Music
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Alarm Will Sound at Carnegie Hall
A Portrait of György Ligeti
By: - Mar 17th, 2018Alan Pierson of Alarm Will Sound invites us to a salon he conducts with Nadia Sirota. Tonight’s subject would be György Ligeti, the Hungarian composer who many people heard for the first time as they watched Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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Scholarships Available for Summer Sonatina Piano Camps
Kids 7 to 16 Within 100 Miles of Bennington
By: - Mar 17th, 2018Piano students aged 7 to 16 of all skills levels who live within 100 mile radius of Bennington Vermont are encouraged to apply for this summer scholarship opportunity. Deadline is April 6th.
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Sister Act the Musical
At the Palm Canyon Theatre
By: - Mar 19th, 2018“Sister Act” the Musical owes its theatrical existence to the movie “Sister Act”, starring Whoopy Goldberg. Popularity begets popularity. The movie was then turned into a musical written by Alan Menken and Glen Slater, from a libretto by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, with additional book material by Douglas Carter Beane. The result is a musical Blockbuster which I believe is one of the best musicals ever produced by the Palm Canyon Theatre.
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BLO's The Threepenny Opera Worth Two Cents
Weill and Brecht Classic Full of Jaunty Songs but Hard to Stage
By: - Mar 19th, 2018"The Threepenny Opera" needs to be done with color and verve if it is to speak to today's audiences. The BLO's production was all too beige. Director James Darrah soft-pedaled the politics at the heart of the work, which left it a corpse with some not-so-pretty songs attached.
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Beth Morrison and National Sawdust
Ten New Composers and Ten New Works
By: - Mar 20th, 2018Beth Morrison and National Sawdust host new composers and new works in a competition for the chance to expand a work next year. The Next Generation is here.
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On Site Opera at Museum at Eldridge Street
Ricky Ian Gordon's Morning Star
By: - Mar 22nd, 2018The Triangle Fire of 1911, in which more lives were lost than in any other disaster before 9/11, flames in the background of Ricky Ian Gordon and William Hoffman’s opera Morning Star.
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Brahms Requiem at St. Thomas Church
The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys
By: - Mar 24th, 2018Saint Thomas Church was one of the first buildings constructed with an acoustical architect's guidance. Wallace Sabine, who also gave acoustical advice for the building of Symphony Hall in Boston, guided in New York. Concern then was for the human voice delivering sermons. Listening to Bruckner and Brahms, just the right reverberation is clear.
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Rinaldo Presented by The English Concert
A Parade of Singing Stars at Carnegie Hall
By: - Mar 27th, 2018The arrival of The English Concert at Carnegie Hall is an event that creates excitement in New York. This year, since many people have been induced to listen to Baroque music sung by the world’s most exciting countertenor on Broadway in Farinelli and the King, interest is heightened. Carnegie Hall was packed.
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Kirill Petrenko at Carnegie Hall
Bayerisches Orchester Performs Brahms and Tchaikovsky
By: - Mar 29th, 2018Brahms and Tchaikovsky would have been thrilled to hear their music interpreted by Kirill Petrenko, making his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Petrenko selected two difficult pieces by the composers, pieces that have gone out of fashion in the concert hall. He makes a compelling case for both of them.
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The little Opera Company's Piramo and Tisbe
Hasse Is a Hot Composer Again
By: - Mar 26th, 2018The superb little Opera company has mounted Hasse’s Piramo and Tisbe, based on the tale told in Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Book IV. It resembles Romeo and Juliet. Two young people, who in this case live in adjoining homes in Babylon, fall in love through the wall that separates them, but are driven apart by warring parents. All does not end well. Yet in the process of telling the story, glorious music abounds.
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Yerma at the Park Avenue Armory
Billy Piper Transfixes as Yerma Today
By: - Mar 30th, 2018Yerma inspired by Frederico Garcia Lorca, written and directed by Simon Stone, is produced in a glass house poised in the middle of the Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory. It is a transfixing work. Billie Piper’s Olivier-winning performance is justly celebrated. All the cast members contribute to the wrenching drama.
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Petrenko Conducts Rosenkavlier at Carnegie
First-Rate Singers Honor Strauss
By: - Mar 30th, 2018Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier is his most beloved opera. Strauss fused rigorous compositional technique, catchy waltzes and superb vocal writing to a charming, sentimental libretto by his longtime collaborator Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. On Thursday night, the Bayerische Staatsoper brought this opera to the stage of Carnegie Hall under the baton of its boss Kirill Petrenko. This was the opera company's first concert performance at the New York venue in its long history.
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Luisa Miller at the Metropolitan Opera
Mixing Old and New
By: - Apr 03rd, 2018The Metropolitan Opera's revival of its 2001 production of Luisa Miller looks backwards and forwards at once. It features Placido Domingo singing the latest in a line of Verdi baritone roles that the aging tenor has used to extend his already distinguished career. (It was also supposed to re-unite the singer with James Levine, but the conductor's firing due to repeated accusations of sexual misconduct by multiple parties spoiled that happy event.) It looks forward in that its two leads, Piotr Beczala and Sondra Yoncheva, represent the cutting edge of a new generation of opera singers that are having their well-deserved moment in the spotlight.
