Music
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Madama Butterfly
At Opera San José
By: - Apr 15th, 2019Opera San José has mounted a stunning production of Madama Butterfly. Maria Natale leads the cast as Cio-Cio San, or Butterfly, with a remarkable performance.
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Verb Is the Word
Rediscovering Boston’s Late 1960s Counter Culture
By: - Apr 13th, 2019In 2017 San Fransicso celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. By 1968 the torch of the counterculture, with a radical twist, was passed to Boston. Cops and feds cracked heads when hippies and radicals protested in Boston and Cambridge. Just as in 1776, there were shots heard round the world. There has been no such celebration in Boston. In feisty increments there is ever increased interest and attention to a forgotten era. You can see it at The Verb Hotel, in the new film WBCN; The American Revolution, and books like Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968.
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Norma Jeane Baker of Troy at The Shed
Ben Whishaw and Renee Fleming Star
By: - Apr 10th, 2019Poet Anne Carson has a special touch, embedding a conversational tone in lilting lines. While Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is billed as a melologue in which some words are sung and some spoken. It asks the question opera composers always ask: what words should be spoken, and what words sung? As a struggling writer's secretary, Fleming becomes muse, moving from speech to song. She is glorious. So too is Ben Whishaw, who moves from writer to the embodiment of Marilyn Monroe.
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Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptation
At Broadway's Imperial Theatre
By: - Apr 10th, 2019I wish that I could say that Ain’t Too Proud turned me inside out and sent me directly to heaven. But if the truth be told the first act is a painful 30 minutes too long, and Dominique Morisseau’s mechanically written fact-filled book based on the group’s original founder Otis William’s 1988 memoir – lots of "I did that and he did that and then we all did that" – is as engaging as bad coffee and a failed omelet on a gray day.
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Jeremy Gill and Port Mande at National Sawdust
Genre-breaking jazz to Contemporary Classical
By: - Apr 08th, 2019Mark Dover and Jeremy Ajari Jordan worked Debussy, Schubert and angst into a wild evening of jazz. Jeremy Gill has a quiet about his work from which he builds and to which he then retreats. There is something satisfying in this bracket, in which we share in the rougher emotions of the interior.
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Today It Rains
Composed by Laura Kaminsky Libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed
By: - Mar 30th, 2019Maestra Nichole Paiement conducts the chamber orchestra to its polished sound with energy and precision, finding a visual and aural expressiveness in the combining of the instruments, parallel to that of Georgia O’Keeffe combining her paints. Laura Kaminsky honors this great artist with her world premiere opera Today It Rains, commissioned and presented by Opera Parallèle.
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Choir of King's College at Saint Thomas
Lenten Season Music
By: - Mar 29th, 2019Concerts at Saint Thomas continue their 2018-19 season with a guest performance by the acclaimed Choir of King’s College, Cambridge at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. This marks the choir’s final North American tour with current Director of Music Stephen Cleobury, who will retire after 37 years in September. His position will be filled by current Saint Thomas Organist and Director of Music Daniel Hyde.
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John Hochheimer on WBUR 1968 to 1971
Progressive Programming Terminated by John Silber
By: - Mar 25th, 2019Now retired, professor John Hochheimer of Southern Illinois University, recalls undergraduate years at Boston University’s then progressive station WBUR. He started as a high school volunteer in New York at WBAI. During sophomore year at BU, in 1968, he started at WBUR. He was influenced by the free form programming of Tom Gamache, AKA Uncle T. Rock archivist, David Bieber, was a friend and flat mate. He once spent five hours on air with David Bowie and became friends with B.B. King and Elton John. The programming staff was fired not long after John Silber took over at BU in 1971.
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Popular Artists at Tanglewood
Adding Three New Acts to Full Season
By: - Mar 23rd, 2019The 2019 Popular Artist Series includes performances by Brian Wilson (6/16), Richard Thompson (6/21), Earth, Wind & Fire (6/28), Josh Groban (7/2), James Taylor and his All-Star Band (7/3 & 4), Train and the Goo Goo Dolls (8/5), Gladys Knight and The Spinners (8/28), Squeeze—The Squeeze Songbook Tour (8/29), Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo and Melissa Etheridge (8/30), Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue (8/31), and Reba McEntire (9/1). American Public Media’s Live From Here with Chris Thile also returns on June 15, opening the 2019 season.
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Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall
Thomas Adès Conducts
By: - Mar 22nd, 2019Although the first conductors were themselves composers, the wearing of both hats at the helm of a symphony orchestra is always cause for comment. On Wednesday night, the British composer Thomas Adès, who is currently in the new role of "Artistic Partner" with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led that band at Carnegie Hall in a program featuring the New York debut of his Piano Concerto.
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Memphis In South Florida
A Rousing Production by Actors' Playhouse
By: - Mar 21st, 2019Memphis the Musical sizzles in South Florida. Cast and crew shine in mounting by Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre. The show's themes resonate powerfully. This production features a mix of local and regional talent, as well as a member of the Broadway national tour of Memphis.
