Gershwin / Wiedoeft / Schulhoff: The Golden Age Project – Nick Russoniello

The works on this album are dedicated to the musical icons of the 1920s: Rudy Wiedoeft, George Gershwin and Erwin Schulhoff. The pieces for piano and saxophone are arranged for strings and saxophone by Nick Russoniello, the protagonist of this record, to evoke the tones of dance orchestras, jazz clubs and the rich string sections of the time. This reimagined sound world was built using historical performance elements as well. In fact, Russoniello plays with the string quartet that adopts the gut strings of the 1920s and employs the portamento, the flexibility of time and the brilliant vibrato made popular by the violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962).