Music
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New Music Virtual Town Hall
Our Digital Present and Future Explored
By: - Apr 07th, 2020Many of us sense that coming out of lockdown we will find ourselves in a very different world. Ideas that have emerged from isolation suggest ways in which a wider group of people, worldwide, can connect. Music is a universal language. Organizations like the International Contemporary Ensemble have led the way into a musical future unimaginable before the most recent technology revolution. Gathered to discuss subjects like how to make an audience out of disparate listeners and platforms available for cooperation and sharing, many other organizations offered insights.
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Princeton Atelier at National Sawdust
Humanizing Electronic Sound
By: - Feb 24th, 2020Introductory visual and audio moments originated in climate data released as sound in a work by Kyle Barnes. This prelude was “a sonificaton of data for voice, electronics and video.” Images played on the huge back wall, which often serves as a screen in this special venue. Gentle scales crested and fell, warming us up for an introduction by Elena Park, a curator of National Sawdust +.
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Curtis Symphony at Carnegie Hall
Smith, Sibelius and Beethoven with Jonathan Biss
By: - Feb 09th, 2020Curtis Symphony is on its annual eastern tour. At Carnegie Hall, led by Osmo Vänskä, they performed a new work by Gabriella Smith, a graduate of Curtis. She spent the 2015-16 season as Artist Year Fellow. She dedicated a citizen-artist year of national service in the Philadelphia region. For those who don't quickly imagine trigonometric functions, the title of her new piece f(x) = sin²x –1/x is a smooth, slightly curving line that rises. f(x) = sin²x –1/x is a delightful piece, set in the natural world Smith treasures.
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Popular Artists at Tanglewood
From Ringo to Arlo and Judy Collins
By: - Nov 21st, 2019It's time to mark your calendar. Tanglewood has annpunced the Popular Artists for the 2020 season. More to be announced later. By Popular Artist the BSO differentiates them from what we assume to be the unpopular ones. Its notable that so far the uber popular James Taylor is not a part of the lineup. But is likely to slip in late, As of now his usual slot for the July Fourth holiday weekend ia wide open. What's announced so far is the Popular prequel.
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Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward
In NY at The Irish Repertory Theatre
By: - Aug 17th, 2019Alone and in duo, Ross and KT perform some two dozen Noel Coward songs, read a number of letters and first night theater opening telegrams (remember those days) both written by and received from his fans, famous friends, and yes, you might have guessed it, letters both to and from his mother.
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La Gazza Ladra Performed by Teatro Nuovo
Beautiful Music at the Rose Theater
By: - Jul 19th, 2019Teatro Nuovo presented Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) at the Rose Theater in New York. The company fulfilled all the promise of Rossini’s inventiveness. The simple set served to present the semiseria dramma perfectly. La Gazza or Magpie (Christopher Hochstuhl) flew about the stage at the start. A white table cloth on which the bird’s image was drawn reminded us throughout the evening that all would be well when the true culprit was discovered. A maid is accused of the theft of silverware and is under the threat of execution.
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Chris Thile At Tanglewood
A Musical, Comedic Extravaganza
By: - Jun 16th, 2019Garrison Keillor and 'A Prairie Home Companion' are out to pasture. Chris Thile, successor and host of 'Live From Here' made their second appearance at Koussevitzky Music Shed in Lenox, Massachusetts. The musical, comedic, live radio show on American Public Media radio stations featured Thile and his back-up band of musicians, a female trio, a comedian and a pianist-composer-singer from Hudson, New York.
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Ellen Reid Wins Pulitzer for Prism
Composer's Generosity of Spirit and Notes
By: - Apr 16th, 2019Ellen Reid has been a hot item this year. Four venues in Los Angeles commissioned work from her. Now Prism, a Beth Morrison production, has won the Pulitzer prize for music. We wandered her soundscape in Omaha created for her by Opera Omaha at the Josyln Art Museum. Distinguishing composing notes from the listener's experience, Reid brings new sounds to an audience.
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Tao and Teicher at the Guggenheim Museum
World Premiere of More Forever
By: - Jan 07th, 2019Caleb Teicher is no stranger to Jacob's Pillow. This summer he will perform More Forever, which had its world premiere at the Guggenheim Museum in New York this weekend. It is a glorious piece developed in collaboration with pianist, composer and actor Conrad Tao.
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My Parsifal Conductor by Allan Leicht
Cosima Wagner Redeemed, A Comedy
By: - Oct 11th, 2018My Parsifal Conductor, Allan Leicht's hilarious and touching comedy on the late domestic life of Richard Wagner, which extends into immortality, is playing at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater through November 3. At the center of the curtainless stage is a big double bed over which a heavenly canopy hangs. We are somewhere between heaven and earth where Cosima Liszt Bulow Wagner is taking her last gasps. She is ninety and married Richard Wagner 60 years ago, after the birth of their three children, Isolde, Eva and Siegfried. Wagner died after 13 years of marriage.
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A Chorus Line
At Ivoryton Playhouse
By: - Aug 22nd, 2018A Chorus Line now at Ivoryton Playhouse through Sunday, Sept. 2 is a “singular sensation” as one of its most well-known songs says. The show has everything and this production has almost everything right.
