Musical Concepts Announces Return of Long-Lost Orpheus Label

By Francisco Salazar

Musical Concepts has announced the return of the Orpheus label.

The label, America’s largest and yet least-known classical music record label, was a part of the Musical Heritage Society, a record club and record label started in New York City in the early 1960s by Dr. Michael Naida.

Following the sale of the MHS record club in 2011, the record label remained in the hands of the owners but only a few hundred jazz and classical recordings on the MusicMasters label remained available in digital form. In 2021, Musical Heritage Society completed the first true detailed research into the MHS catalog of recordings since the label and record club was purchased. They discovered that Musical Heritage Society owned over 2,000 recordings, either purchased by the Society or made by the Society’s engineers and producers since the mid 1960s.

Musical Heritage Society approached Musical Concepts with the idea of reviving the Orpheus label and now long-lost recordings from Ruth Slencnzyska, Huguette Dreyfus, the Austrian Tonkunstler Orchestra are set to be released.

There will also be performances of New York City’s early music groups released as well as a series of recordings created by early music pioneer Denis Stevens.

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