Music
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Tenor Johan Botha Dead at 51
Memories of His Large Glorious Voice
By: - Sep 08th, 2016Johan Botha died today in Vienna at 51. He had suffered from liver cancer, but was scheduled to sing at the Wiener Staatsoper this fall. The September 10th performance of Turandot will be dedicated to him. He once said, “The biggest milestone for me is to make people happy and smile.”
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Train, Yo-Yo Ma, Jeremy Denk and The B52's
Tanglewood Rocks.
By: - Sep 04th, 2016The 2016 Tanglewood season come to a close with a long time commitment from Conductor Andris Nelsons to lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2017.
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Mark Morris Dance at Mostly Mozart
Morris Paints Notes in Dance
By: - Aug 27th, 2016Mark Morris is billed as a musician, and has, in fact, been music director of the Ojai Festival. He is clearly a musicians’ musician and knows as much about music as most professionals. His main gig is choreography. He insists on using live ‘bands,’ in this case, the Mostly Mozart Orchestra. Morris channels Mozart's notes in surprising and apt movements.
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Naughton Twins Play Messiaen
Genetics Gives a New Dimension to Duo Piano at the Crypt
By: - Aug 26th, 2016Two pianos. Four hands. One heart. A spiritual beauty lurks in the origins of Messiaen's music. Certainly duo pianists Michelle and Christina Naughton seem spiritually bound to one another, although there a sparks of difference. This does not suggest conflict, but rather an opportunity to work to achieve unity, as Messiaen must have worked to embrace his God in the face of the Nazi occupation of France.
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Josephine Baker JB Julia Bullock
Hello Blackbird at Mostly Mozart
By: - Aug 25th, 2016Peter Sellars suggested that Julia Bullock interpret Josephine Baker. The young African American, who is more interested in creating musical moments than she is in taking on conventional opera roles, is riveting as Baker in a piece composed by Tyshawn Sorey.
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Opera Love in Santa Fe
Exploring a Theme
By: - Aug 25th, 2016Love is the theme connecting the five productions of the Santa Fe Opera 2016 Festival. Leading off one week of the season was Don Giovanni, where an attempted rape and then a murder jumpstart the opera. The Don is a questionable subject for the discussion of love, as the Don mows down woman after woman in his quest for the Guinness Book of Records first place position as the world’s best, or most effective, seducer. Yet love triumphs.
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Chorus Line in Charleston
Opens 85th Season of Footlight Players
By: - Aug 25th, 2016The production of A Chorus Line which opened the 85th season of Footlight Players in Charleston was so fresh and lively that it was hard to fathom that the musical premiered some four decades ago. The smallish stage was packed with 26 hopefuls auditioning for just eight roles.
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Capriccio at Santa Fe Opera
Insider's Debate Gives Pleasure to All
By: - Aug 23rd, 2016Are words or music more important? In opera there is no debate. Both reign. Richard Strauss, trapped in Nazi Germany because beloved members of his family were Jewish and he wanted to save them, set his last opera as a debate. Unquestionably, in 1942 he was also making a plea for civilization. Santa Fe produces a delightful take on Capriccio.
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Don Giovanni Burns Up in Santa Fe
Superb Mozart
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016The production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni now running at the Santa Fe Opera is a perfect occasion for a celebration of the opera company’s sixtieth anniversary. Seating over 2200, it is a grand house in part because it is located on a mountain top with a view of the Jemez Mountains. Performances begin at 8pm as the sun sets and the backstage real sky is streaked orange, and red and burnt sienna.
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Gounod's Romeo and Juliet
Santa Fe Opera Orchestra
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016The Santa Fe Orchestra under Harry Bicket charges in the introduction to Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet with a dark gusto. On stage, the Capulets in blue sword fight with the Montagus in red. We quickly cut to the choral summation of the famous tale of ill-fated lover who pave the way to peace among naturally-born enemies.
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Broadway Bounty Hunter Stars Annie Golden
Barrington Stage Debuts Hit Musical by Joe Iconis
By: - Aug 20th, 2016Annie Golden broke out with Hair in 1979. As she sings in a sure to be standard the actress is a "Woman of a Certain Age." She plays herself in a world premiere of Broadway Bounty Hunters by Joe Iconis at Barrington Stage Company. This is a fun musical that you will want to see at least twice. They just don't make them like this anymore.
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Barry Humphries' Weimar Cabaret
With Meow Meow and Australian Chamber Orchestra
By: - Aug 15th, 2016Barry Humphries' Weimar Cabaret focuses on the degenerate (according to the Nazis) music of Berlin's Weimar Republic of the 1920s-30s. Humphries presents and performs this music with the talented international cabaret performer, Meow Meow, and with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, led by its artistic director and violinist, Richard Tognetti. Together, these talents delivered a wonderfully done, touching and mesmerizing performance at Tanglewood's Seiji Ozawa Hall in Lenox, MA last night.
