Christian Forshaw - Sanctuary

Audiences have found a powerful connection with Forshaws compositions and performances, and reactions to the CDs Sanctuary, Renouncement and Midwinter have been profound from both the traditional classical establishment (BBC Radio 3 etc.) through to more commercial stations such as BBC Radio 2 and Classic FM. Forshaw graduated from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 1995, and began working with groups such as the London Sinfonietta, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He found this kind of work incredibly rewarding but was also aware of areas of his playing that he wasnt getting to explore. He decided to revisit the ecclesiastical environment he had enjoyed as a young chorister, and began writing and arranging material in that context. The material was based around traditional texts as well as simple hymn melodies; the intention being to magnify and amplify these miniatures and turn them into performance pieces. Having accumulated enough material he hired a choir, a chapel and an organist for a weekend and began the recording process. This was very much a thinking on your feet recording, without a clear concept of how it would end up sounding and no experience of producing a recording. After months of re-arranging, re-recording and re-mixing Christian finally ended up with something he was happy with, and Sanctuary was released in August 2004. Within a few weeks of its release tracks were played on national radio almost daily and the album reached no.1 in both in the Amazon Classical Chart and the New Zealand Classical Chart. This was unprecedented for an independent release and generated a lot of interest from major record labels. In 2006 Sony BMG offered Forshaw a four album exclusive deal. He initially thought this was an offer too good to be true, but having observed the priorities of a major label he made the difficult decision to walk away and set up his own label, Integra Records, enabling him to maintain his independence as an artist

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