Track Listing

1. Nella Fantasia
2. Hunting High And Low
3. Luna - featuring Heather Small
4. Love Is A Miracle
5. Caruso
6. Romanza
7. Lontano
8. Where The Lost One Go - Duet with Katherine Jenkins
9. Nessun Dorma
10. Granada
11. Conte
12. Skyid

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13934 in Music
• Released on: 2007-04-16
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

CD Description
'Cortes' is an album by the pop-classical tenor of the samename. With a strong-yet beautiful voice that stands out from the crowd, this release is a must-have for fans of other pop-classical artists such as Katherine Jenkins. Includes thetracks 'Nessun Dorma', 'Hunting High And Low' and 'Luna'.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant !
Absolutely outstanding talent ! I saw him with Katherine Jenkins on her recent tour and he stole the show ! His version of Nessun Dorma was the best I've heard and people were on their feet many with tears in their eyes.
I cannot wait to see him live again.

Cool Icelandic talent

`Cortes' is the second album by Icelandic born (in 1974) tenor Gardar Thor Cortes, although his debut album of two years earlier (also called Cortes, but with a different collection of songs) was released only in his native Iceland. It reached No. 1 in the UK Classical charts (for 2 weeks) and peaked at No. 27 in the UK albums chart after its release in April 2007.

Opening with Nella Fantasia is a safe option, and I think this is a good version, but it's been covered by many singers recently so doesn't tell us much about Cortes. More interesting choices are the cover version of `Hunting High and Low' by Norwegian pop band 'a-ha', and the Mauro Malavasi composition `Romanza' written for Andrea Bocelli who made it into a huge hit and included it on his album of the same name.

Familiar songs return, such as the ever-popular `Granada' by Mexican composer Lara, and the popular song `Where The Lost Ones Go', written by Magnus Rostadmo and Norwegian singer/songwriter Esfen Lind who recorded it as a duet with (again Norwegian) female singer Sissel. This version, for me one of the stand out songs of this album, is a lovely harmony-rich duet with Katherine Jenkins sung in an operatic style which is in striking contrast with another recent duet of the song between Sarah Brightman and Paul Stanley (guitarist/singer of rock band Kiss) on her `Symphony' album. It shows that a great song can be interpreted in different ways to provide equally satisfying results.

The only let down for me was `Nessun Dorma', not for its safe audience-winning inclusion on a debut album, but for the ending during which Cortes seems to falter slightly while the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, otherwise excellent, lose their way just a little. Never mind, he can always have another go (like others have) on a future album.

The variety of music, well performed on the whole, make this an entertaining album.

A brilliant singer let down by bad song choices
I have had the honour to listen to this man live on the Katherine Jenkins Tour and actually I will get to hear him this weekend along with Hayley Westernra. Cortes is a great great singer but some of the song choices on this album are poor. Most notably for me the song Luna with Heather Small is a musical mess. I know that a number of classical singers now are trying to mix classical with pop but I'm afraid that Gardar's attempt at that really lets the album down. To be honest I think Il Divo have produced better classic/pop songs and I much prefer their albums to this one.

Garder your a great tenor, I expect greater things from you in the future.