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Film Night With John Williams
Star Wars Revisited
By: - Aug 15th, 2016John Williams returned to the stage at Tanglewood for 'Film Night', an evening where his scores, especially, 'Star Wars' gets flight from this renowned 84 year old iconic composer/conductor.
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Inon Barnatan Plays A Little Night Music
Candlelit Suites at Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center
By: - Aug 14th, 2016Inon Barnatan is a premier pianist who is game to offer music in different venues. From Washington Irving High School to Poisson Rouge and every pocket of the Lincoln Center campus, he has engaged audiences in his art with a brilliant humility that stuns. His creation of a Baroque Suite with short dance pieces from Bach to Barber was a magical moment in the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse.
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Sllk Road Ensemble at Tanglewood
Celebrating World Music
By: - Aug 08th, 2016Eighteen years ago Cellist Yo Yo Ma and a core of global musicians formed Silk Road Ensemble. Yet again their appearance was a musical treat and highlight of the Tanglewood season.
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Paavo Jarvis Conducts Mostly Mozart
Pied Piper Martin Fröst Soars on Clarinet
By: - Aug 06th, 2016At Lincoln Center Paavo Järvi conducted the Mostly Mozart Orchestra softly yet he carried a big baton, from La Sidone which Arvo Part composed for the opening of the Olympics in Turin Italy. We are reminded that this year’s Olympics opened on the very day of this concert.
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Tanglewood On Parade
Four Conductors, One Big Night.
By: - Aug 04th, 2016Tanglewood On Parade is the yearly event that brings families and friends together for the day. Traveling musicians, clowns and musical activities lead up to the finale, the '1812 Overture', fireworks and canons being fired.
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MASS MoCA Fall Schedule
Program Through December
By: - Aug 03rd, 2016MASS MoCA heads into the fall with the 6th annual FreshGrass Festival on September 16-18, a rollicking weekend largely devoted to artists in roots and acoustic bluegrass music — and powers through until December when Dinosaur Jr. takes the stage in a night of power-grunge. In between, swoon for Benjamin Clementine in the Hunter and Eisa Davis up in the Club — and witness what might be one of the most powerful, poignant, and political works we have ever exhibited.
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Fresh Grass Festival at Mass MoCa
Three Days of Bluegrass Music
By: - Aug 03rd, 2016Mass MoCA is home to the renowned Fresh Grass music festival. Over 50 bands will play on the grounds of the museum, during this three day event. It takes place from September 16th to 18th. Rosanne Cash and Ricky Scaggs are a few of the headliners.
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Let the Good Times Roll
Summer Fun in Charleston
By: - Aug 02nd, 2016For fabulous summer fun Let the Good Times Roll at Charleston's Music Hall.
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Chick Corea Trio at Tanglewood
Final Gig of 75th Birthday Tour
By: - Aug 01st, 2016Now in his 75th year pianist Chick Corea with a trio of jazz masters- bass player, Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade- visited Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. It was amoing the best of the many times we have heard him perform.
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Beethoven's Fidelio at Caramoor
Elza Van Den Heever Shows What the Voice Can Do
By: - Jul 31st, 2016Fidelio is a political opera, but not politics rooted in biography, which John Adams and Philip Glass have undertaken. Here is an ordinary political prisoner, starving to death for his principles. Edward Snowden might be the model for the role today if the big guys could catch him.
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Sound Worlds of So at Lincoln Center
Phasing from Reich to Lang to Dessner
By: - Jul 30th, 2016In the 19th century, no one musically-inclined would have imagined percussion as the central arbiter of musical taste two centuries later. Yet today no one could live without percussion and the So Percussion Quartet makes the case for striking objects of every imaginable variety, including flower pots and tea cups.
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Mozart Celebrated in New York
Festival Fifty Years Young
By: - Jul 26th, 2016The Mostly Mozart Festival is fifty years young. To celebrate the occasion, Lincoln Center put on The Illuminated Heart at David Geffen Hall. Singers were the A list of opera. It was like degustation at Sur Mesure. Like the All Star game, you wondered if another operatic music event could be going on anywhere. Seems like everyone who was anyone was on stage.
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Madama Butterfly at Hubbard Hall
Saying Goodbye to Hubbard Hall Opera Theater's Founding Artistic Director
By: - Jul 26th, 2016Artistic Director of Hubbard Hall Opera Theater, Alix Jones, talks to us about how small-scale opera started at Hubbard Hall, why is succeeded, and where it might go next.
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