Finishing the day listening to "Her First Dance" - album by Misha Alperin (piano), Arkady Shilkloper (horns), and Anja Lechner (cello). I think of it as being part jazz and part classical - reminds me in places of Satie, and of late 19th-early 20th century composers whose work incorporates folk tunes.

[YouTube, as ECM's sample is just the first track and I wanted to share this one...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_XVFUt5dk&list=RDWn_XVFUt5dk&start_radio=1]

#MishaAlperin #ArkadyShilkloper #AnjaLechner #Jazz

After The Last Sky = بعد السماء الأخيرة by Anouar Brahem, Anja Lechner, Django Bates, Dave Holland , released on ECM in 2025.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

After The Last Sky marks the return of oud virtuoso and composer Anouar Brahem to ECM, eight years after Blue Maqams. That groundbreaking album also featured pianist Django Bates and bassist Dave Holland, both of whom are retained here, along with a new addition in cellist Anja Lechner. The result is a culmination of culminations, blending Brahem’s evolving integrations of jazz, European classical music, and, of course, the modal Arabic maqams at their core. Gaza was firmly on his mind leading up to and during the recording, and the titles reflect this awareness in a contemplative way...

https://ecmreviews.com/2025/07/27/anouar-brahem-after-the-last-sky-ecm-2838/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWnmsOLbO90&list=OLAK5uy_lGzzN8gxHBG9UVgkUQfHoo6vW7zsG40ZQ&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB_2W8CEMgk

#AnouarBrahem #AnjaLechner #DjangoBates #DaveHolland #Oud #ECM #ECMReviews #Jazz #ThirdStream #Maqam #Music #ArabicMusic

Ended the week and welcomed the weekend with Lontano by Anja Lechner / François Couturier, released on ECM in 2020.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

"On Lontano, the cello of Anja Lechner and the piano of François Couturier play the roles of scenery and camera. As the lens bends the light into a discernible image yet changes that image in the process of fixing it within a frame, Couturier funnels Lechner’s sunbeams laden with stories that can only be heard with the eyes (and vice versa). If such a description seems too cerebral or even bogus, it’s only because the music it seeks to capture doesn’t accompany it...

If the “Praeludium” tells us anything, it’s that awakening in this scenario can only take place when there is both sun and dew. Otherwise, the dawn might have nothing to kiss as it peers over the not-so-distant mountaintops."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzH-IirTlWg&list=OLAK5uy_nM46CBBtIzhmVrlrGlNHHQVLaHC5MvGkE

#AnjaLechner #FrancoisCouturier #ECMReviews #ECM #Music #Cello #Improvisation #Jazz #TyranGrillo

Amsterdam Sinfonietta features Tigran Mansurian

Amsterdam, 12-10-2012 – Amsterdam Sinfonietta tours the Netherlands with music by the Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian. Yesterday four of his works were played in Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam. The Moldavian violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaya was the soloist in Ernste Gesänge for violin and string orchestra, and combined forces with the German cellist Anja Lechner in Double Concerto for cello and string orchestra.

Thea Derks & Tigran Mansurian, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ 12

Mansurian wrote two new compositons fot both the soloists, that were premiered to great acclaim by an almost full house: Romance (Kopatchinskaya) and Quasi parlando (Lechner). The audience was impressed by Mansurian’s meditative and delicate style, that sometimes concentrates on one note only.

In my pre concert talk both Kopatchinskaya and Lechner stressed that it requieres immense concentration and skill to get to the essence of Mansurian’s music. They succeeded brilliantly, for the audience gave them, and Amsterdam Sinfonietta, a very enthusiastic applause.

Tigran Mansurian took part in my introduction, too. Because he only speaks Armenian and Russian, his assistant Chagigh translated. Mansurian explained that his music is a continuous search for the truth, which he hardly ever finds. His music is deeply rooted in Armenian folk song, and on my request the composer performed the subdued Hovarek (‘Blow a breeze, dear mountains’).

You can listen to our talk on Soundcloud

The four works presented by Amsterdam Sinfonietta yesterday, will be released on cd by the German new music label ECM.

#AmsterdamSinfonietta #AnjaLechner #ArmenianMusic #contemporaryMusic #MuziekgebouwAanTIJ #PatriciaKopatchinskaya #TheaDerks #TigranMansurian

Ended Monday and welcomed Tuesday after a swim with Ojos Negros an album by Argentine bandoneón player and composer Dino Saluzzi with cellist Anja Lechner, recorded in April 2006 and released on ECM the following year.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

There’s no better way to describe the wondrousness of Ojos Negros than to quote dance historian Sally Sommer: “Tango is self-transformation.” This groundbreaking debut of a duo nearly a decade in the making smacks of Sommer’s insight, works its fingers raw with the labor of its fluid intuition. Tango would be nothing without memory. That bandoneonista Dino Saluzzi and cellist Anja Lechner bring such a level of awareness to every note and space between alike is graspable enough. Less so are the whispers behind their collaboration, the linking impulse through which they sing as one...

https://ecmreviews.com/2013/07/25/ojos-negros/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWWA4-imv4&list=OLAK5uy_kg3MGtPkkZkjSLGN1yWx0ot2GGERtMxSA

#DinoSaluzzi #bandoneon #cello #AnjaLechner #ECM #ECMReviews #Tango #Music