New Classics

This album is a musical journey beginning in India, with a work based on traditional raag, through pieces by Iranian composer Reza Vali, to Afghanistan for another piece by Kevin Bishop, the group’s viola player, and then the area around Syria for a work by Sadie Harrison, whose connection with Arabic traditional music goes back many years, through Israel to Egypt for chamber works by Gilad Cohen and Mohamed-Aly Farag.

As well as being extremely entertaining the album also demonstrates the universality of music in all its different guises as the true universal language. Cuatro Puntos is a multi faceted organization based in Hartford, Connecticut, USA dedicated to intercultural dialogue and universal access through the performance, writing, and teaching of music. It oversees a resident chamber music ensemble, a concert series, arts-integration workshops in local schools, the Music Moves Hartford program for those facing homelessness, and a partnership with the Müzikhane Social Music School in Southeastern Turkey. Cuatro Puntos’s recent album, Rosegarden of Light on Toccata, has been widely praised and the ensemble has performed extensively in many parts of the world.

Jaipur To Cairo is fascinating collection of compositions with highlights that include Kevin Bishop evocative ‘Morning Song’, Reza Vali’s beautiful ‘In Memory of a Lost Beloved’, and Mohamed-Aly Farag’s powerful ‘Rhapsody for Piano and Strings’.

—John Pitt