Music
-
October Sky at Old Globe
Musical is Outasight
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016“October Sky” is an uplifting, feel-good type of musical that boasts 19 songs with such numbers as “Look to the Stars”, “We’re Gonna Build a Rocket”, “Stars Shine Down”, “The Man I Met”, and “The Last Kiss Goodbye”, the latter number being especially poignant as sung by the miners’ wives and girlfriends.
-
Andris Nelsons Delivers a Sublime "Der Rosenkavalier"
Renee Fleming Sings Her Most Sympathetic Role with Susan Graham
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier" is a model of passionate communication via music. The story of the Marschallin who hands over her young lover Octavian to a girl his own age drips with fin-de-siecle melancholy. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Richard Strauss’s beloved comedy “Der Rosenkavalier” was as close to perfection as I have heard.
-
Sunday in the Park Stunning at Huntington
Sondheim and Seurat Bring Out the Best in Each Other
By: - Oct 06th, 2016Stephen Sondheim’s stunning masterpiece centers on enigmatic painter Georges Seurat and his obssession with “the art of making art.” Certainly, one of the most acclaimed musicals ever, this Pulitzer Prize winner features a glorious score, with the songs “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting it Together,” and “Move On,” and is directed by Artistic Director Peter DuBois who did a superb job with last year's A Little Night Music.
-
Simon Bolivar Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
Gustavo Dudamel Sets the Hall A-Buzz
By: - Oct 08th, 2016Gustavo Dudalmel went from the street to El Sistema with a music program for poor kids in Venezuela. Over time, the role of music in society has become ever more important and consuming for him. He mission is comparable only to Riccardo Muti's.
-
Ryan Thorn and Andrew Sun at Carnegie Hall
Marilyn Horne Makes the Case for Song
By: - Oct 09th, 2016How fortunate we are to have class Ambassadors for the new crop of musical talent. Both Ryan Thorn, baritone, and Andrew Sun, pianist, have participated at Marilyn Horne's Santa Barbara school and in its competition. Horne stepped to the front of the altar at a church on the upper West Side of Manhattan and made the case for the importance of Song, from Solomon to Richard Rogers.
-
Sir Simon Rattle and Mahler at Carnegie Hall
The Philadelphia In Magnificent Form
By: - Oct 12th, 2016Sir Simon Rattle, the great conductor of the Berliner Philharmonika, joined forces with an A list orchestra, the Philadelphia, to perform Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony. In an interview Rattle says, Mahler "was my road to Damascus moment. This is something that has lived with me all my life. And it is something that will never stop being a challenge and a discovery."
-
Brahms' Human Requiem
White Lights Festival
By: - Oct 16th, 2016Can listeners experience music as their own, an inside experience enjoyed by performers? Yes, in the extraordinary productioin conceived by Jochen Sanig and brought to life by the Rundfunkchor Berlin under Simon Halsey assisted by Nicolas Fink. The setting was Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Brahms' Requiem was the experience.
-
More Fun with Jeff and Jane
Concert at Williams Inn Nov. 19
By: - Oct 17th, 2016Dyno rockers Jeff and Jane Hudson will present an (ahem) New Wave Party at the Williams Inn on November 19. The vintage punk rockers are promoting their latest release The Middle which combines new and old material. Until recently they operated an antiques store at Mass MoCA. Jane is a legendary genius while Jeff is generally viewed as a piece of work. Together they make strange and rhapsodic music. Never miss one of their iconic events.
-
Master Voices Presents "27"
Ricky Ian Gordon's Opera Stars Stephanie Blythe as Gertrude Stein
By: - Oct 21st, 2016The Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibit on 27 Rue de Fleurus, the Gertrude Stein/ Alice B. Toklas salon frequented by Picasso, Matisse, Man Ray, and others, largely consisted of blown up black and white photos. In every way, the Master Voices production colors these lives. In addition to the sublime presence of Stephanie Blythe as Gertrude, Heidi Stober and Theo Lebow thrilled.
-
Ian Bostridge, Thomas Adès, Winterreise
Schubert Set in Carnegie Hall
By: - Oct 24th, 2016Ian Bostridge not only admits that he has been obsessed for years by Winterreise, but he has written a superb book on the piece and obsession. The wonderful tenor has so absorbed the music and poetry that he seems to step behind the performance and let this remarkable work shine. Thomas Adès constantly reveals Schubert at the piano.
-
Kallor Opera, The Tell Tale Heart
Tales from the Crypt
By: - Oct 27th, 2016The ironic title of the website for the presentations at the Crypt of the Chutch of the Intercession in New York is 'death of classical.' Surely if classical music is to survive during the 21st century it will be in performances that are taken out to its audience in venues which are unique and intimate. Andrew Ousley, who conceived the Crypt Sessions, has a deep sense of what works in the venue, buried in the beautiful arches of a church in New York. The Tell Tale Heart was his Halloween, or perhaps All Saints Day, offering.
-
Richard Tucker Gala at Carnegie Hall
Opera's All Stars Gather
By: - Oct 31st, 2016The Richard Tucker Gala began about forty years ago to celebrate the career of a tenor who made his mark around the world, moving from Synagogue to opera stage and back. Today, the annual prize is awarded to deserving young talent who often end at the top of the opera world. Tonight's awardee, Tamara Wilson, shows all the promise of a huge career.
