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<h1>Absent Soloists</h1>
<p>Orchestral accompaniment CDs. We provide the orchestra – YOU play the solo part!</p>
<h4>What is 'Absent Soloists!'?</h4>
<p>Absent Soloists! is a new series of digitally recorded, orchestral accompaniment CDs from hornsAplenty.com ltd. All Absent Soloists! CDs are conducted by Anthony Halstead – one of the world's best known virtuosos and conductors - and produced by Alan Wiltshire, one of the world's best known classical record producers.</p>
<h4>What is an 'orchestral accompaniment CD?'</h4>
<p>Simple: it's a concerto recording but WITHOUT THE SOLO PART! So YOU – the instrumentalist – are the soloist, in the comfort of your own home or studio!</p>
<h4>Which orchestra do you use?</h4>
<p>We use The Pantheon Orchestra throughout. This is a fully professional orchestra specially hand-picked by Tony Halstead from the many great players with whom he has worked throughout his illustrious career. It is an orchestra of soloists, conducted by a great soloist – so you can be assured that the performances on Absent Soloists! CDs are stylistic, idiomatic and deeply musical – in fact, second to none. You will be playing with the GodsÉ</p>
<h4>What's actually on the CDs?</h4>
<p>The entire orchestral accompaniment to each work, minus the solo part. All pieces are complete and unabridged – so all opening and closing tuttis are included, as are all movements of every work - and all accompaniments are fully orchestral throughout – no piano reductions. There is a tuning note at the end of each CD – so you can tune up and then play the CD from track one each time you use it, avoiding the irritation of always having to skip track one if you don't need to tune up.</p>
<p>Where it is appropriate for the work in question, there are two complete performances of each work – one at modern pitch, one at Classical or Baroque pitch. This is so that you can play on authentic instruments, as well as on modern instruments, should you choose to. Our Mozart Horn Concertos discs are a good example of this. They contain two complete performances of each concerto, one at modern pitch (A=440), and one at Classical pitch (A=430).</p>
<h4>What applications do they have?</h4>
<p>Imagine you are a student at music college, or maybe you're still at school, or maybe you're a professional player, or a keen amateur. Whichever you are, you are totally in love with your instrument and you relish the opportunity to play the major solo works for your instrument in their proper orchestral form – not just with a piano reduction accompaniment. Just think how exciting, how helpful to your playing, and what immense fun it will be to rehearse a complete concerto - with a full orchestral accompaniment – whenever, however often, and wherever you want to.</p>
<p>Piano reduction accompaniments are always sad things: all sorts of compromises must be made to render a full orchestral accompaniment feasible at the keyboard and, even having made these compromises, the piano parts are often very difficult to play. Furthermore, pianists who can sight-read these parts are rare and what pianist is going to work hard at such an accompaniment? So you're always having to 'make do' and jump at any opportunity to rehearse your concerto with a pianist.</p>
<h4>Not any more!</h4>
<p>If you are preparing for an examination or an audition - or maybe you are about to perform a concerto with an orchestra – how often do you get the chance of performing and rehearsing with a full orchestral accompaniment, and for how long? Usually it's a couple of run-throughs at best. But with Absent Soloists! CDs you can really work hard on that concerto – because the orchestra is entirely under your control. You can isolate tricky passages and repeat them many times, you can work on one movement for several weeks if you want, you can play the whole work through like a concert performance if you want. All these things are possible and they will radically improve your playing, and give you many hours and many years of pleasure, fun - and hard work if you want it.</p>
<p>If you happen to be a brass player and have a Yamaha Silent Brass System, you can play Absent Soloists! CDs through this system and play along with the orchestra, hearing yourself and the orchestra through the headphones without disturbing others around you. You can even play with a 'full orchestra' in a hotel room!</p>
<h4>How much do these CDs cost?</h4>
<p>Each issue is independently priced – because the origination costs vary so much, depending obviously on the size of the orchestra – but prices will start at £34-95 GBP for each CD.</p>
<h4>Aren't they a little expensive?</h4>
<p>Frankly, no!</p>
<p>Please understand that these are not normal CDs. Absent Soloists! CDs are a specialist, educational product of interest only to a select, minority group. So they have a very limited market – the only people wanting these CDs will be players of each specific instrument – and so sales will be nothing like as high as a normal, repertoire-type CD. But they cost almost as much to make as a normal, repertoire-type CD – it's only the soloist's fee that is not incurred. Furthermore, we have cut no cost corners with these recordings: they are produced by a top producer, conducted by a top conductor, and recorded and edited with state-of-the-art equipment in top London recording venues using a crack, hand-picked, fully professional London-based orchestra.</p>
<p>Absent Soloists! CDs are not for listening to – like ordinary CDs – they are for playing along with. They are a developmental aid to one's playing, rather like a new mouthpiece or a high quality clarinet ligature, for example – something to complement your instrument and help you radically improve your playing.</p>
<p>Don't think of them as 'expensive CDs' but think of them instead as an extremely rare product – a digitally recorded full orchestral concerto accompaniment performed by London's best players – which happens to be delivered on a compact disc. If you were buying some specialist software – which you know would have taken a lot of work to develop and produce – and this software enabled you to do something which you simply could not do without it, you would not think it expensive because it came supplied on a single compact disc, would you? You are buying the content of the compact disc – the software - not the disc itself as an artefact.</p>
<p>This is exactly the case with Absent Soloists! CDs – you are buying the content of the compact discs and this will enable you to do something you simply cannot do otherwise. You're not going to sit down and listen to them – you're going to play a concerto and be accompanied by them.</p>
<p>Absent Soloists! CDs are a very special, very rare product with a very limited market. We have to charge a premium price for these CDs – or simply not make them. They will last you forever, and they will give you immense enjoyment and help you to radically improve your playing.</p>
<h4>What future plans do you have for the repertoire you will be issuing?</h4>
<p>Future plans include:</p>
<h5>The Four Mozart Concertos (2 CDs)</h5>
<h5>The Two Haydn Concertos</h5>
<h5>The Two Strauss Concertos (2 CDs)</h5>
<h5>The Schuman Concertstück</h5>
<h4>Do you have future plans to make Absent Soloists! CDs for other instruments?</h4>
<p>Yes! We will be gradually but consistently working our way through instruments of the orchestra including flute, clarinet, bassoon and trumpet. Watch this space!</p>
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