Music
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Pixies at MASS MoCA
Joe's Field on August 26
By: - Mar 28th, 2023Pixies’ concerts are well-known for being “one-of-a-kind,” as the band has no pre-determined set lists, the “next song” is the one that “feels right," so you’ll never see the same show twice. And the song choices go deep.
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Merrily We Roll Along
Sondheim's Checkered Musical Rises Again
By: - Mar 28th, 2023Those familiar with 42nd Street Moon will see how this offering fits the company’s modus operandi. Obviously, it is a musical, and one that calls for a large ensemble, but with limited orchestration and minimal staging, all of which suit the company. But for that, you get Sondheim – witty, and sometimes searing lyrics, creative rhythms, often delivered in patter style, and great music. The music, however, is a little off the composer’s beaten path – a bit more conventional Broadway and a bit less dissonance.
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Prospero's Island
A Compelling Operatic Update of Shakespeare's "The Tempest"
By: - Apr 05th, 2023Composer Allen Shearer and librettist Claudia Stevens's “Prospero’s Island” borrows from the “The Tempest.” But they have moved it a significant measure from the source material. In addition to lyrics in modern American-English vernacular interspersed with poetic accents, a plot update and revision gives the material more contemporary relevance while altering the moral profile of the main character. The result is a riveting chronicle of moral corruption followed by a quest for redemption that is accompanied by equally compelling music, calling on diverse idioms. Although the narrative arc is clearly dramatic, the creators frequently punctuate the proceedings with humorous interludes.
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The Velvet Underground & Nico: Scepter Studio Sessions
Pittsburgh's Warhol Museum
By: - Apr 06th, 2023The Velvet Underground & Nico: Scepter Studio Sessions highlights the Velvet Underground and the music from their first recording sessions in April 1966 at Scepter Studios in New York City. The exhibition centers on the original tapes of the nine initial tracks recorded by the band, recently identified while processing Andy Warhol’s archive at The Warhol, which became the bedrock of their debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967, Verve Records), one of the most jarring and influential albums in rock music.
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Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera
Great Singing Across the Boards
By: - Apr 08th, 2023Richard Strauss preferred to spell the title of his most popular opera: Der Rosencavalier. Although the opera began with conversations between librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Count Kessler, a diplomat, scholar and director of the Cranach-Presse in Weimar, the opera is very much Strauss’s. Kessler promised Hofmannsthal that he could pay for his children’s education with the proceeds from productions. That he did.
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Boston Modern Opera Project to Carnegie
Gil Rose Celebrates 25th anniversary
By: - Apr 12th, 2023The Boston Modern Opera project is making its Carnegie Hall debut this weekend (April 15). Bostonians have had the privilege of hearing and seeing this company for many years. The program at Carnegie is enticing
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Boston Modern Opera Project at Carnegie Hall
Case for Symphonic Sound Brilliantly Made
By: - Apr 17th, 2023BMOP continues its extended 25th Anniversary celebrations with a trip to Carnegie Hall. Featuring three works originally commissioned, premiered, and recorded by BMOP, "Play It Again" provides the capstone to the first 25 years of BMOP's mission. Andrew Norman's Play, Lei Liang's A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams, and Lisa Bielawa's In medias res all receive their New York premieres on the historic Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage in Carnegie Hall.
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Parade a Revival on Broadway
By Albert Uhry Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
By: - Apr 20th, 2023If Parade doesn’t win the Tony Award for the outstanding revival of a musical, the producers should demand a recount.
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The Legend of Georgia McBride
At Ivoryton Playhouse
By: - Apr 20th, 2023It was great to see an audience laughing and enjoying themselves at The Legend of Georgia McBride now at Ivoryton Playhouse through Sunday, April 30.
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Sweeney Todd on Broadway
Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford
By: - Apr 26th, 2023Some may quibble, but I would see this production of Sweeney Todd anytime. It is changing my mind about the show.
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Minimalism at Town Hall
Bryce Dessner Gives the Form Its Full Richness
By: - Apr 26th, 2023Death of Classical, the brilliant music series conceived and curated by Andrew Ousley, was embedded in a Town Hall celebration of Minimalism. It was a spiritual lift of a special order, lighting the path to classical music’s future in neon reds and greens. The lush curtains draped at the back of the stage were bathed alternately in greens and blues and purples.
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Boston Symphony Charms at Carnegie Hall
Something Old, Something New and Something very Flashy
By: - Apr 27th, 2023A decade ago, Andris Nelsons was conducting Tchaikovsky at the Metropolitan Opera, when the Boston Symphony arrived in town and their conductor, James Levine, fell ill. Nelsons stepped in and the rest is history. Shostakovich is the Russian composer Nelsons has adopted as his own. Rachmaninoff, whose Second Symphony was on the program on Monday night, may not be as close a soulmate for the young Latvian conductor, but new music is. He introduced Thierry Escaich's latest work.
