A jury in Minnesota has found former police officer Derek Chovin guilty of all charges. How has the nation reacted? Register senior editor Joan Frawley Desmond offers some analysis on this news. Then we turn to Joan’s coverage of Catholic Schools as they evaluate the last year and look ahead to the future.
And then, we hear from Register European Correspondent Solene Tadie about the homeschool ban in France, and get updates on the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral and the controversial building of the largest mosque in Europe. But she also brings us information on an abbey of French nuns who are providing Gregorian Chant for the world through a one of kind app.

Register Radio  042421-Catholic Schools and Homeschool Ban in France

Fred Thomas - piano
Recorded at the Royal Academy of Music, 2015
Engineered by Alex Bonney
Mixed by Alex Bonney and Fred Thomas

3. Corrente - Partita No. 6 in E Minor, BWV 830

Join acclaimed wind quintet Carion as they dance with the devil in their second Odradek CD: Mephisto. Carion have ventured beyond their usual repertoire to interpret colourful, contrasting and virtuosic pieces. They explore the darker, mysterious side of Mozart in his Serenade for Winds in C minor; toy with the unique colours of the wind quintet in witty arrangements of Shostakovich’s stage and film music; explore mephistophelian connections in Bartók’s renderings of tunes from Transylvania; and pay tribute to the great virtuosos of the past, Paganini and Liszt, with two brand-new arrangements. Their playing captures the mystique of those original works whilst opening up new horizons for the wind quintet.

Legend has it that the bourgeoisie regularly fainted at concerts given by the great Niccolò Paganini; his apparently super-human technique prompted a long-held myth that he had sold his soul to the devil. Liszt first heard Paganini performing in Paris in 1832, and was transfixed by his jaw-dropping virtuosity and use of innovative aural devices. The influence of this experience on Liszt was profound, and his Grandes Études de Paganini, heard here arranged for wind quintet, were inspired by Paganini’s devilishly difficulty violin caprices.

Mozart’s Serenade for Winds, K388, is sometimes known as ‘Nacht Musique’ because of its enigmatic – and at times serene – nature. Mozart relished exploring the different textural permutations available to him with wind instruments, blending or accentuating their contrasting sonorities.

In Bartok’s Romanian Dances the composer uses his encyclopaedic knowledge of folk music to create a series of vivid, energetic movements, while Shostakovich’s film music and ballet scores represent a lighter side to a composer known for his searing symphonies and quartets. The ‘Romance’ from The Gadfly in particular is a rare instance of uncomplicated tenderness in Shostakovich’s music.

Carion’s debut album on Odradek, Nielsen’s Footsteps, has been widely critically acclaimed, the ensemble’s performance earning a five-star review from BBC Music Magazine. The CD was one of the top classical releases of 2015 on iTunes, and was hailed by ArtsDesk as “the best wind quintet disc in years”.

09 - Dimitri Shostakovich - Tahiti Trot

Opera Panel II - Beyond Breaking Point

This is from a performance back in April 2012 during our residency at the University of South Carolina.  We opened the show with one of our favorites - Bach Ricercar for 6 (arranged for septet) from the Musical Offering.  We chose to dive right into the Stravinsky Septet as it seemed to be born out of Bach's contrapuntal style.  Performers: Owen Dalby, violin; Meena Bhasin, viola; Claire Bryant, cello; Kris Saebo, bass; Alicia Lee, clarinet; Brad Balliett, bassoon; Alma Maria Liebrecht, horn; and guest pianist, Phillip Bush.

Bach Ricercar for 6 from A Musical Offering & Stravinsky Septet 1st movement

One of out favorite hits from the man himself, Ludwig van Beethoven - the original party music!  Check out our live performance of the 1st movement from our residency at University of South Carolina's School of Music in April 2012.  Performers: Owen Dalby, violin; Meena Bhasin, viola; Claire Bryant, cello; Kris Saebo, bass; Alicia Lee, clarinet; Brad Balliett, bassoon; Alma Maria Liebrecht, horn

Beethoven Septet - Adagio; Allegro con brio

In these moments of seclusion and self-isolation, the Benedictines of Jouques open the doors of their cloister and invite us to reconnect with our essence, in communion with each other in prayer through the Gregorian Chants.

