019)
by the FORMOSA QUARTET
This imaginative recording project offers virtuoso treatment of folk music from Hungary and Taiwan, illuminating many aspects of the two cultures, all within beautifully rendered new classical compositions. In addition, the recording incorporates arguably, the greatest masterpiece of 20th-century string quartet music- Bartok's incandescent String Quartet No. 4. Winners of both the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the London International String Competition, the Formosa Quartet was hailed as "spellbinding" by BBC Music Magazine.
— Bridge Records
“This disc is a must-have—a particularly inspiring collection of music that has brought its melodic roots, perfectly preserved, into a new era.”
LEI LIANG | LUMINOUS (2016)
featuring the FORMOSA QUARTET on Verge
“Verge Quartet is, in part, based on Mongolian folk music, its gestural language as well as its folksongs. That said, it is no pastiche piece. The folk influences are integrated into Liang’s overall compositional approach, not as an East-meets-West hybridization, but in truly organic fashion. The Formosa Quartet plays the work with brilliant energy and carefully detailed authenticity.”
— Sequenza21
“Verge Quartet is, in part, based on Mongolian folk music, its gestural language as well as its folksongs. That said, it is no pastiche piece. The folk influences are integrated into Liang’s overall compositional approach, not as an East-meets-West hybridization, but in truly organic fashion. The Formosa Quartet plays the work with brilliant energy and carefully detailed authenticity.”
SAINT-SAËNS | COMPLETE WORKS FOR VIOLIN, CELLO, & ORCHESTRA (2014)
featuring Deborah Pae, Christian Arming, and Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège
“[Pae’s] superb tone, judicious and carefully chosen phrasing, and a high level of interpretative intelligence are the hallmarks...Listening to [her] perform with tremendous technical assurance and a maturity and understanding well beyond [her] years is a source of unceasing delight throughout this recording.”