Kirk Trevor - Conductor

Orchestral and choral recording with Kirk Trevor

For the past ten years, Kirk Trevor has been recording with various orchestras for many different record labels, including Naxos, EMI, MMC, Albany, Koch, Kleos, and more recently Navrona records.

For the modern composer of Classical, movie scores, video game scores, choral works, Bratislava has proven one of the great gems of the recording industry.   At the famed Slovak Radio, there are two major studios for the recording of full orchestral scores with chorus and organ to as small as a string quartet. 

Kirk Trevor has ongoing relationships with many orchestras in Europe, but most of his work has featured the Slovak Radio Orchestra and the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra. 
He has spent hundreds of sessions in the enormous studio 1 of the Slovak Radio.  Here is a picture of it.   There are three, nine foot grand pianos on this stage plus the organ console and yet you hardly notice them.

The organ is a four-manual Reiger-Kloss and has a powerful sound, both as a solo instrument or with orchestra.  The full registration of the organ will be placed on this site soon.
Studio 1 is famous for the most famous Marco Polo recording of Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony, the world’s largest symphonic work.  Some think that Mahler Symphony of a Thousand is the largest, but in fact the Mahler could be performed by an orchestra of one hundred and a choir of two hundred.   Brian’s Gothic required an orchestra of more than two hundred, two choirs of one hundred and fifty each, a children’s chorus and two brass bands.  The total number of musicians for the recording was about six hundred.    There is an interesting book written about the sessions.   Marco Polo chose Bratislava because of the availability of the choral forces as well as a studio with a stage large enough to hold three hundred instrumentalists and the auditorium seats were used for the chorus.

Hollywood loves the studio and booth with state of the art equipment available for any modern movie need.   Surround sound is available as well as satellite connections worldwide, meaning that the composer and director can be listening to the sessions live in the USA from their local studio, with the ability to talk to the conductor and orchestra for corrections and balances.  Most of the Inspector Poirot television series has been recorded there, as have all of the “National Anthems of the World” recorded for Naxos and used at the 2004 Olympics, and allegedly illegally used at the 2008 Olympics!

I have made more than seventy recordings there.   Here is a link to most of the recordings currently available.

 

 

 

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Kirk,with composer Hilary Tann and violin soloist Frantisek Novotny

But Bratislava is not the only place to record in the world and I have enjoyed recording in London at Abbey Road as well as the wonderful Warsaw Philharmonic in the Chopin Hall.  The Martinu Philharmonic in Zlin has also been a frequent partner.  They are ideally suited for works requiring less than fifty-five players.  I was the Music Director of the orchestra there for a number of years and I have found them to be friendly, flexible and slightly less expensive than the larger cities.
                                        Kirk with the Warsaw Philharmonic in Chopin Hall.

If you are a composer, soloist or movie Production Company looking for quality performers and quality facilities, then contact me at Music International with your requirements and I will try to get a quote to you within twenty-four hours.   Even though central Europe is slowly moving to the Euro currency, Music International can accept payment in US dollars or Euros or Pounds Sterling.