Music
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Aspect Chamber's Musical Enemies: Debussy and Chausson
Grace Park and Gilles Vonsattel Superb on Violin and Piano
By: - Mar 02nd, 2020Irina Knaster founded the Aspect Chamber Music series to provide an enriched communal atmosphere for the performance of music. Concertgoers are invited to come early and drink wine and chat before the concert and during the intermission. Knaster fills the halls at the Bohemian National Center and Columbia's Italian Academy, two beautiful settings. She featured Grace Park and Gilles Vonsattel performing Debussy and Chausson.
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Dai Fujikura Featured at Miller Theatre
International Contemporary Ensemble Delves into Fujikura's Music
By: - Mar 06th, 2020Dai Fujikura lives in the quotidian and draws from it for the music he creates. We hear a portrait of his daughter in the first month of her life, a secret forest where all the sounds are beautiful, and memories of high school friends who were all wannabe guitarists.
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Jazz Pianist McCoy Tyner at 81
Played Boston’s Jazz Workshop with Trane
By: - Mar 07th, 2020In 1963 at The Jazz Workshop I heard McCoy Tyner with Trane. It was Trane's only Boston gig. Later Tyner played Lulu White's and we caught him a few back at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington. His massive attack was much admired by aspiring pianists. He just checked at 81.
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A Florentine Tragedy and Gianni Schicchi
At Livermore Valley Opera
By: - Mar 09th, 2020These two operas make for a highly entertaining evening. The only false note concerns the orchestra, which was skillful in the comedy on opening night. But especially in the overture and early parts of the tragedy, dissonant tracts sounded more out of tune and out of sync as if the orchestra hadn’t mastered Zemlinsky’s more challenging and unfriendly music. It also overpowered the singers at times.
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The Chelsea Symphony Celebrates Women
Sojourner Truth, two Horn Players, Mazzoli, Frank and Tower
By: - Mar 10th, 2020This evening, part of the Rise Up Year devoted to music that inspires and uplifts, two gentleman, a bass player and a violist, composed pieces celebrating women. Women composers, Missy Mazzoli, Gabriela Lena Frank and Joan Tower were performed with gusto.
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Metropolis Ensemble Debuts at National Sawdust
Ricardo Romaneiro's Score for Fritz Lang's Metropolis
By: - Mar 11th, 2020Metropolis is a Grammy-nominated Ensemble founded by Andrew Cyr, who encourages artists to realize their bliss. The group was not named for the Fritz Lang film, but the temptation to take on this silent great must have been tantalizing. The live, electronic score by Ricardo Romaneiro was brilliant and brilliantly realized by the musicians. Cyr conducts.
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Network for New Music in Philadelphia
Musical Ecologies at a Hidden Lake
By: - Mar 12th, 2020On a recent Sunday afternoon, Network for New Music (NNM), an adventuresome Philadelphia group, gathered at The Discovery Center at the Hidden Reservoir in Fairmont Park.. The long pathway to the building’s main entrance leads visitors to a striking view of the center’s reservoir, a pristine, 37-acre body of water that was closed to the public for nearly 50 years. The Center provided a concert hall for music related to ecology.
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A Puppet Universe Kosmos Invers at HERE
Kalan Sherrard Laucnhes an Electric Take
By: - Mar 15th, 2020Kosmos Inverse is the world below and the world way out there. We have a powerful feeling of infinity as we are being cast into a carnaval space. The central sphere resmbles a mop. Depending on the lights, it can be colored red and green and purple. Pigs, an elephant who strongly resembles Mo Willems’, two classic rubber dolls, and a busty woman bounce before us.
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Grammy to Fantastic Mr. Fox by Tobias Picker
Best Opera Recording Conducted by Gil Rose
By: - Mar 19th, 2020The libretto by Donald Sturrock is based on a book by Roald Dahl. Three farmers, Bunce, Boggis and Bean want revenge on Mr. Fox for taking their chickens, their geese and their cider. They are frustrated by Mr. Fox’s clever tactics. Gil Rose brings the music and story to life in this masterful recording which won the 2020 Grammy for Best Opera Recording.
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Country Singer Kenny Rogers
Performed at the Colonial in 2012
By: - Mar 21st, 2020The Gambler, country music star Kenny Rogers, has passed at 81. In September, 2012 he made a rare Berkshire appearance at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. This is how we covered him at the time.
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Music and the Virus
Pitching In
By: - Mar 25th, 2020Many organizations are offering wonderful streaming. Reports suggest that music with videos is doing better than sound only. Atlanta Opera, led by Tomer Zvulun, may be providing the most useful help.
