Music
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Music of Weimar Presented by Aspect
Bach, Mendelssohn and Liszt
By: - Apr 20th, 2018Aspect presents music in a new concert format, as engaging as it is thought-provoking. In a program at the Italian Academy at Columbia University, Stephen Johnson, a BBC broadcaster, spoke about Weimar, Germany as a cradle of musical talent. Listening to Bach, Mendelssohn and Liszt, there is no question about the talent. Each of these composers had formative experiences in Weimar.
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Julia Bullock Rocks at Carnegie Hall
Singing Schubert and Nina Simone
By: - Apr 21st, 2018Julia Bullock swept onto the stage in a long green dress whose full skirt was filled with white flowers reminiscent of the gardenias Billie Holiday always wore in her hair. After Schubert, Samuel Barber and Gabriel Faure, we dug into Holiday, Alberta Hunter and Nina Simone with the singer.
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Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar at Carnegie
Pacific Symphony Stunning
By: - Apr 22nd, 2018Philip Glass holds the Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall for this season. A concert honoring his work was performed by the splendid Pacific Symphony. Carl St. Clair conducted. He has been the music director of this symphony for decades. The performance made the benefits of consistent leadership over time clear
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Mozart and Bruchner at New York Philharmonic
Christoph Eschenbach Conducts
By: - Apr 22nd, 2018A good idea is a good idea. That might be the rationale between this weeks New York Philharmonic program which pairs Mozart’s charming Piano Concerto No. 22 with Anton Bruckner’s sprawling, ambitious and ultimately unfinished Symphony No. 9 under the baton of guest conductor Christopher Eschenbach. For New York’s Bruckner enthusiasts, this concert evoked memories of January 2017. Back then Daniel Barenboim led the Berlin Staatskapelle in a cycle of Bruckner symphonies at Carnegie Hall, pairing the shorter works with the major Mozart piano concertos. (Barenboim paired the Ninth with Piano Concerto No. 23.)
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Cendrillon with Joyce DiDonato
End of the Season Treat at the Metropolitan Opera
By: - Apr 22nd, 2018Cendrillon is Massenet's fourteenth opera, written at the apex of his popularity as the last acknowledged master of the French romantic style. As conducted here by Bertrand de Billy, its score has the weight of fairy cake, high in sugary melodies and whipped by conductor Bertrand de Billy into an airy soufflé of sound. It's hard to believe it, but this run marked the Metropolitan Opera debut for an enchanting work.
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Lawrence Brownlee At Carnegie
Schumann and Tyshawn Sorey Revealed
By: - Apr 25th, 2018Lawrence Brownlee is a world class bel canto singer. He is also a daring artist who is moving out of his comfort zone to tell new truths in song. The New York premiere of Cycles of My Being by Tyshawn Sorey, was presented at Carnegie Hall.
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Welser-Möst Conducts Tristan and Isolde
Nina Stemme and Gerhard Siegel Shine in Title Roles
By: - Apr 27th, 2018Tristan und Isolde is not an ordinary opera. Wagner's work stripped almost all the action and plot away from the legend of the medieval knight and the Irish queen and their illicit affair. Aside from one sword-thrust, there is very little action. Everything is internal in this mysterious opera, with turbulent swirls of chromatic orchestration bringing the psychological inner life of the characters to vivid life. In other words, as the Cleveland Orchestra proved on Thursday night, this is a perfect opera for the concert hall.
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John Holiday at a Crypt Session
Ranging from Handel to Jazz
By: - Apr 27th, 2018John Holiday, Andrew Ousley’s latest pick as an artist to perform in his Crypt Session series, sounds like an angel and looks like a linebacker. It’s more apt to note that while Holiday is billed as a counter tenor, he is truly a soprano, comfortable in the very unusual upper registers usually associated with the female voice. His is not a falsetto.
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Dudamel in New York
Old Stalin's Ghost
By: - May 01st, 2018The arrival of the sensational conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic is always a cause for celebration at Lincoln Center. Dudamel remains the leading musical export of Venezuela, the proof that that country's El Sistema program is an entirely successful social experiment in producing quality musicians under difficult circumstances.
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Gerald Finley and Julius Drake at Alice Tully Hall
Among Lincoln Center's Great Performers
By: - May 03rd, 2018Gerald Finley, in announcing his program at Alice Tully Hall, said that he and his collaborator on the piano, Julius Drake, had selected songs they loved. It is a measure of this consummate bass-baritone and superb piano partner that the songs were also among the most difficult in the literature. These masters of the form did not struggle as they displayed pyrotechnics on the keyboard and a wide-spreading musical and emotional range in the voice.
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Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra
Carnegie Hall Celebrates Maestro's Birthday
By: - May 05th, 2018Mariss Jansons started his program with the presumed warhorse, The Wiliam Tell Overture. He brings freshness to the work. In his customary attention to detail, which is then swept up into the greater whole, we hear a symphony, which begins with a beautiful cello solo and expands finally to a rip-snorting conclusion. All sections of the orchestra have a chance to shine in ensemble or solo performance.
