The Exquisite Hour
Sarah Connolly
with Eugene Asti
| "hugely impressive disc, testifying to the versatility and range
of a singer who has already drawn comparisons with Janet Baker"
The Guardian |
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"one of our most refined mezzos"
The Observer |
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"exquisitely articulated and accompanied"
BBC Music Magazine |
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"A national treasure"
The Evening Standard |
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"Connolly's lovely singing reaches to the sensuous core"
The Daily Telegraph |
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"this classy recital"
The Times |
Signum Records would like to thank the Literary Trustees of Walter de
la Mare and the Society of Authors as their representative for their kind
permission for the inclusion of the text of Benjamin Britten’s ‘Tit for
Tat’, written by Walter de la Mare.
Cover photograph - Malcolm Crowthers
Eugene Asti
 Eugene
Asti studied at the Mannes College of Music, New York with Jeannette Haien
where he earned his BMus and MA. He has received numerous awards including
a Fulbright Scholarship to study piano accompaniment with Graham Johnson
at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Ferdinand Rauter Memorial
Prize (Richard Tauber Competition) and the Megan Foster Prize (Maggie
Teyte Competition).
Much in demand as an accompanist, he has performed with many great
artists including Dame Felicity Lott, Dame Margaret Price, Nancy Argenta
and Elizabeth Connell, in places such as the Wigmore Hall, the Rome Opera
House, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Paris,
Madrid, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Vancouver, and New York. He has devised
recital series for St. John’s Smith Square and St. George’s Bristol to
mark the Brahms and Mendelssohn anniversaries in 1997 and in 1999 planned
a series for St. John’s Smith Square to mark the Poulenc/Strauss
anniversaries. For the 2002/3 season he devised a recital series for St.
John’s Smith Square which honoured Robert Schumann and which included
recitals by many of today’s leading artists.
Eugene has done much recording work for the BBC, featuring regularly on
Radio 3’s “Voices” programme with Sophie Daneman, Sarah Connolly,
Christine Rice, Stephan Loges, Rebecca Evans, Kate Royal and Jared Holt.
In 2005, he performed a US recital tour with Dame Felicity Lott and
Angelika Kirchschlager with concerts in New York, Philadelphia, Quebec and
Ann Arbor; and also performed a recital with Dame Felicity Lott for the
BBC Proms at the new Cadogan Hall in London which was broadcast live
worldwide.
His many recordings for Hyperion include three volumes of songs and
duets by Felix Mendelssohn with Sarah Connolly, Sophie Daneman, Stephan
Loges, Mark Padmore and Nathan Berg; songs by Fanny Mendelssohn with Susan
Gritton; and the complete songs of Clara Schumann with Susan Gritton and
Stephan Loges, all receiving much critical acclaim. He has also recorded
songs by Eric Coates with tenor Richard Edgar-Wilson for Marco Polo.
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