Music
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Baden Baden 1927 At Gotham Chamber Opera
Hindemith, Milhaud, Toch and Weill in One Acts
By: - Nov 06th, 2013The Gotham Chamber Opera, founded and enlivened over the years by conductor Neal Goren, offers terrific fare on a more intimate scale. Its concepts are often large and work both as opera and fine art. Gotham opened its fall season tackling all kinds of musical forms.
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Resonance Works Performs Verdi's Macbeth
Pittsburgh's Operatic Halloween Thrill
By: - Nov 02nd, 2013A new Pittsburgh-based company kicked off its inaugural season with the well-known Scottish blood bath. The reduced orchestra played with a lush round sound, supporting excellent native and regional singers whose voices carried easily in the Gothic music hall. A timeless setting added to the overall eerie effect of the piece, reminding us that the minds of mortals are ever susceptible to addictive avarice.
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A Thanks to Lou Reed
Punk Poet Rock Icon Dead at 71
By: - Oct 28th, 2013Personal remembrances of Rocker Lou Reed (1942-2013) whose influence on popular music and culture has been felt for over 40 years. Reed's trajectory was from pickup bands at Syracuse University to Andy Warhol's Factory parties to Boston's rock scene to the world.
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Riverside Blues & BBQ Festival - 2013
We Listened, Tasted, and Smelled the Smoke.
By: - Oct 21st, 2013It had a lot going in its favor not the least of which is a $5 ticket for three and a half hours of solid blues performances each day and an opportunity to sample a variety of BBQ. We make a point not to miss the annual Greenfield’s Green River Music Festival.
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Revival - A Novel by Scott Alarik
A Fable Of The Cambridge Folk Community
By: - Oct 20th, 2013Alarik's credentials are extensive and diverse. He has been a performer, a songwriter, has written folk music commentary for the Boston Globe and published an earlier collection of his writings, “Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground.†His renown as a chronicler of the folk scene leaves me green with envy.
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Otello at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Triumvirate of Botha, Martinez and Struckmann Excels
By: - Oct 15th, 2013The Lyric revived a 2001 production by Sir Peter Hall, and it is masterful. Brought forward to the 19th century when the opera was composed, Shakespeare is tipped in the basic ‘public’ set which is shaped like the Globe Theater, a semi circle with three tiers of balconies. Action takes place on all levels and is a delight to the eye. The pageantry of opera opens as Otello returns home victorious through a wild storm of eleventh chords, woodwind lightning and ripping winds in the strings. The chorus prays for Otello’s safety.
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BU Fringe Festival: Nico Muhly's Dark Sisters
Mormon Polygamy as Subject
By: - Oct 13th, 2013Nico Muhly is the opera composer of the moment, getting a premiere at the Met later this month. Both his operas pick subjects "ripped from the headlines." His Dark Sisters was performed at the Boston University Fringe Festival
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Muti, Verdi, Chicago Symphony, Magnificent.
A Bang Up 200th Birthday Celebration
By: - Oct 11th, 2013Mario Zefferi, a tenor termed bel canto, pierced through the orchestra with every note he delivered. Singing through the mask, with a ping that contrasted with his partners on stage, his tone was perfectly beautiful. Verid’s own choice for this role was a tenor who had a beautiful voice, but was notably stupid. Zefferi in no ‘pumpkinhead.’
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Muti Magic with Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Tatiana Serjan a Revelation as Lady Macbeth
By: - Oct 07th, 2013Why do we need sets and costumes? Certainly when you hear a concert performance of Verdi's Macbeth led by Riccardo Muti, you could ask for nothing more. Great stage directors like Willy Decker and Sir David McVicar do not distract in their productions, but many modern directors do. Certainly this Macbeth completely satisfied with no props.
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EarSay On Stage
Sidi Touré, Beggar's Ride and The Boxcar Lillies
By: - Oct 07th, 2013An old friend of mine once noted, "You can always tell who in an audience was at a Pete Seeger concert for the first time." "You can?" I queried. "Sure," she said. "They are the ones who look annoyed when other audience members start to sing along with Pete."
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Boston Lyric Opera's New The Magic Flute
BLO Strips Work of Its Masonic Subtext
By: - Oct 07th, 2013Mozart's "The Magic Flute" has enchanting characters and intoxicating music. But it is often weighted down with its philosophical underpinnings. The BLO brings out its fairy tale elements to the delight of its audience.
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Les Mis at Russell Sage To October 11
Great Talent Overcomes Uneven Performance
By: - Oct 03rd, 2013Theater Institute at Sage's Les Miserables may not be Broadway, but is worth the price of admission. October 5 - 11 in Troy, NY.
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EarSay: Reflections on Habits of Bass Players
Anne Hills' The Things I Notice Now
By: - Sep 29th, 2013Earlier this spring I spent a few hours with Tom Paxton hashing over old memories, talking a bit about how singer-songwriters changed the face of what we once called folk music.
