Music
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National Chorale Hosts 50th Messiah Sing
16 Prominent Conductors Participate
By: - Dec 17th, 2017National Chorale mounted its 50th Messiah sing in at David Geffen Hall. The chorus of thousands, one of the largest in the world, was led by sixteen difference conductors representing such institutions as West Point, St. Patrick's Cathedral, colleges and even high schools. Each conductor introduced the chorus s/he led, many directing us to pay particular attention at the conclusion.
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Britten's Carols at St. Thomas Church
Bridget Kibbey on a Celestial Harp
By: - Dec 16th, 2017St. Thomas Church at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City is known for its music. Its organ has recently been replaced, but was not called upon for a beautiful concert featuring Benjamin Britten’s Carols. Accompaniment was provided by a harp. Never has an instrument been displayed so fully in its glory as it was by Bridget Kibbey. The composer wrote for the harp and specifically noted that the interlude should not be played if a piano was used.
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Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolltan Opera
The Help Strikes Back
By: - Dec 16th, 2017As Mozart's most popular romantic comedy, Le Nozze di Figaro is more than just the story of a crazy household in Spain getting ready for two of its servants to get hitched. Based on what was (at the time) a controversial play by Pierre de Beaumarchais, Figaro is an opera that makes the listener confront ideas of social justice and shouts of the need for equality between different classes within the microcosm of Aguas Frescas, the Almaviva estate. Looking at the opera in this way, the Met's current revival of the company's 2014 production could not be better timed.
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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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MASS MoCA Update
Winter/ Spring Programming
By: - Dec 14th, 2017MASS MoCA heads into the winter/spring season with new works in the spotlight, on stage, and in the galleries. The season kicks off on January 20 with the museum’s annual Free Day, when MASS MoCA opens its galleries, free of charge, and activates its art with family-focused activities and performances throughout the day.
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Candlelit Hancock Shaker Village
A Holiday Celebration With The Shakers
By: - Dec 12th, 2017Hancock Shaker Village, near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was decorated for the holidays during a late afternoon stroll with carolers, musicians and dressed-up staff from this timeless Shaker community. Drinks, Shaker Holiday carols and festive food was served as guests listened to Shaker stories and songs.
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American Symphony Orchestra's The Triumph of Art
Botstein Delivers Grim but Worthy Music of the Eastern Bloc
By: - Dec 10th, 2017On Thursday night, Dr. Botstein directed his ASO forces in a long and compelling program titled The Triumph of Art at Alice Tully Hall. Its purpose: provide much needed exposure to composers whose careers largely took place on the shadow side of the Soviet empire. This concert featured two works by the Polish composer Grayna Bacewicz and important symphonies by Bohuslav Martin and Alfred Schnittke. All are worthy of inclusion by some future artistic director with ambition and taste.
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Philip Glass is Reflected at Carnegie Hall
Glass and Next Generation
By: - Dec 09th, 2017American Composers Orchestra performs at Carnegie Hall each year. Their December 8 concert at Zankel Hall was the first to honor the holder of the Debs Composer’s Chair this season, Philip Glass. Glass was over forty when he was able to give up his day job. He has created a world in which young composers can compose full time much earlier in their careers. We heard two of his protégés and the master himself in an intriguing and moving program.
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Something Rotten on Tour
In Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre
By: - Dec 08th, 2017The story, of “Something Rotten”, in short, is set in 1590s England where playwright brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom, sensationally played by Rob McClure and Josh Grisetti, respectfully, are desperate to write a hit play to pay their rent, keep food on the table, and pay back their theatre investors. But they’re stuck in the shadow of that Renaissance rock-star known as Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, a self-indulgent, preening (Adam Pascal).
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Edo de Waart Leads NY Philharmonic
Emanuel Ax Piano Soloist
By: - Dec 05th, 2017A cancellation by a major international conductor is never an occasion for happiness. However, attendees at Thursday nights concert by the New York Philharmonic may have felt fortunate in that august orchestra's choice of substitute. Stepping in for the indisposed Christopher von Dohnányi, Dutch conductor Edo de Waart proved to be an able and welcome substitute.
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"Almira," Handel's First Opera
Reprised by Boston Early Music Festival
By: - Dec 05th, 2017The 19 year old Handel inherited this ridiculous opera libretto when the composer assigned it abruptly left town. Ambitious to get out of Hamburg himself, he gave it better than it deserved, writing some gorgeous arias for his dueling pair of sopranos. A superb cast and expert orchestral playing made the opera a hit for the Boston Early Music Festival.