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Hair at Berkshire Theatre Group
Celebrating 50th Anniversary
By: - Jul 08th, 2018If you plan to see Hair at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, as well you should, a few tokes of medical marijuana will help to set the mood. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. On opening night we spotted a granny with a crown of woven daisys.
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Music Man at Canada's Stratford Festival
Not Just Shakespeare in Ontario
By: - Jun 25th, 2018When the performance is as admirably enjoyable as this one is, even a “Music Man” without a commanding Music Man is worth making a real effort to see.
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Orphic Moments by Master Voices
Anthony Roth Costanzo and Matthew Aucoin Featured
By: - May 07th, 2018Anthony Roth Costanzo is a counter tenor opera aficionados come out to hear. His voice is unusually rich for this range. He is a physical actor of great skill. The Master Voices presentation of Orphic Moments implanted a dramatic cantata Matthew Aucoin wrote for Costanzo into the opera by Gluck.
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Carmen at Opera Philadelphia
New Production Sizzles at the Academy of Music
By: - Apr 30th, 2018Carmen has arrived in all her glory at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Heralded by digital billboard signs on the highways and byways around the city, and topping off the PECO Building in downtown Philadelphia, the news is being broadcast. The Academy has been packed. This new production by Opera Philadelphia and its partners in Seattle and Ireland, is smashing.
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Uchida at Carnegie Hall
Sheer Perfection at the Piano
By: - Mar 02nd, 2018Is it possible for an artist to be above criticism? That question is necessitated by this week's schedule st Carnegie Hall, which features not one but two recitals of Schubert piano sonatas by the astounding Mitsuko Uchida. On the concert hall as well as on disc, Uchida offers a highly personal approach to these works. At the first of these concerts on Monday night, she offered three of the sonatas.
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American Lyric Theater Alumni in Concert
Incubating Opera Through Mentorship
By: - Jan 15th, 2018The American Lyric Theater has an annual concert in which the work of their alumni is featured. This year's program included an opera by Patrick Soluri with libretto by Deborah Brevoort; a Christmas opera by Ricky Ian Gordon, libretto by Royce Vavrek; and a one act children's opera.
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Orchestra Now at Alice Tully Hall
In Search of Space
By: - Dec 19th, 2017The Orchestra Now is still a new presence on the classical music scene in New York but it is, on the surface, a pretty good idea. Conceived by Bard College president Leon Botstein, T?N (as they style themselves) is the renamed, re-packaged, re-marketed top-level student orchestra of that august educational institution. On Thursday night, the Bard students visited Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall to play an ambitious program under the baton of JoAnn Falletta.
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First Night Saratoga 2018
Light Up the Night
By: - Dec 14th, 2017As one of the oldest and largest celebrations of its kind in the country, First Night Saratoga is the most affordable, accessible, safe and exciting way to spend New Year's Eve in New York's capital region. With over 170 different performances from 6pm to midnight, this event is great for everyone from kids to couples who want a fun night out on the town!
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Hannigan and de Leeuw at Park Avenue Armory
Eric Satie's Death of Socrates Performed
By: - Nov 19th, 2017The lights in the corridor outside the Veterans Room in the Park Avenue Armory, dimmed to black and down the hallway proceeded the featured artist, Barbara Hannigan, bearing a candle.
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National Sawdust 5 Boroughs Music Fest
New York's Composers a Riot of Song
By: - Nov 17th, 2017In one fell swoop, Jesse Bloomberg, the artistic director for the 5 Boroughs Music Festival, brings together a sampling of composers who are tucked into the nooks and crannies of our city. Assigning them the subject of the city unleashes their spirited take on New York. Songs ranged from poetic evocation to the tiny drama about a struggling barista which was inspired by Monteverdi.
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Alyson Cambridge Sings at The Crypt
William Bolcom's Song Cycle on Sally Hemings
By: - Nov 16th, 2017Composer William Bolcom and librettist Sanda Seaton have drawn a complex and moving picture of Sally Heings in an 18 song cycle. Soprano Alyson Cambridge is Sally and her performances evokes the slave/mistress of Thomas Jefferson.
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Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera
James Morris' 1000th performance at the Met
By: - Oct 18th, 2017Turandot is Giacomo Puccini’s final, unfinished work. It is a a grand fantasy of legendary China as reimagined through the lens of Italian romanticism. It is a farm tale, the story of an ice-hearted princess and the fearless Prince who wins her hand. It is seen (wrongly) as the end point of the genre of Italian opera. It is also, along with La bohème, the last of the Metropolitan Opera’s giant Franco Zeffirelli productions, crowded extravaganzas that evoke the opulence of a bygone era. (In this case, we’re talking about the 1980s.)
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The BSO Season at Tanglewood
Promises to Deliver
By: - Jun 25th, 2017Whisper the name "Tanglewood" and you will tickle the conscience of the novice classical music-goer, and fire the memories of those who have walked its grassy paths and visited the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Located on a sprawling estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, this is the Cadillac of summer festivals, offering symphonies, chamber music and opera to a throng of devotees who make the pilgrimage again and again.
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Wu Man and Shanghai Quartet
Make Music Not War at Park Avenue Armory
By: - Jun 22nd, 2017The Shanghai Quartet is an internationally acclaimed chamber group which bridges the sensibilities of East and West. Focusing in their program on folk music, you could close your eyes and sometimes imagine Ferde Grofé and Aaron Copland. Bach crops up as a reference.
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