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Netrebko, Putin, Eugene Onegin and Lincoln Center
The Metropolitan Opera Opens Its Season
By: - Sep 28th, 2013Peter Gelb continues to display survival skill at the Metropolitan Opera, even though he may have no others. Ambassador Nicholas Taubman, extremely popular in Romania where he brought US business to the country, has always wanted to give a couple of million dollars to the Met. The usual suspects for funding new productions are wary after surveying Gelb’s track record,. Taubman, however, jumped in to finance the new production of Eugene Onegin. Its predecessor was more interesting.
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Vedrana Kalas Sings for Bosnian children
A Golden Voice for a Golden Cause: A Benefit in Albany
By: - Sep 26th, 2013Stunning soprano, Vedrana Kalas, pairs with veteran pianist, Michael Clement, in a concert that will capture your heart. The performance will occur on Saturday, September 28 at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Albany, New York.
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A Fall Preview - A Lot to Take In.
Notable Folk Scheduled Across Mass
By: - Sep 22nd, 2013Back from life in a Nova Scotian tent, I proffer upcoming events of uncommon interest to myself and hopefully to many of you scheduled this fall in a number of MA venues.
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Conductor Michael Christie
Continues as Music Director of Minnesota Opera
By: - Sep 19th, 2013Conductor Michael Christie continues as Music Director of Minnesota Opera, a post he began in fall 2012, leading three productions during the 2013-2014 season. Christie conducts Puccini’s Manon Lescaut from September 21-20, 2013, Richard Strauss’ Arabella from November 9-17, 2013, and Verdi’s Macbeth from January 25-February 1, 2014 at Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (345 Washington Street).
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Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road at Carnegie Hall
Performance October 16
By: - Sep 11th, 2013On Wednesday, October 16 at 8:00 p.m., in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma returns to Carnegie Hall to celebrate the 15th anniversary of The Silk Road Project—an initiative aimed at promoting innovation and cross-cultural understanding through performance and the arts.
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Harry Connick, Jr. at Tanglewood
Blustery Last Night in the Shed
By: - Sep 01st, 2013With thunder and lightning it rained cats and dogs for the Shed performance of Harry Connick, Jr. at Tanglewood. We managed to stay sky high and bone dry through the best non classical performance of the season. Connick charmed the audience with the full range of his vast musical talent. He sang several songs from the new CD Every Man Should Know his 30th and 7th that he entirely composed and arranged.
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Barbiere at Hubbard Hall
Rossini Opera an Unqualified Success
By: - Aug 29th, 2013Rossini's Barber of Seville has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has held its position as a masterpiece of musical comedy for 200 years. It is one of the few operas which still has its talons in popular culture, with Figaro resonating in modern sensibilities as the everyman who pulls all the strings. Hubbard Hall Opera Theater does great justice to the work. .
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Trial by Jury at Hubbard Hall
Short but Sweet
By: - Aug 29th, 2013Part musical, part opera, this production is a good blend of both, featuring hilarious dance numbers and strong voices that have no need of amplification to be heard. Trial by Jury is the “second-stage†show in this summer’s line-up at Hubbard Hall.
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Film Night at Tanglewood
John Williams with Audra McDonald and David Newman
By: - Aug 25th, 2013For the annual Film Night at Tanglewood for the first half of the program John Williams passed the baton to David Newman the son of the legendary Alfred Newman. There were six songs and an encore by guest artist and Tony winner Audra McDonald. One of the largest audiences of the season enjoyed the broadly appealing program.
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Michael Feinstein and Friends at Tanglewood
Pops and The Great American Songbook
By: - Aug 17th, 2013Michael Feinstein brought his Great American Songbook to Tanglewood in what is evolving as an annual guest appearance with Keith Lockhart and Pops. His guests included Tony winner Faith Prince and Cheyenne Jackson. It was a chilly August evening with a hint of Fall and ultra cool swinging music.
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Jane Hudson of Williamstown’s New CD
Links and Bridges on Cutting Edge
By: - Aug 10th, 2013In a discussion of her new solo CD “Jane Hudson Links and Bridges†the Williamstown based artist/ musician and partner in Hudson’s Antiques at Mass MoCA states that “The title comes from reading Giles Deleuze, the brilliant postmodern French philosopher, who explores the viral connections, unexpected trajectories and other valences of experience.†Pretty heavy.
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Esperanza Spalding at Tanglewood
Grammy Winner Fills Ozawa Hall
By: - Aug 05th, 2013With the face and figure of a fashion model in a sexy backless dress they were hanging from the rafters at Ozawa Hall for a performance by multiple Grammy winner, the 29-year-old wild child, Esperanza Spalding. She sang, played bass and led the band through her arrangements.
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