Gregorian is a monodic sung prayer originating in the 8th century and sung by the Sisters exactly as it has been uninterruptedly for centuries. These chants awaken us to the most intimate, profound parts of our being. We wish for you to find peace, consolation, hope, and a sense of communion even while the current circumstances prevent us from gathering.

Ad Matutinum - 04 Hymnus - Pange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium 1

"Toccata" is the 5th Piano Etude written by Unsuk Chin. Check out my video performance on YouTube! You can also find my premier recording of this work in my latest album 'Musical Toys'. For more information, please click www.meiyifoo.com or follow me on twitter @MeiYiFoo

Thanks for listening,
Mei Yi

Mei Yi Foo plays Toccata by Unsuk Chin

Odradek Records is a democratic classical cooperative, non-profit and artist-controlled label and concert association, promoting new artists and fresh repertoire.

Entrance to our roster is through anonymous demo.

Our dream is utopian: to separate music-making from markets and create a just system of pure artistic meritocracy.


Odradek Records is not just a new record label. Odradek Records is the first wedge of a larger project, proposing a new way to produce and enjoy classical music. We think that the current model undermines the true essence and significance of music. We think that a model centered on just a few big names, the great concert halls, a limited repertoire that is necessarily restricted by the bonds of popularity--a model that makes its selection of new young performers from the anti-musical system of competitions, the success of which is often obtained through extravagant histrionics rather than the correctness or subtlety of interpretation--and finally, a model that is subject to the exploitation of the marketplace, and which obliges the majority of musicians to pay enormous sums to record CDs, for which the profits then go largely to the record company, thus depriving many very worthy but not wealthy musicians from the possibility of recording--is not only a model that is far from art, but is a model that even itself is in crisis. 

Ideally, music just as other primary goods, should not fall subject to the markets. We know that in a strict sense, this is utopian, but it is precisely this tension towards an unreachable utopia that guides our project.

Odradek Records is a non-profit seeking label. Once production and distribution expenses are recuperated, all of our proceeds go directly to the artist. Odradek Records selects its artists solely through the criterion of utmost quality of the recording and the interest of the proposed program. We don’t want to exclude, but rather include: we are not interested if you have won important competitions or not, neither if you have performed in important halls or signed with major labels. We are not interested in your age or where you come from. The only thing that interests us is whether you play your instrument to a very high and professional level. With us you can record Chopin, but you can also record: Berio, Scelsi, Copland, Carter, Webern, Schoenberg, Ligeti, Kurtag, Ives, and many others.

Our recording studio avails itself of the greatest technical instruments available today.

The distribution of our CDs is guided by an innovative criterion of transparency and flexibility in setting prices.
The rights of the composers and of the artist are protected by Creative Commons copyright (sometimes referred to as “copyleft” policy) because we want to render legal and free all those things that almost everybody already illegally does anyway.

We consider that the distribution of our music is not a one way street, but instead a dialogue. Only the presence of an active public gives true life to an artistic product. Write us. In the comments section you can leave opinions, suggestions, and criticisms of our music and our project. If you want to you can sign up as a “Friend of Project Odradek”, indicating your name, your profession, where you are from, and why you support Project Odradek. Send us your thoughts on the state of music, culture, and the arts: we’ll publish them on our blog.

If you like us, help us spread the word by linking to us from your blogs, sites, and through your social networks.

Odradek Records does not only produce CDs. We are convinced that the truest fruition of music happens in live concerts. For this reason we organize itinerant music festivals, moving from city to city, to promote our disks and music.

And finally, a word about our name: we borrow it from Kafka. Like the worried family man in Kafka’s tale, we are also worried. We are worried that music might become always more and more an odradek, an indefinable and incomprehensible being, whose voice sounds falsely, like the voice of one who is “without lungs”, a being without form, disturbingly replicating that which was once alive, that can plastically become whatever is wished for by those who posses the instruments of power and control. We wish for the cage-like railing surrounding the man of Kafka’s drawing to become instead an instrument to play - we would like to transform our prison into our liberty. 

We would like to restore music to its true role, that of artwork, and restore musical interpretation to its true function, the only one that opens itself towards the possibility of a future: that of a field of research.

Welcome to Project Odradek.

09 - Dimitri Shostakovich - Tahiti Trot

Odradek Records

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