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Honeck Conducts New York Philharmonic
By: - May 06th, 2018Manfred Honeck, who was narrowly beaten out by Jaap van Zweden for the job of music director of the New York Philharmonic returned to the podium of America's oldest orchestra this week. He brought an ambitious program, featuring two of his own arrangements of orchestral music by Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, each drawn from fairy tale works by those great Romantic composers, and the evergreen Sibelius Violin Concerto as an ample and satisfying makeweight.
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Buddy Holly on Stage in Chicago
February 3 the Day the Music Died
By: - May 06th, 2018Playwright Janes is an English writer and producer who works in TV, film, radio and stage. Buddy—The Buddy Holly his best-known work and ran for 14 years in London’s West End and toured in the U.K. for 17 years. Buddy has also been on Broadway, toured the U.S., Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
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Zoe Lewis’ Cabaret in Provincetown
Bootleggers Rock Monday at The Mews
By: - May 07th, 2018To our surprise, a Monday night at Provincetown's The Mews, in early May, the joint was jumping. It was packed to the gills for a fabulous night of cabaret with pianist/ singer/ raconteur Zoe Lewis and the Bootleggers. It was the absolute highllight of a pre season week on the Cape.
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Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra Symphony
Listening to the BSO Music Director's Mentor
By: - May 07th, 2018Mariss Jansons conducted Mahler's Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Andris Nelsons, the music director of the Boston Symphony and a protégé of Jansons, introduced himself to the BSO with this symphony.
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Sir Simon Rattle and Mahler's Tenth
London Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center
By: - May 08th, 2018Sir Simon Rattle presented Gustav Mahler, composer and one-time music director of the New York Philharmonic, at David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center. His last program featured the unfinished 10th Symphony which has not been taken on as often as Franz Schubert’s. Rattle first recorded the Symphony over three decades ago with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
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Christina and Michelle Naughton at Lincoln Center
Duo Pianists Feature Classic Style and Its Deconstruction
By: - May 13th, 2018Double your pleasure, double your fun with the fabulous duo pianists, Christina and Michelle Naughton. The Sunday morning concert at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center is a popular fixture of the Great Performers series. Here up and coming important artists introduce themselves. The Naughtons are well on their way to prominence in the field of classical music. In this wake-up concert they took it upon themselves to delight by alternating conventional music, marvelously performed, with deconstructions of familiar themes by John Adams and Witold Lutoslawki.
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Semyon Bychkov Conducts NY Philharmonic
Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Shostakobich
By: - May 20th, 2018Semyon Bychkov understands that no matter what the back story of a composition, it stands on its own in performance. The conductor deeply understands the music he performs. He conveys this to his orchestra. At the conclusion of a recent concert at David Geffen Hall, instrumentalists congratulated each other and the conductor, amazed and delighted that together they had reached incredible performance heights.
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Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla Leads the Met Orchestra
Carnegie Hall Hosts
By: - May 22nd, 2018Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, the Lithuanian conducting sensation who in 2016 at 29 years of age became the first woman to stand at the helm of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. This week she led the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
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Bychkov Conducts the NY Philharmonic
Broad Swathes of Sound
By: - May 27th, 2018A special evening at the New York Philharmonic, in which Semyon Bychkov conducted widely diverse swathes of sound from compoers Luciano Berio and Richard Strauss.
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Backwards from Winter by Douglas Knehans
Center for Contemporary Opera at Symphony Space
By: - May 26th, 2018Backwards from Winter had its premier as part of the New York Opera Fest. All the parts that make up opera are unified on stage to create an enormously satisfying operatic experience.
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Brokeback Mountain by Charles Wuorinen
New York City Opera Finally Presents Its Commission
By: - Jun 01st, 2018Brokeback Mountain finally arrives at New York City Opera. The company originally commissioned the piece over a decade ago. It is a powerul and moving work.
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Freaky Friday the Musical
Book by Bridget Carpenter, Music by Tom Kitt, Lyrics by Brian Yorkey
By: - Jun 02nd, 2018Based on Mary Rogers’ 1972 novel of the same name, Freaky Friday’s popularity is validated by the three film versions that have appeared, with each variant tweeking the storyline. This is the first stage musical effort, and award winning playwright Bridget Carpenter’s adaptation is well suited to the theater with integrated subplots and laugh lines throughout. Tom Kitt’s music is tuneful and bouncy in keeping with the musical theater pop idiom, while Brian Yorkey’s lyrics consistently drive the plot and are full of insight and humor.
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Christopher Janney's Exploring the Hidden Music
At Boston University Dance Theater
By: - Jun 04th, 2018There is an upcoming concert by Christopher Janney, who will present with fellow dancer and musicians works that will again push boundaries. The event will occur on June 8 at the Boston University Dance Theater.
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Kansas Symphony at Helzberg Hall
Everything's Up to Date
By: - Jun 04th, 2018The Kansas City Symphony is a superb group pf superb artists, who make their home in one the of the performance treasures of America Like Dallas and other smaller cities across the country, Kansas City community leaders decided to spiff up its arts’ presence, A decade ago they dtermined to build a new home for its Symphony Orchestra and somewhat larger hall for events on tour.
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