Telarc International announced that their highly applauded Surround Sound Super Audio CD release of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5 and Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis (Telarc SACD 60676) has been nominated for a Technical Excellence and Creativity (TEC) Award. The disc received its nomination in the category of Surround Sound recording. Other nominees in the category include albums and DVD Videos by Porcupine Tree, James Taylor, Shakira and Paul McCartney. The winners of the 24th Annual TEC Awards will be announced on October 3rd at a ceremony to be held in San Francisco sponsored by Mix Magazine.
Mix Magazine describes the Technical Excellence & Creativity (TEC) Awards as
“a program developed to recognize the achievements of audio professionals. Presented annually by the Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio, the TEC Awards honor the individuals, companies and technical innovations behind the sound of recordings, films, TV shows and live performances. Nominations are made by a panel of industry professionals and voted upon by the subscribers of Mix, the trade magazine of the recording and sound production industry. The awards are presented at a ceremony held each fall during the annual convention of the Audio Engineering Society.”
Comments from Telarc
Telarc’s Chief Recording Engineer Michael Bishop, a winner of several Grammy Awards for his Stereo and High Resolution SACD Surround Sound recordings said that
“The purpose of mixing in surround is to better bring out the emotional impact of the music. That’s something that I very specifically went for in this Atlanta Symphony Orchestra recording – to elicit that extra emotional connection into what Vaughan Williams was expressing in the recordings.”
Bishop describes the performances by Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus as
“a brilliant performance to work with. They did such an amazing job. It made what I do much easier than it might have otherwise been. All I had to do is respond to what they did so well in the performance – just be there and capture what it is that makes them the great musical entity that they are.”
Our Thoughts on The Surround Sound SACD
High Fidelity Review readers will recall that we were dazzled by this Super Audio CD release as well. In our write up on the SACD last year (see linked article below), I said that
“Listening to the Surround Sound SACD layer of this album, I enthusiastically agree with the earlier reviews of the SACD. It’s very well recorded with beautiful sonics. The opening a cappella performance is excellent in Surround Sound. One wishes that it would last a bit longer than its 54 second length. The 5th Symphony and the Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams are also recorded in a way that preserves the sonics of the recording venue and captures the performance. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this recording pick up a few more Grammy Awards (for Mr. Bishop and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra).”
Availability
The Hybrid Layer Surround Sound Super Audio CD edition of Vaughan Williams/Tallis: Fantasia On A Theme and Symphony No. 5 by Robert Spano conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is now available at music stores and web sites that carry Classical Music discs. This includes the Telarc web site as well as the web sites of Acoustic Sounds, Elusive Disc, Music Direct, Amazon.Com and CD Universe, among others. Fans of these compositions will want to put this one on their music to buy list.
