Works for Stage and Concert Hall [incls 'Nights in the gardens of Spain']

"it is greatly to the credit of Juanjo Mena and his forces (with a truly authentic touch from soprano Raquel Lojendio) that such a potent atmosphere is achieved...[Bavouzet's] performance [of Nights in the Garden of Spain] is more subdued than from celebrated champions of this score...yet it casts its own spell, sultry and scintillating as required." Gramophone Magazine - Editor's Choice - May 2012

"The acoustics sound good and accommodating, with enough space to give the music air and a luminous glow, on which Mena capitalises in The Three-Cornered Hat, drawing a range of colour and atmosphere from the orchestra and getting its members to clap and shout "Oi!" with some gusto in the introduction. Light and shade are well delineated, as are the contrasts between sultriness and vitality." The Telegraph, 27th January 2012 ****

"one of those experiences that change one's perception of a work forever...At the most basic level they take the trouble to get the balance right. ['Nights'] is no concerto, and the pianist has to be an observer of the music's events rather than needing to boss them around...the level of engagement with the music is exceptional. Often spacious and dark, the performance reaches past its starlit, balmy surfaces to find the ache and stoicism of Spanish history" BBC Music Magazine Disc of the month - March 2012

"[Bavouzet's] iron-hand-in-a-velvet-glove approach is perfectly judged for a work that is about much more than decorative flourishes, but there is still something that is far too safe and neutral about the orchestral playing." The Guardian, 23rd February 2012 ***

"Mena's hands the music dances the light-fantastic. The excellent Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is piano soloist in an atmospheric Nights in the Gardens of Spain, and Homenajes brings to light a little-known suite of elegiac beauty." Financial Times, 24th February 2012 ****

"You trust that the choice of repertoire on this release was driven by Mena himself, and this disc has loads to commend it - playing of real verve, and the more-than-decent acoustic of the BBC's much-maligned Media City in Salford...Mena's gift is to bring out the rhythmic zest, the hints of violence underpinning what can too easily sound like a sequence of musical postcards. Soprano Raquel Lojendio is superb" The Arts Desk, 30th March 2012