VC Artist Violist Jordan Bak Plays the Pleyel Viola Concerto

Released on the CPO label, the disc also features the London Mozart Players and Howard Griffiths

VC Artist and violist Jordan Bak has recently released a new recording of Ignaz Pleyel's relatively little-known Viola Concerto. Also featuring the London Mozart Players and Howard Griffiths, the disc has been released on the CPO label.

A prominent Austrian contemporary of Mozart, Ignaz Pleyel was a composer and an instrument builder. He made a significant contribution to music publishing through his French company, Maison Pleyel. The publishing house was responsible for the dissemination of works by composers including Boccherini, Beethoven, Clementi, Hummel, and Mozart.

A graduate of The Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory, where he was a student of Hsin-Yun Huang, Dimitri Murrath, and Samuel Rhodes, Jordan Bak is a former major prize winner at the Sphinx Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, as well as a former recipient of a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant and Samuel Sanders Tel Aviv Museum Prize.

Bak was also featured in Series 1 of The Violin Channel's Vanguard Concerts.

The disc is available from Presto Music here.

"I'm so unbelievably thrilled to share my new recording of the Pleyel Viola Concerto in D Major, B. 105 with the London Mozart Players and Howard Griffiths!" Bak said. "It was such a pleasure getting to know Howard and this amazing ensemble and to collaborate and share Ignaz Joseph Pleyel's music together, especially this concerto which hasn't been performed all that much."

"It's such a joyous piece, brimming with elegance and poise, yet possessing such virtuosity for both the soloist and the orchestra. His 18th and 21st Symphonies, also on the disc, were just beautifully recorded by LMP. Congratulations!"

Image courtesy of the North Carolina School of the Arts