Music
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Richard Thompson at Tanglewood
With '60s British Band Fairport Convention
By: - Jun 22nd, 2019Richard Thompson has been in the music limelight for over 50 years. His British background and love of anything Scottish, prose wise, music wise or lyric wise, has helped this former member of the '60s band, Fairport Convention catapult his career to a new generation.
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Into the Woods Launches Barrington's 25th Season.
Sixth Production of a Stephen Sondheim Musical
By: - Jun 23rd, 2019Barrington Stage always front ends an enticing musical. For the sixth time it's Stephen Sondeim. Into the Woods, with James Lapine, launches the 25th season on the Boyd-Quinson Main Stage in Pittsfield.
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Green Wood Cemetery Hosts Voyage Sonique
Transcendant Music Making at the Angel's Share
By: - Jun 26th, 2019Andrew Ousley has instituted the most exciting and comforting series of concerts in the greater New York area. Using unusual spaces which afford superb acoustics and warming the audience up with excellent whiskeys and cheeses, followed by moonlit walks under a canopy of glorious first growth trees, the audience might end up in Catacombs.
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Boston Pops Celebrates Queen
James Burton Conducts with Marc Martel
By: - Jun 28th, 2019For the past eight years the Candian Marc Martel has toured performing the music of Freddie Mercury. Rami Malek won an Oscar for portraying him in "Bohemian Rhapsody." That was among the songs that Martel performed in Boston Pops Celebrates Queen. Conducted by James Burton the orchestra rocked the Shed.
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La Voix Humaine Mixes Poulenc and Cocteau
DIVAria Brings Emotion Forward
By: - Jun 28th, 2019The Human Voice/La Voix Humaine by Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau melds text from the play by Cocteau with the monologue opera Poulenc was inspired to write. DIVaria and Sergej Productions often work together to present works pared down to their emotional heart. They effectively reach audiences unfamiliar with the opera form by drawing them in to beautiful music and understandable stories.
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Passion by Sondheim and Lapine
Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco
By: - Jun 29th, 2019Passion is a distinctive and less performed work from one of the greatest creators of musical theater, and this production captures its essence. Sondheim enthusiasts will definitely want to see it, and it is well worth experiencing for the broader public as well
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Josh Groban Delights at Tanglewood
Songs and Patter
By: - Jul 03rd, 2019Starting late last night at Tanglwood the quirky man/ child, Josh Groban, delivered a chatty 90 minute set with ten minutes of encores. In tribute to James Taylor, who performs tonight, in a total gonzo move, Groban fell to his knees and "kissed the hallowed ground" of Tanglewood. All kidding aside he has truly awesome pipes.
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Rock and Roll Man: The Alan Freed Story
Pittsfield's Colonial Theatre Shakes, Rattles and Rolls
By: - Jul 10th, 2019Berkshire Theatre Group and its Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield is producing the world premiere of Rock and Roll Man: The Alan Freed Story. The jukebox musical, rumored to be headed to Broadway, has a book by Gary Kupper, Larry Marshak and Rose Caiola with original music and lyrics by Gary Kupper. A cast of nineteen performs some 47 musical interludes. The music was fun but the long and often slow production needs a lot of work.
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A Mark Morris Concert at Mostly Mozart
Satie, Ives and Schumann at the Rose Theater
By: - Jul 13th, 2019Mark Morris is as serious about music as anyone. A questioner dared to state that of course music performed for dance was not up to concert expectations. Morris quickly took exception. His standards are the highest. He expects the music to be performed as written by the composer. He decried excessive rubatos. Yet Morris is as impish as Eric Satie. Satie's Sports and divertissements inspired a world premiere commissioned by Mostly Mozart.
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Michael Gordon's Acquanetta at Bard
Texture and Noir Images Engross in Video Opera
By: - Jul 14th, 2019Acquanetta, the video opera by Michael Gordon, a multi-dimensional composer on the contemporary scene, was premiered as grand opera in Aachen, Germany in 2006. Commissioned in chamber form by Beth Morrison Productions, it now is mounted at Bard SummerScape. Grand or not grand, the sound in this version, with members of the Bang on the Can Ensemble, is big. Loud was the word used in warning. The nature of the production, details of which remain closely held, enables the electronic bass and also the string instruments to resound throughout the hall. The music makes the show, as it should in opera.
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The Newport Jazz Festival 2019
Talking with Bass Player Ron Carter
By: - Jul 15th, 2019Bass player Ron Carter at 82, still performing around the world – will bring his trio to the Newport Jazz Festival Saturday, August 3rd at Fort Adams. He shared some thoughts about performing, music and musicianship.
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Verdi’s Requiem Mass at Tanglewood
Andris Nelsons Conducts Massive Work
By: - Jul 15th, 2019On the specal occasion of its annual Gala there was a special treat for partrons and the general audience. The long awaited and much anticipated Verdi’s Requiem Mass was conducted by Andris Nelsons at Tanglewood.