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John E. Lawrence Grooves in Ypsilanti
Music Goes Local
By: - May 01st, 2023The old Freighthouse has been converted into a nightclub in downtown Ypsilanti. A lifetime resident of Ypsilanti, guitarist and jazz composer John E. Lawrence has been in residence for a week. The final evening is a concert, sold out, with hopefuls hovering at the door.
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Champion at the Metropoitan Opera
Boxing, Gaydom, Blanchard all in the Mix
By: - May 09th, 2023The Metropolitan Opera’s heavily promoted Champion is concluding its run in New York. The first opera by Terrence Blanchard, which succeeds his Fire in My Bones at the Met, has a weaker score than its successor. One feels that Blanchard as composer of film scores (he is well-known as a colleague of Spike Lee), may have succumbed to the notion that music should lie under the visual track.
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Boheme La La La at Opera Philadelphia
Helping Opera Live in the 21st Century
By: - May 11th, 2023Opera Philadelphia is ahead of the curve in keeping the operatic form alive and relevant. New operas and altered operas inevitably raise the question: What is opera? Music drives a story or an idea. That is at opera’s heart. La Boheme in Philadelphia meets the standard and then some.
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Chad Smith Appointed President and CEO of BSO
Good News for Boston
By: - May 16th, 2023Chad Smith is a visionary credited with advancing the orchestral music tradition through cutting-edge programming and cultivating industry-defining partnerships. Smith brings strategic expertise, commitment to musical excellence, and a tested ability to expand audiences and generate revenue.
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Art Bath's De Gustation
Making Multi Media Art for the Masses
By: - May 15th, 2023Elizabeth Yilmaz and Mara Driscoll, two dancers from the Metropolitan Opera troupe, have created a performance series that’s as wonderful as it is unique. The final performance of the spring season, and the 9th produced by this team with associate Cesar Abreu, was in the spirit of a happening.
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Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend
Vocalists Roberta Donnay and Alexis Cole
By: - May 18th, 2023The headline concerts include two striking vocalists: Roberta Donnay with the Prohibition Mob Band, and the first pairing of vocalist Alexis Cole with the Amherst Jazz Orchestra. Free “jazz-al-fresco” takes place on Saturday, June 10, and there will be two jazz brunches.
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Tan Dun Conducts TON
Rose Theater in New York Becomes an Aviary
By: - May 24th, 2023Tan Dun became famous for his Academy Award-winning track for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger. A crossover classical composer who grew up in the country in China, and had not heard Beethoven until he was eighteen, he has made a career, merging East and West, using the conventions and tonalities of each culture. This merger is most effective in his operas, symphonies and concertos.
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Der fliegende Holländer
Robert Balonek's Vocal Power As The Dutchman Astounds.
By: - May 28th, 2023Blessed with soaring romance-style music and a dramatic source from Heinrich Heine’s take on Celtic mythology (influenced in turn by stories of the Wandering Jew), Wagner produced his first operatic masterpiece. However, he shifted the venue to a Nordic locale more compatible with his desired social iconography. The composer was particularly empathetic toward the title character as he identified with the isolation and persecution suffered, creating a highly engaging opera centered on this desolate soul.
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Rhiannon Giddens Directs at Ojai
Giddens Tells The Whole Story
By: - May 29th, 2023Each year at the Ojai Festival in California a different Music Director is given the freedom and the resources to imagine four days of musical brainstorming. Ojai’s signature blend of an enchanted setting and an audience voracious in its appetite for challenge and discovery has inspired a distinguished series of musical innovators—from Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, and Igor Stravinsky and Jeremy Denk, Dawn Upshaw and Barbara Hannigan. John Adams has directed twice.
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Flying Dutchman Transports at the Met Opera
Francois Girard in Top Form as Producer
By: - May 31st, 2023The new Flying Dutchman at the Metropolitan Opera transports. Grounded shortly after its debut as the pandemic erupted in March of 2020, the cast has changed. Like many of the Met's new productions, singing is excellent across the board and gives great pleasure.
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The Shining - an Opera
Horror is Added to the Traditional Operatic Themes of Love, Conflict, and Death
By: - Jun 03rd, 2023Jack Torrance, an unstable recovering alcoholic and unsuccessful writer, hires on as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies during its off-season. He hopes that the seclusion will not only give him undistracted time for writing but also allow him to rebuild his relationships with his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny. What the parents don’t realize is that Danny possesses “the shining,” which is the psychic ability of clairvoyance. This attribute will allow the boy to see the hotel’s sordid past and set the stage for the horrors to come.
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Curtis Stewart Erupts at Merkin Hall
Kaufman Music Center Produces Ecstatic Music
By: - Jun 04th, 2023Curtis Stewart is a man for all seasons. He took over Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Center this week. When you hear him, you know that Nietzsche was right: without music, life would be a mistake.
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Parade Returns to Broadway
Rave Reviews and Sell Out Crowds
By: - Jun 07th, 2023Alfred Uhry’s musical Parade, co-conceived by Hal Prince with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, is now playing to sell-out crowds and rave reviews, and back on Broadway after 25 years (for a limited run through Sunday, August 6) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City.
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