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A Civil War Christmas
An American Musical Celebration by Paula Vogel
By: - Dec 05th, 2017Much of the ambiance of A Civil War Christmas derives from the music supporting the narrative. Several traditional Christmas carols are sung, including an audience-quieting, a cappella “Silent Night” delivered by Alicia von Kugelgen, who offers the strongest singing voice of the show. Additional music comes from mostly African-American spirituals of the period such as “Children Go Where I Send Thee” and “There is Balm is Gilead.”
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Conrad Tao Electrifies Walter Reade Theater
Coffee and Music Courtesy Lincoln Center
By: - Dec 04th, 2017You may have heard Bach, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff before, but probably not delivered with such passion, panache and pure musical mastery. The fourth composer on Conrad Tao's program for Lincoln Center's Great Performer series was Jason Eckardt, a composer who is jazzy, harmonic-cloud-infested, crossing of the hands and collapse into silence before tones can emerge again. Tao is a listener and leads us to listen in a new way as he performs.
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Eclipse Mill Winter Arts Festival
Music and Poetry on December 13
By: - Dec 04th, 2017All are invited to join a holiday celebration and launch of the Eclipse Mill Winter Arts Festival. A gala evening of music by Michelle Wiley, and poetry by Stephen Rifkin, will occur on Wednesday, December 13, starting at 7:30 pm, at the Eclipse Mill, 243 Union Street, in North Adams. A program of other events will be announced in the New Year.
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Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
Turls Mørk Brilliant in Shostakovich
By: - Dec 03rd, 2017In Handel's time, there was no orchestra conductor. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is committed to rotating leadership. A member of the orchestra keeps the group together with bow and movement of the instrument itself. Democracy works well. The resulting performance is exuberant and joyful.
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Die Walküre at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Christine Goerke Defines Brunhilde
By: - Nov 27th, 2017Everything about the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s second installment in David Pountney's new Ring cycle feels, sounds and looks right. Yet starting with the singing actors’ performances seems only fair. They are superb, one and all. Surely one element of opera under the control of producers is the uniform quality of singing. The Lyric Opera understands this deeply and delivers.
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West Side Story at Disney Hall
LA Philharmonic Provides Live Score
By: - Nov 24th, 2017The theater world was abuzz with West Side Story in the summer of 1957. It was to open on Broadway in the fall, and sure to be a smash hit. That was the word. It was also going to revolutionize musical theater. It did. Now the LA Philharmonic performs the score live as the film rolls on before the audience.
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Girls of the Golden West in San Francisco
World Premiere by John Adams and Peter Sellars
By: - Nov 23rd, 2017Subject matter when John Adams and Peter Sellars double team always arrests. 'Nixon in China' is particularly memorable as China continues to open. 'The Death of Klinghofer' is important as we allow madmen to be called terrorists. In 'Dr. Atomic', the most mememorable moment is Gerald Finley's singing of the John Donne poem, an exquisite and tortured moment in the life of this complicated physicist who helped launch the new nuclear world in Los Alamos. Now we have 'Girls of the Golden West' in San Francisco. Puccini never imagined anything like this!
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Dimitri Hvorostovsky Dies in London
Superstar Baritone an Opera Icon
By: - Nov 23rd, 2017Dimitri Hvorostovsky was at the forefront of a generation of singers that, in the 1990s, invigorated the opera houses of the West when they left the recently collapsed Soviet Union. His U.S. debut came in 1993 in a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of La Traviata. His first role at the Met was as Yeletsky in 1995, a role he would sing eight times that season. He died in London at the age of 55.
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Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine
Performed by Opera San José
By: - Nov 21st, 2017La Rondine is an outlier in the Puccini canon. If we dismiss his failed first full-length opera Edgar from consideration,
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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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Pianist Daniil Trifonov at Carnegie Hall
Valery Gergiev Conducts the Marinsky Orchestraa
By: - Nov 18th, 2017At Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, the Mariinsky Orchestra and pianist Daniil Trifonov offered the New York premiere of the artist's first Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Now 26, Trifonov has made a name for himself as a young and respected virtuoso, the leading example of a new generation of piano-slingers thrilling listeners around the world. This concerto, which received its New York premiere at this concert, is his shot at a whole new kind of legitimacy.
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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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Nezet-Seguin Conducts Philadelphia Orchestra
King of Infinite Space
By: - Nov 12th, 2017The Philadelphia Orchestra's relationship with music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a model of modern artistic collaboration. The Quebecois conductor has brought a much-needed dose of enthusiasm and artistic integrity to the band on Broad Street, and the orchestra has responded according to its gifts with full, rich performances that remain deeply satisfying.
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