Due to the illness of a colleague I was asked at short notice to fly to Yerevan to record Camille Thomas and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sergey Smbtyan. The album consisted of arrangements for solo cello and orchestra of songs by Charles Aznavour to celebrate his 100th anniversary year. The mixture of Camille’s sunny temperament and musicality with the enthusiasm of the orchestra was quite intoxicating. It will be a lovely album.

We also recorded the short violin concerto by the Armenia composer Tigran Mansurjan (whom I knew from a previous recording of his works in 2021). The wonderful young violinist Leia Zhou was the soloist. She proved to have formidable stamina, having missed a flight due to a delay, then spending 12 hours at Vienna airport and arriving at 6 in the morning for the midday session.