PONCHIELLI: La Gioconda (Callas) (1952) (Antonino Votto/ Armando Benzi/ CETRA Chorus/ Fedora Barbieri/ Gianni Poggi/ Giulio Neri/ Maria Amandini/ Maria Callas/ Paolo Silveri/ Piero Poldi/ RAI Symphony Orchestra/ Ward Marston) (Naxos Historical: 8.110302-0

Ward Marston

In 1997 Ward Marston was nominated for the Best HistoricalAlbum Grammy Award for his production work on BMG's Fritz Kreisler collection.According to the Chicago Tribune, Marston's name is 'synonymous with tenderloving care to collectors of historical CDs'. Opera News calls his work'revelatory', and Fanfare deems him 'miraculous'. In 1996 Ward Marston receivedthe Gramophone award for Historical Vocal Recording of the Year, honouring hisproduction and engineering work on Romophone's complete recordings of LucreziaBori. He also served as re-recording engineer for the Franklin Mint's ArturoToscanini issue and BMG's Sergey Rachmaninov recordings, both winners of theBest Historical Album Grammy. Born blind in 1952, Ward Marston has amassed tensof thousands of opera classical records over the past four decades. Following astint in radio while a student at Williams College, he became well-known as areissue producer in 1979, when he restored the earliest known stereo recordingmade by the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1932. In the past, Ward Marston hasproduced records for a number of major and specialist record companies. Now heis bringing his distinctive sonic vision to bear on works released on the NaxosHistorical label. Ultimately his goal is to make the music he remasters soundas natural as possible and true to life by 'lifting the voices' off his old 78rpm recordings. His aim is to promote the importance of preserving oldrecordings and make available the works of great musicians who need to beheard.