Enjoy new music with our classical music chart for this week. Our weekly selections are based on sales numbers and simply what albums we love and think you NEED to hear.
For the complete top 20, tune into Classical Chartz with the New Classical FM’s Mark Wigmore every Saturday from 3-5 p.m. Find the full Top 20 here.
Lang Lang’s Piano Book II will not be unseated from its No. 1 position on the Classical Chartz — at least not this week.
Just underneath the top spot, composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Where To From makes the biggest leap on the Chartz this week, all the way from No. 10 last week to land at No. 2. The big move instigates a shuffling of some of the Chartz’ other longer standing albums, including Isabelle Faust’s Telemann Violin Concertos (currently at No. 3), and Alain Lefevre’s Consolation (No. 4).
New to the Classical Chartz Top Ten this week is Song Offerings by Christopher Tin. The full title of the release is more descriptive — Song Offerings: Choral Works by Christopher Tin.
Tin was born in Palo Alto, California to parents who had immigrated from Hong Kong. He studied music composition as part of a double major with English literature at Stanford University. While he was still a student, he played music and performed as part of jazz, world music, and musical theatre student groups. He would go on to earn both a BA and Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities with a focus on film studies.
He followed up with a Master of Music in Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music as a Fulbright Scholar, and won the Joseph Horovitz composition prize with the highest overall marks in his course.
Christopher began his career with film music, but his big break came from Baba Yetu, the theme song for Civilization IV, a video game. The piece has gone on to become popular as a concert piece in its own right. In 2009, he won fame for his classical crossover album Calling All Dawns, a choral album with lyrics in several languages. At the 53rd GRAMMY Awards, Tim won two statues — one for the album, and one for the single Baba Yetu. He’s released several albums since mainly of choral music, and one where he was commissioned to write a new ending for Puccini’s Turandot.
Song Offerings includes two larger works for chorus and small instrument ensemble. One, the titular Song Offerings, is based on texts from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel Prize-winning book of poetry. Transfigurations, the second piece, features lyrics by Charles Anthony Silvestri.
The works are performed on the album by Kantorei, a Denver-based choral ensemble.
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