BRUSH STROKES from Athenia Trio features works for flute, oboe, and bassoon. The program harnesses the impressive versatility of the trio, with six pieces by six different composers, including two commissioned specially for the ensemble: Alyssa Morris’s Brush Strokes, and Robbie McCarthy's The Blind Men and the Elephant.

Commissioned and performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Northey, and based on letters from soldiers serving on the battlefields of Gallipoli, France, and Belgium. Soprano Madeleine Pierard, narrated by Paul Gittins.

Born in 1976, Southern Turkey, Hakan A. Toker studied partly at Bilkent University School of Music and Performing Arts, Ankara. He completed his education in the USA at Indiana University School of Music, double majoring in piano and composition (BM 2000). He also took courses in jazz and electronic music there. Along with his formal education, he taught himself how to improvise and play Turkish music; learned to play the kanun and accordion, after the piano.

The enigmatic mask-wearing surf rock legends Los Straitjackets exhibit their unrivaled musicianship by showing they can cover literally any song and turn it into a surf rock classic. Here they put a spin on "Rainy Night in Georgia" by Tony Joe White (and popularized by Brook Benton).

This programme reflects all of the four musical Mendelssohn siblings except Rebecka, who tends to be left out. ‘My older brother and sister stole my reputation as an artist,’ she said sadly. ‘In any other family I would have been highly regarded as a musician and perhaps been leader of a group. Next to Felix and Fanny, I could not aspire to any recognition.’ The youngest, Paul, the only one born in Berlin after the family moved from Hamburg, contented himself with following his father and uncle into banking; but he was an excellent amateur cellist, and it is to his prowess as a private performer that we owe almost everything on this album.