Korean-born Joo Yeon Sir clearly has a bright future. This young player melds technical assurance with rare artistic sensibility in this showcase debut album, featuring music for violin and piano away from the core repertoire. She displays real poise in her reading of Alfred Schnittke’s nostagic Suite in the Old Style, grit and determination in Britten’s Suite for Violin and Piano and dash and verve in Darius Milhaud’s hilariously helter-skelter Le boeuf sur le toit (Cinéma-Fantasie). Irina Andrievsky makes an ideal partner at the keyboard, particularly in Frolov’s Concert Fantasy on Themes From Porgy and Bess, where she captures the louche bluesy-ness of It Ain’t Necessarily So.
