...Run Double Moon****

Conducting this superb 17-piece German orchestra is a new young writing talent. Stefan Schultze is an award- winning German pianist, composer and orchestrator and an alumnus of Köln’s Hochschule fur Musik and the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Jim McNeely. That must have influenced an already promising voice, which is evident (with hints of Gil Evans) throughout, notably

in the subtly differentiated opening and closing thematic sections of his long, swinging Wonderland and the control

of orchestral textures and drama of prize-winning compositions Green Fallingand Reminiscence. But Schultze's most personal and adventurous scores are for the complex but lucid Karawhan, a slow-medium swinger, and the through-composed Monsterkind. Impeccably performed and recorded, this is a well crafted album by a richly imaginative writer. See doublemoon.de