Premiere Award Elena Urioste and Tom Poster
The Jukebox Album
Works by Clarice Assad, Lili Boulanger, Gabriel Fauré, Cheryl Frances-hoad, Donald Grant, Jessie Montgomery, Cole Porter, Mark Simpson, Huw Watkins et al Elena Urioste (violin), Tom Poster (piano) Orchid Classics ORC100173
Faced with an empty diary during the first lockdown, married musical duo Tom Poster and Elena Urioste found a creative way not only to fill their time and entertain people all over the world, but also to give composers some much needed work. Their #Uripostejukebox project saw the commissioning of six works for piano and violin, which received their premieres online. Those works are at the heart of The
Jukebox Album, a recording which gave the pair the chance to do justice to the music written for them, as Urioste explains: ‘We wanted to immortalise, with beautiful sound quality and on a gorgeous in-tune piano, the six compositions that had been penned for us. That whole element was so unexpected, and it wound up being one of the most meaningful parts of the whole Jukebox project.’
They surrounded the new works with a selection of pieces made popular during their online concerts, though a few just wouldn’t work, as Poster shares: ‘There were certain things that, without the visual element, would have worked less well and been deeply strange.’ ‘There were some things that simply require a Corgi onesie!’, explains Urioste.
‘There were also one or two things we did specially for the album, because we didn’t just want it to be a recreation of the online project,’ continues Poster. ‘In fact, there was one arrangement I made the night before the recording sessions.’
Such creativity was typical of their approach to the Jukebox project, which earned them an RPS Award in 2021. And with this latest award, are they surprised that it continues to inspire people? Ôwe’re still amazed that something that was so accidental, so low budget and so modest in its beginnings sort of became a thing,’ says Poster. ‘It’s very, very meaningful and very touching,’ adds Urioste. Michael Beek
‘We didn’t want the album to just recreate the online project’