-
Carnegie Celebrates Steve Reich's 80th Birthday
To Defy God or Not is the Big Question
By: - Nov 02nd, 2016The year long birthday celebration for Steve Reich, our country's foremost composer, continues. At Carnegie Hall, we heard a Quartet from 2013 and the world premier of Pulse with the International Contemporary Ensemble. The evening was capped by Three Tales, a collaboration between Reich and his wife, Beryl Korot, a video artist. While Reich appears to be fit as a fiddle, these tributes to his decades might better be annual for all the pleasure they offer.
-
Bluebeard's Castle at the BSO
Hungarian Rarity a Perfect Halloween Opera
By: - Nov 03rd, 2016Bela Bartok is known for his folklore inspired spiky modernism, which he applied distinctively to orchestral and chamber works. "Bluebeard" is his only opera, and it is an awkward undramatic outlier in the repertory. Its lushly beautiful music, however, is a powerful reason why it is revived on occasion. The BSO under Charles Dutoit did it proud.
-
Xian Zhang, Maestra of the New Jersey Symphony
Handel, Beethoven and Strauss at the Bergen PAC
By: - Nov 04th, 2016The New Jersey Symphony tours the state, winter, summer and fall. Starting her inaugural season as Music Director, Xian Zhang was welcomed enthusiastically by residents of Englewood.
-
Carnegie Hall's Invites Music in the Resnick Center
Developing Performers and Listeners Alike
By: - Nov 08th, 2016Carnegie Hall programs explore an individual's musicality. For those who are born with the musical gene, their basic instincts are led out into the beat and the song. For those who do not have the gene, music is brought inside and listeners made.
-
Thomas Ades and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
British Composer Begins Three Year Partnership with BSO
By: - Nov 11th, 2016Young (45 years old) hotshot Thomas Ades is a triple threat: composer, conductor and pianist. In his first outing with the BSO as artistic partner he showcased each of those skills. The results were mostly good. Among the highlights was the local premiere of his "Totentanz," a major work by any standard.
-
Venetian Coronation at Lincoln Center
Gabriele Conducted By Paul McCreesh
By: - Nov 13th, 2016For a Venetian Coronation, the golden wood of Alice Tully Hall is lit around the stage by floor floodlights cast upwards. The 1595 Coronation ritual inducted Marino Grimani who would rule until his death in 1605. The Baroque style of the performance was delivered with clarity and beauty Challenges in playing period instruments with fewer vents and using the high larynx to produce tones of exquisite beauty were not apparent in the formal but easy movements of the groups.
-
Eastman Philharmonia at Alice Tully Hall
Renée Fleming Sings Kevin Puts
By: - Nov 16th, 2016The Eastman Philharmonia under the brilliant Neil Varon, performed Maurice Ravel, Kevin Puts and Serge Prokofiev at Alice Tully Hall.
-
Tanglewood 2017
Expanded Role for Andris Nelsons Includes Sharing Film Night
By: - Nov 17th, 2016In his most significant commitment yet to Tanglewood, Andris Nelsons will lead both the opening and closing BSO concerts, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, and Beethoven Symphony No. 9; Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with Kristine Opolais; an opera gala with Ms. Opolais and Dmitri Hvorostovsky performing excerpts from Simon Boccanegra, La traviata, and Eugene Onegin; the world premiere of John Williams’s Markings with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter; and the first-ever BSO and festival concert performance of the complete Das Rheingold, a tour de force milestone in the history of the festival.
-
William Kentridge's Return of Ulysses
The Father of Opera Celebrated
By: - Nov 17th, 2016Claudio Monteverdi is considered the first major composer of an opera. The richness of his talent is on abundant display in William Kentridge’s direction of The Return of Ulysses.
-
Jonathan Dove's Flight at Juilliard
Operatic Enchantments Fly
By: - Nov 21st, 2016Jonathan Dove's Flight is given a near perfect mounting this fall at the Juilliard School. Juilliard's neighbor across the way could take a page on opera production from the young artists whose talent and sensibility bodes well for the future of the opera form.
-
Boston Lyric Opera Does Turnage's Greek
Retelling of Oedipus Rex OK's Incest
By: - Nov 23rd, 2016Mark-Anthony Turnage created the kind of scandal the arts love when in 1988 he premiered his first opera "Greek." A punkish provocation, it set the hoary myth of Oedipus, he who killed his father and married his mother, in a declining Thatcherite Britain. In choosing it, the BLO, in a dynamic production, asks whether it is still relevant.
-
Ivan Fischer Conducts New York Philharmonic
Musical Chairs Play Beethoven and Dvorak
By: - Nov 27th, 2016Conductor Iván Fischer led the New York Philharmonic in a startling program, not because Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major or Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony in G Major are unfamiliar. Yet they sounded particularly new and fresh in this performance. Fischer characteristically releases phrases in a swell and dares to experiment with dynamic extremes, particularly in the Beethoven, where both the soloist and the orchestra often whisper.
-
yMusic Arrives at Carnegie
Unusual Instrumental Mix Triumphs
By: - Dec 03rd, 2016If there is an argument for YouTube and the ever-expanding internet, it is made by this group of superb young musicians, classically-trained, impeccable artists who are open to anything.
<< Previous Next >>