Warner Classics has just announced the signing of two artists from North America: the piano duo Christina and Michelle Naughton and the violinist Benjamin Beilman. 

The Naughton sisters, the latest in a line of piano-sibling duos like the Labèques and the Pekinels, are set to release their first album in February next year, a programme of music by Messiaen (Visions de l’Amen) and John Adams (Hallelujah Junction), with a JS Bach Sonatina, entitled ‘Visions’. 

Benjamin Beilman is a winner at the International Music Competition of Montreal, recipient of an Avery Fischer Career Grant in 2012, and a prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2014 – the latter supporting his first album for Warner Classics. His recording, entitled ‘Spectrum’, made with pianist Yekwon Sunwoo, includes Kreisler’s Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta, the Divertimento from Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss as well as works by Schubert (Sonata in A, D574) and Janáček’s Violin Sonata.

‘Benjamin Beilman is the embodiment of excellence in the American school of violin playing,’ commented Jean-Philippe Rolland, EVP of Artists and Repertoire at Warner Classics, ‘he continues this tradition as the leading violinist of his generation, with a thoughtful, intelligent and inspired approach entirely his own. We are delighted to welcome him to Warner Classics.’ (‘Spectrum’ is due for release next March.) 

Both albums were recorded at the Fraser Performance Studio at WGBH’s studios in Boston.