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Theatre of Voices at Carnegie Hall
Arvo Part and David Lang Featured
By: - Mar 21st, 2019Theatre of Voices returned to Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall to perform the music of Arvo Pärt alongside the New York premiere of visual poems accompanied by a picture poem by Phie Ambo. No Mickey Mousing was intended. Instead the pictures were suggested by changing seasons, and a farm in Denmark. Both Pärt and David Lang were beautiful, deep meditations on nature, man's the the world's.
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The Barber of Seville
At Livermore Valley Opera
By: - Mar 20th, 2019In the opera canon, The Barber of Seville is one of relatively few that can ease many unfamiliar with opera into enjoying it.
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WBCN: The American Revolution
Award Winning Documentary Film by Bill Lichtenstein
By: - Mar 19th, 2019Recently, WBCN: The American Revolution had its first public screening at DC Independent Film Festival. It was judged Winner Best Documentary 2019. Bill Lichtenstein launched the project in 2009. There was at the time no archive dedicated to the legendary alternative rock station. Now there is as the film conflates talking heads, images, sound tracks and vintage footage. More than a radio station, WBCN provided the sound track and social media platform for the coming of age of 250,000 college students during an era of war, protest, and a dynamic counterculture.
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Man of La Mancha in Annapolis
Patrick Gerard Lynch Plays the Don and his Creator
By: - Mar 18th, 2019Man of La Mancha acted and sung with all the passion it can arouse, is revived by the Compass Rose Theater in Annapolis, Maryland. It is a treat. While its score may be Broadway- lite, a reminder that there is hope for humans who dream is a welcome.
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Hairspray at Oregon Shakespeare
Baltimore Based Musical Packs Hefty Impact
By: - Mar 18th, 2019Hairspray challenges prejudices against women who lack an idealized body type and pushes for racial integration and acceptance of non-binary genders. It slyly and adroitly conveys its message even to conservative audiences through an entertaining package of sympathetic characters and shared enjoyment.
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Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
By: - Mar 17th, 2019In Lauren Yee’s tense and scintillating comedy/drama, Cambodian Rock Band, lead character Chum had escaped Cambodia during the height of the atrocities and resettled in Massachusetts. It is produced by Oregon Shakespeare Festival and plays in repertory through October 27, 2019.
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The Rape of Lucretia
Review at Boston Lyric Opera
By: - Mar 16th, 2019Boston Lyric Opera’s production and interpretation of Benjamin Britten’s contemporary tragic opera “The Rape of Lucretia” is once again an example of a willingness and commitment to perform dramatically intense and socially relevant subject matter.
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Baruch Performing Arts Center's Spoken Songs
Spears and Argento Sung by Brian Mulligan
By: - Mar 14th, 2019Baruch Performing Arts Center presented a Thoreau song cycle by Gregory Spears and Virginia Woolf's Diaries by Dominic Argento. Spears, a phenom among contemporary composers, loves Henry David Thoreau, but found his poetry less than thrilling. Diving into his prose, he decided to take up the more difficult challenge of setting prose to music.
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Diana The Musical
Premiere at La Jolla Playhouse
By: - Mar 12th, 2019La Jolla Playhouse presents a new musical about Diana and Charles who as heir to the British throne, at 70, is still waiting. For global fans she was a fairybook princess in real life.
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Earth Wind and Fire at Tanglewood
Friday June 28 at 7 PM
By: - Mar 12th, 2019n Friday, June 28, at 7 p.m., Earth, Wind & Fire returns to Tanglewood, bringing its U.S. tour to the Koussevitzky Music Shed. Earth, Wind & Fire are a music institution. Over a five-decade history, they have sold out concerts all around the globe, scored eight number one hits, and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide.
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Rock Archivist David Bieber Part Two
Boston Media and Counterculture
By: - Mar 09th, 2019Several years ago The Fenway Motor Inn, morphed into the boutique, rock themed, Verb Hotel. David Bieber was commissioned to provide vintage memorabelia from his vast archive. Since then, with a small staff, he has been unpacking and cataloguing the collection. He also worked with the late Stephen Mindich to archive The Phoenix material at Northeastern University. Bieber discusses an era in the counterculture of Boston when there was a community of music makers, promo men, writers and DJs. Rent was cheap compared to now and we were living large on other people's money.
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Sonja Friseli's Aida Is Retired at the Met
The End of Aida As We Loved Her
By: - Mar 09th, 2019The production mounted at the Met thirty years ago is to be replaced, under the injunction: if it's not broken, break it. Sonja Friseli's Aida is perfect and satisfies audience members of all ages and all hues. Why should a new one be created? If you are having financial troubles, spend more in the wrong place?
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Aspect Foundation Concert at Italian Academy
Alexander Sitkovetsky and Wu Qian Team for Dramatic Beauty
By: - Mar 07th, 2019The Aspect Foundation is committed to making the concert experience memorable. By offering food and drink before the concert and during intermission, and selecting unusual and glistening venues, audience members are swept into their commitment to first-rate music-making. Evenings Aspect presents are unforgettable. Go to one and you will be hooked.
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Bridget Kibbey and Friends at Merkin Hall
WQXR's Terrance McKnight Hosts
By: - Mar 07th, 2019Bridget Kibbey is a superb musician on her instrument of choice, the harp. She was joined by two friends on violin and flute/recorder to perform J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Orlando de Lassus and Tarquinio Merula in Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Center in New York. The event was hosted by Terrance McKnight of WQXR.
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