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Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra Streams Stravinsky
Multi Media Rhythmic Extravaganza Delights
By: - Mar 29th, 2020Stravinsky composed La History del Soldado, a multi media piece, in 1914. Using speech, mime and dance accompanied by a seven piece band, we hear ragtime, tango, and other modern musical idioms combined in a series of highly infectious instrumental movements. Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra performed the piece, with an updated libretto they commissioned. It is delightful to hear, even long distance.
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On the Fly
At La Jolla Playhouse
By: - Apr 02nd, 2020The latest La Jolla Playhouse production “Fly” is a new, visually stunning musical reimagining of J.M. Barrie’s “Peter and Wendy”, the popular and enduring children’s fantasy story about adventures in a dream filled place called ‘Neverland’ where children never grow up into adulthood where each has the ability to fly (with caveats, however, that must be observed).
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Jeremy Denk on Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier
Preludes and Fugues Revealed
By: - Apr 08th, 2020The pleasures of streaming music are revealed in this delightful meeting with Jeremy Denk in his country home. He focuses on the C sharp Prelude and Fugue and dips into two others. What a joy!
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Orli Shaham Has MidWeek Mozart
Offerings to the Housebound and Health Workers
By: - Apr 10th, 2020The gifted Mozart-specialist Orli Shaham is offering excerpts from her soon to be released album of Mozart Sonatas. She and her husband, conductor David Robertson, perform Clapping for the Health Workers. The New York Phil chimes in with Bolera and Heartbeat Opera off Bernstein's "Let Your Garden Grow." What a gift basket.
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American Symphony Orchestra
Program to Stream Past Performances
By: - Apr 09th, 2020The internet is full of wonderful concerts and operas, some streamed-live and others are reprisals of deserving performances you'll want to hear if you missed them live or appreciate an opportunity for a reprise.
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Pauline Oliveros' Tuning Meditations
Music on the Rebound Gives New Meaning to Cinq a Sept
By: - Apr 12th, 2020Tuning Meditation is presented by Ione, who lived with the composer, and Music on the Rebound. Participants from 30 countries joined on Zoom to listen for their own notes and others. Find a pitch that no one else is sounding. Tod Machover, America's most wired composer, was there. So too, quietly, piano and composing phenom Conrad Tao. The celebrated and willing joined together in unique sounds.
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The Crucible, an Opera by Robert Ward
Opera Santa Barbara Mounts a Moving Production
By: - Apr 20th, 2020Robert Ward's Pulitzer-Prize winning opera, The Crucible, is streaming live from Opera Santa Barbara. It is a terrific production with a cast of first-rate singing actors conducted by Kostis Protopapas.
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Bang on a Can Marathon
Free Live Stream May 3
By: - Apr 24th, 2020The 2020 Bang on a Can Marathon will feature more than 40 participating artists, over two dozen solo performances, and four world premieres of newly commissioned works by Dai Wei, Shara Nova, Molly Joyce, and Ken Thomson. Guest composers will be online to introduce their works. The 6-hour live Marathon will be hosted by Bang on a Can Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe.
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ArtsFloAtHome from Thire France
Les Arts Florissants Perform Spring Festival Virtually
By: - Apr 26th, 2020William Christie's and Paul Agnew's Les Arts Florissants is skipping their US tour. In any case, tickets to their events are quickly snapped up. Fortunately these two Baroque specialists have arranged to present their spring festival virtually. It is a treat so far. Past performances are available. Future ones can be seen live or at your leisure.
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Strauss Streaming from Bard
View One of Summerscape's Most Delicious Productions
By: - Apr 29th, 2020Bard continues to stream treasured past events from its website. If you missed a production, or conversation, now is your chance to catch up. This week, Die Liebe der Danae by Richard Strauss is offered.
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Jazz in the Berkshires
Update on Altered Programming
By: - Apr 30th, 2020A letter from Berkshire Jazz director Ed Bride. With some adjustments the music will continue.
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BSO Announces Fall/ Winter Season
To Start in Mid September God Willing
By: - Apr 30th, 2020The Boston Symphony Orchestra acknowledges the ongoing uncertainty around the COVID-19 health crisis and the lack of clarity regarding the duration of the pandemic
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Opera Philadelphia Digital Festival O
Philip Venables and Ted Huffman Create Digital Opera
By: - May 01st, 2020The world premiere of Denis and Katya took place last fall at Opera Philadelphia Festival 2019. Philip Venables is a riveting composer of opera. This work succeeded less well on stage than it does as the opening presentation of this Digital Festival.
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Composer Anthony Davis Wins Pulitzer
Propulsive, Hummable Opera, The Central Park Five
By: - May 05th, 2020Anthony Davis wrote for dance first, so he sees his music as driving action. To the traditional forms of European opera, he brings the music of his people, African Americans. Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington are honored in his work. He likes to provide for improvisation, so that each performance is unique. The Central Park Five premiered in Long Beach Opera last year.
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