Violinist Luka Faulisi’s debut album Aria is available now on Sony Classical. Enhancing operatic melodies with violinistic fireworks, the recording presents arias and scenes arranged for violin and piano by some of the great violinist-composers of the past, and includes an arrangement by Faulisi himself. Among the operatic jewels included are Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy, Henryk Wieniawski’s Fantasy on Themes from Gounod’s Faust, Leopold Auer’s arrangement of ‘Lensky’s Aria’ from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin and Fausili’s own version of Violetta’s glittering aria ‘Sempre libera’ from Verdi’s La Traviata.
Ivan Hewett from The Guardian wrote, “An incredible prodigy who took up the violin at the age of three, he has Italian, French and Serbian heritage, a rich but flexible tone that can turn from ardent pleading to prancing elegance in an instant, and an infectious joy in making firework displays of rapid runs and leaps seem easy…As a virtuoso violinist, he’s already the real deal.”
Watch the album trailer below:
Photo credit: Moricette Schlosser
