Music
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Welser-Möst Conducts the New York Philharmonic
From the Domestic Life of Strauss to Widmann's Streets of Babylon
By: - Mar 01st, 2020Franz Welser-Möst leads what is arguably the best orchestra in the United States, the Cleveland. His mastery of Richard Strauss' music is well-known. He began the program with the US premiere of Babylon Suite by Jörg Widmann, composer in residence at Carnegie Hall this year.
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Verdi's Il Trovatore
At Opera San José
By: - Mar 01st, 2020The great Enrico Caruso once noted that all you need to make Il Trovatore a success is to cast the four greatest singers in the world. Although the production reveals a couple of minor glitches, the overall effect is so scintillating that the flaws are not worth discussing.
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The Pajama Game a Perennial Favorite
At California's Palm Canyon Theatre
By: - Feb 28th, 2020“The Pajama Game” opened last weekend in Palm Springs. The musical debuted in 1954 on Broadway, as the Korean War was declared over, and pajamas back then was still considered the choice of men’s sleep-ware. Enduring standards of the vintage musical include “Hey There,” “Steam Heat,” and “Hernando’s Hideaway.”
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Lincoln Center Great Performers' Mahler
Surrounded by Concerts and Films
By: - Feb 26th, 2020Lincoln Center's Great Performers surrounded us with Gustav Mahler for five days. In addition to a concert by Ivan Fischer conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra, three films were offered.
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Ivan Fischer and Budapest Festival Orchestra
Great Performers' Mahler at Lincoln Center
By: - Feb 25th, 2020There is no doubt that Gustav Mahler paired the Kindertotenlieder, symphonic poems of Friedrich Rückert and his Symphony No. 5. Seldom are they programmed together. We were given an extraordinary performance of both works in David Geffen Hall. Iván Fischer conducted the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
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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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Momentary Opens in Bentonville, Arkansas
A Kraft Cheese Factory Transformed
By: - Feb 20th, 2020The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a jewel created by the architect Moshe Safdie near a natural spring called Crystal and a bridge construction which is built into the museum. It was conceived and financed by Alice Walton whose family created Walmart, a company headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Now other members of the family have joined her in creating an exciting performance space in an old Kraft cheese factory in town.
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Roland Colton Brings Us a Piano Music eBook
Mentioned Music Available at a Click as You Read
By: - Feb 18th, 2020Forever Gentleman, by Roland Colton, has several novel twists. It tells the tale of Nathan Sinclair, an architect and sometimes concert pianist of first-rate talents in both disciplines. When we meet him, he has been introduced into a good woman who deeply attracts him. He vows to settle a debt to a loan broker. He has incurred the debt because a client has been unable to pay up. One thread in the story is a Dickensian tour of Victorian debtor courts and jails in 1869. Colton is able to lead us through this tortuous path with vigorous, clear writing.
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National Sawdust Presents Against the Grain Opera
Intriguing Peek Into Artists-in-Residence Program
By: - Feb 16th, 2020National Sawdust, an artist led Brooklyn group, is a leading incubator of new music. One aspect of their work is an artists-in-residence program. Committed to assisting the creation of music that has impact, artists are encouraged to draw from personal experience and their interpretation of the world. Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup explores the opioid crisis.
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One Evening:Two Works at Komische Oper, Berlin
J. Weinberger and G. Verdi
By: - Feb 15th, 2020It is always a time for heightened expectations when one goes to any performance at the Komische Oper, Berlin. It will not necessarily be enjoyable for everybody but it will definitely always be provocative. The Komische Oper presents as one performance: Fruehlingsstuerme and La Traviata.
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Ballroom at CVREP
Lively Revival of 1970s Musical
By: - Feb 12th, 2020Ballroom features the music of Billy Goldenberg, with a libretto by Jerome Kass, and the lyrics by multiple Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy award-winning songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman, under the direction of Ron Celona. It’s the boldest and most audacious production in CVREP history.
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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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Queen for Nine Days Reigns at Jordan Hall
Gil Rose Brings Us Arnold Rosner's Lady Jane Grey
By: - Feb 03rd, 2020Jordan Hall in Boston was the setting for a concert version of Arnold Rosner’s The Chronicle of Nine. His only opera for full orchestra is having its world premiere. Gil Rose, recent Grammy winner for best recorded opera, finds treasures in the archives and brings them to our attention. We are fortunate indeed.
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Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues Players
A New Biography by Bruce Conforth & Gayle Dean Wardlow
By: - Feb 02nd, 2020The King of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson, died in relative obscurity on August 16, 1938. Fifty years later he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it was founded in 1986. In 1961 Columbia released King of the Delta Blues Players with Volume Two in 1970. The Complete Recordings a two-disc set, released on August 28, 1990, contains almost everything Johnson recorded, with all 29 recordings, and 12 alternate takes.
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The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith
By Angelo Parra at Center Repertory Company
By: - Feb 02nd, 2020Despite 7,000 attending her funeral, Bessie Smith lay in an unmarked grave for many years, as her ultimately estranged husband pocketed funds donated for her headstone. That was remedied in 1970 with a gift from one Janis Joplin.
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