Description
Recorded in The Brain and Creativity Institute’s Cammilleri Hall at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Randy and Linda Bellous, executive producers
Hailed as “an astonishing talent, with exquisite technique”, Nigel Armstrong was born in Sonoma, California, where he began playing the violin at the age of five. Nigel made his orchestra debut in 2002 as a soloist with the Baroque Sinfonia and has since performed concertos with the symphony orchestras in Düsseldorf, Oslo, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Buenos Aires among others. He served as concertmaster for the American Youth Symphony and The Colburn Orchestra when he was a student in Los Angeles.
As a soloist, Nigel remains a personal favorite of Sir Neville Marriner, who looks forward to his next performances with Nigel. After recording the Korngold concerto on this album, Sir Neville and Nigel gave three more performances of the work with orchestras in Europe.
Nigel won the Premio Tango prize at the first international violin competition in Buenos Aires, and the Ole Bull and Nordheim awards in Oslo. Nigel also took first place in the Boston Symphony Orchestra concerto competition. In Moscow in 2011, Nigel won Best Performance of the Commissioned Work by John Corigliano with Stomp and was the only American finalist in the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition.
Mr. Armstrong was profiled in the cover story of the January/February issue of Teen Strings in 2007. He also appeared on NPR’s acclaimed radio program “From the Top.” Though classical music is Mr. Armstrong’s passion he also enjoys exploring different traditions of musical expression such as jazz, fiddle and tango.
Rush Paul –
This is a journey back in time for me to listen to this very lovely album once again. It contains a very nice set of performances by the then younger Nigel Armstrong, who graduated from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia in 2004, performed and traveled following graduation, and then found a home as concert master for the Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2023. He now performs as a soloist in concert tours. And, regrettably, I’ve not seen any following recordings from him. But his talent certainly shines forth as heard in these recordings captured by Bob Attiyeh for Yarlung Records.
The album opens with an energetic performance of Bartok’s very challenging Sonata for Solo Violin. moves to Bach’s Violin Sonata No.3 in C Major, BWV 1005, and concludes with Korngold’s romantic Violin Concerto with The Coburn Orchestra conducted by Sir Neville Marriner in Royce Hall. Each work is delivered with high technical skill, drive, and, where called upon in the Korngold, a loving care and embrace. The final movement of Korngold’s concerto is a riotous, fun-filled, dramatic romp, filled with humor and brilliantly performed by all.
Overall, this is quite an engaging recital that I listened to once again with a smile on my face.
As always, Bob Attiyeh’s recording of both the solo instrument performances and the orchestral performance are beautifully done—very natural sound, perfect positioning of microphones, excellent soundstage capture. Bob pays attention to the details, uses the perfectly positioned minimal number of microphones, and accomplishing some of the most delicious recordings I get to hear. The Korngold Violin Concerto is presented with excellent balance of soloist to orchestra, not spotlighted yet never lost is the larger sound field.
Bob Attiyeh –
Thank you so much Rush, for allowing us to post (with Editor David W. Robinson’s gracious permission) your article in Positive Feedback. Here is the url to the much longer article titled delightfully “Cornucopia of Excellence”
https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/music-reviews/recent-finds-51-nativedsd/#:~:text=Nigel%20Armstrong%2C%20performing%20works%20of%20Bartok%2C%20Bach%2C%20and%20Korngold%2C%20with%20Sir%20Neville%20Marriner%2C%20The%20Coburn%20Orchestra.%20Yarlung%20Records
Here is the more focused article Rush published:
https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/music-reviews/recent-finds-no-42-rachel-podgers-new-album-plus-pure-dsd256-from-yarlung/#:~:text=All%20Things%20Common%E2%80%94Music%20of%20Tarik%20O%27Regan
Thank you Rush and thank you David!