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Iranian Women Composers at National Sawdust
Cultural Hybrids Performed
By: - Apr 04th, 2018Nine Iranian born women composers presented their work in the inaugural concert of their new organization, Iranian Women Composers Association. Is there anything that characterizes this music as Iranian contemporary classical as distinguished from contemporary classical music? Tuning often gives a middle Eastern feel, with harmonies of the region. Classical forms are used. Sometimes the work is an impression. Romantic notes and counterpoint are abundant.
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Twist's Symphonie Fantastique at HERE
O'Riley's Liszt and Anniversaries Galore
By: - Apr 06th, 2018It's Berlioz. It's puppets. It's a supershow. The twentieth anniversary production of Basil Twist's remarkable Symphonie Fantastique is at the ever enterprising and surprising HERE in New York. Christopher O'Riley performs Liszt's piano transcription of Berlioz's love letter/nightmare. Twist performs his magic in an aquarium filled with 1,000 gallons of water.
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American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
Jazz Rhythms and Dreams
By: - Apr 07th, 2018One of the founders of the American Composer’s Orchestra played jazz piano in nightclubs after he left his day job on Wall Street. The ACO performed five works, three of which came from composers who work in the jazz idiom. This was a thoroughly enjoyable program of new work.
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Mozart in the Jungle Cancelled
Amazon Bows Out of the Classical Music Series
By: - Apr 07th, 2018The popular and award-winning series Mozart in the Jungle has played its last concert. Today, Amazon.com announced that the series, a dramatic sitcom set in New York City that chronicled the backbiting, infighting and backstabbing of the classical music business, will not be renewed for a fifth season.
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Esa-Pekka Salonen Conducts the NY Philharmonic
New Work and Old Powerfully Performed
By: - Apr 07th, 2018The New York Philharmonic is back on its home stage of David Geffen Hall, after an extensive tour that saw the orchestra visit multiple Asian countries in March. This week's program, seen Thursday night features a rare podium appearance from composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the premiere of a new work Metacosmos by the young composer and Kravis Prize recipient Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
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Bridges of Madison County
Produced by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
By: - Apr 11th, 2018“You could have driven into someone else’s driveway.” These words summarize not only the randomness of events that leads to a torrid but compassionate love affair in Bridges of Madison County, but to life itself. Under Robert Kelley’s direction, it is extremely well crafted schmaltz with excellent production values that should appeal to a broad audience.
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The French Quarter Festival
Music, Culture And Food
By: - Apr 12th, 2018It's the 35th year that New Orleans hosts one of the largest, free, music festivals in the world. Add the culture of the Big Easy and the unique food choices to the festival and you have a four day stint of true debauchery.
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Andris Nelsons and BSO at Carnegie Hall
Jean-Yves Thibaudet at the Piano
By: - Apr 12th, 2018The Boston Symphony Orchestra is flourishing under the leadership of music director Andris Nelsons. Ensemble and music director arrived at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night for the first of three concerts this week, fulfilling their yearly obligation to visit that historic stage and offering New Yorkers a sample of the interesting new directions pursued by this brave and ambitious conductor.
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Boston Symphony Brings Tristan to Carnegie Hall
Nelsons Conducts Act II
By: - Apr 13th, 2018It might be his good looks. It might be his magnetic stage presence. It might be his voice. Or it might be his rash of cancellations at the Metropolitan Opera in the last few seasons. Either way, tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who hasn't sung Wagner on a New York stage since 2013, has a fan following. They were out in force at Carnegie Hall on Thursday night to hear him sing
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YoYo Ma Joins BSO at Carnegie Hall
Strauss Concludes New York Visit
By: - Apr 15th, 2018The Boston Symphony Orchestra played its third and final Carnegie Hall concert on Friday night. This venerable orchestra has found its passion and spark again under the baton of music director Andris Nelsons. As an ensemble, it is moving forward in a bold and forthright manner. And yet, some of its past tendencies appeared in this concert, resulting in a curious evening of variable quality.
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New York City Opera's Love of Three Kings
Montemezzi's Potboiler at the Rose Theater
By: - Apr 15th, 2018The new New York City Opera extends our horizons. Italo Montemezzi's highly successful Love of Three Kings is presented in its noir depth at the Rose Theater of Lincoln Center.
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Manhattan School of Music's Snow Maiden
An Opera Comes Out of the Deep Freeze
By: - Apr 21st, 2018Nikolai Rimksy-Korsakov is one of the most important opera composers of 19th century Russia. A member of the "Mighty Handful", he revised works by Mussorgsky, taught Stravinsky and was a master of orchestration and melody. However, outside of a few concert works, the bulk of his music, most notably a long catalogue of operas, receives little attention. This made it all the more interesting that the Manhattan School of Music's Senior Opera Theater decided to mount The Snow Maiden, an enchanting fairy tale opera and the composer's personal favorite.
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