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Kevin Puts Premiere at Tanglewood
Andris Nelsons Conducts Renee Fleming and Rod Gilfry
By: - Jul 21st, 2019The Brightness of Light by Kevin Puts had its world premiere at The Shed at Tanglewood. Rod Gilfry, baritone, and Puts' collaborator Renee Fleming, sang the baritone and soprano roles of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keefe, who were married for twenty-two years. Often living and working in different parts of America, they corresponded. Puts scoured the correspondence to develop an arc for his orchestral song cycle. It is a brilliantly achieved work.
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Kian Soltani and Julio Elizalde at Mostly Mozart
A Little Night Music at the Kaplan Penthouse
By: - Jul 24th, 2019Cellist Kian Soltani partnered with pianist Julio Elizalde in a late evening concert in Lincoln Center's nightclub in the sky, the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse. Mostly Mozart presented Soltani, who like Mozart, was born in Austria.
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Davone Tines in The Black Clown
Langston Hughes Inspires the Journey to Manhood
By: - Jul 25th, 2019Davone Tines was looking for a project to touch him deeply. His college classmate Michael Schacter suggested reading Langston Hughes' poems. The Black Clown hit him in the gut. Years ago Hughes had felt just as he did. Schachter and Tines collaborated on a moving and energetic musical monologue prompted by the poem. It is a wild theatrical success in its New York premiere.
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Chrissie Hynde at MASS MoCA
Pretenders the Real Deal
By: - Jul 27th, 2019It was standing room only last night for the packed performance of Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders. On a perfect summer night, with just a touch of heat relief, they performed on stage in a large courtyard of MASS MoCA.
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International Contemporary Ensemble
12th Annual Appearance at Mostly Mozart
By: - Jul 27th, 2019The International Contemporary Ensemble started off its 12th annual Mostly Mozart season at the David Rubenstein Atrium in Lincoln Center. The first concert was free and attracted an overflow crowd. Bringing the audience up to date and beyond, Mostly Mozart has offered free concerts of contemporary music in an act of generosity. People appreciate the chance to listen to a new landscape of composers.
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Blck, Whyte, Gray at Mostly Mozart Festival
British Hip Hop Takes Us Deep into Dance
By: - Aug 03rd, 2019Blck, Whyte, Gray is performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, a clear invitation for a wide swathe of ethnic groups to join the Festival audience, and also a pleasure and a revelation for regulars. Advance notice was served at the White Light Festival last fall, when Blck, Whyte, Gray was a smash hit of the Festival.
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Train Meets The Goo Goo Dolls
Tanglewood Rocks
By: - Aug 06th, 2019A major billing with two headliners, Train and the Goo Goo Dolls, played to an enthusiastic audience of many generations, dominated by women at Tanglewood on Monday evening. Both bands played enthusiastic seventeen song set lists, before the encore. Cannons, fireworks and bouncing balloons helped keep the crowd active throughout the evening.
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International Contemporary Ensemble
The 12th Annual Journey of Sonic Landscapes
By: - Aug 06th, 2019You can count on every International Contemporary Ensemble concert to deliver surprise, shock and awe. Performers are always in tip-top shape. You might hear an instrument you’ve never heard before, like the Cimbalon or the Kamanchah at a Mostly Mozart concert at Merkin Hall. ICE is superb and daring.
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Orfeo & Euridice
At The Bridge Yard
By: - Aug 07th, 2019The spare nature of Orfeo & Euridice is well suited to a smaller opera company. Requiring only three principals, casting is simplified. This small entourage and extensive use of dance by nymphs also make it conducive to the barest of staging. Mikiko Uesugi’s set design of gauzy hanging sheets certainly qualifies.
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If I Were You.
Composed by Jake Heggie with Libretto by Gene Scheer
By: - Aug 07th, 2019If I Were You possesses a compelling score with drama to match. Full of symbols of soul transporters and apples and grieving elephants as well as contrasting venues from offices to bars, it stimulates the ears and eyes and holds the attention throughout
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Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma and Leonidas Kavados
Perform at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall
By: - Aug 08th, 2019Three great musicians, one small music hall and an overflow lawn crowd made this special concert, a night to remember. Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavados and Yo-Yo Ma turned this marvelous summer night into magical music. It was an all Beethoven programp of three Piano trios.
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Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway
Easy on the Eyes but a Mishmash
By: - Aug 10th, 2019While easy on the eyes Moulin Rouge! The Musical a pastiche of some 70 songs slogs along at two and a half hours. It is a mongrel cut and paste of other and better material. If you liked the movie than this one's for you.
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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
August Wilson Play Produced by Multi Ethnic Theater
By: - Aug 10th, 2019Set in 1927 Chicago, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the only play in August Wilson’s great ten-play, ten-decade “Pittsburgh Cycle,” of the black experience in America that takes place outside his home town. Although the black bottom in the title refers to the flapper dance of the period, it seems intended as a double entendre with sexual innuendo. Both connotations are relevant to one of the important verbal clashes among the band members.
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