Carnival Released in September 2016 on First Hand Records
Fanfare Magazine, 2016 “For those who enjoy this kind of program, Rashidova’s and Hvartchilkov’s should be appropriate for either careful listening or exquisite entertainment. It’s short, but it’s oh, so sweet. Urgently recommended.” Foreword The combination of violin and guitar is not so uncommon today, partly due to the appeal of the instruments’ complementary timbres. However, it is still quite challenging to find works for the duo where the roles are equally demanding and virtuosic, not only musically and technically, but most importantly, tonally and dynamically. With the present recording, we wanted to demonstrate music which displays this equal balance, through brand new arrangements of finely crafted selections of popular classical works. Our collaboration began over a decade ago, when we met during our studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London. During this time, and since, we have arranged and transcribed a considerable amount of diverse repertoire from different periods and genres. With a few exceptions, the majority of the material on ʻCarnivalʼ, our second album, is entirely arranged/composed by ourselves. Nazrin Rashidova and Stanislav Hvartchilkov CD Info and Reviews HERE
Dreams Recorded in 2013 and released digitally in August 2021 on First Hand Records
'Dreams' is an album showcasing a collection of 20th-century Azerbaijani popular song classics by Tofig Guliyev, Gara Garayev and Rauf Hajiyev. Fusing Western traditions, Azerbaijani folk music, and American jazz, the popular and classical oriental and Western themes and approaches in these new transcriptions and arrangements aim to capture the rich harmonies, lyricism and nostalgic intensity of the songs to perfection, while bringing out an equally virtuosic dialogue between the violin and guitar.