Music
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Sandrine Piau Pearly Toned, Lyrical Nocturnes
Boston’s Jordan Hall Celebrity Series With Susan Manoff
By: - Apr 30th, 2012Soprano Sandrine Piau, appeared with pianist Susan Manoff in the intimate setting of Jordan Hall, part of the Celebrity Series, last Saturday. Ms. Piau is an internationally acclaimed, baroque and lyric soprano who has performed in most of the concert festivals in Europe, as well as at Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Academy of Music, both in New York. More at ease in the French repertoire than the German lieder, she nevertheless achieved a near perfect functional tonality and genuine success with Ms. Manoff’s sensitive and precise accompaniments.
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Handel and Haydn Society: Jubilant Coronations!
Soprano Teresa Wakim’s Triumphant Debut at Symphony Hall
By: - Apr 30th, 2012The Handel and Haydn Society concluded their season with a program of King and Queen’s Coronations Music from Handel’s “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, from Salomon†and “Coronation Anthem No. 1, Zadok the Priest,†Hayden’s “Symphony No. 85 La reine,†“Exsultate, Jubilate, K. 165†and “Mass in C Major, K. 317, Coronation†by Mozart. Maestro Harry Christophers received accolades for an exceptional season of direction and the silver-voiced soprano, Ms. Teresa Wakim, enjoyed a triumphant debut.
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Juilliard Presents Don Giovanni
Stephen Wadsworth at the Helm
By: - Apr 29th, 2012The opera of all operas Don Giovanni is among other things the perfect vehicle to display up and coming talent. Stephen Wadsworth, a man of many hats who directed this production as the head of the Opera Studies department at the Juilliard School of Music.
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A Conversation With Herb Gart – Part II
Back and Forth Twixt Philadelphia and NYC
By: - Apr 28th, 2012This continues the conversation started in Part I. Folk recordings are still a minor component of the recording industry, but that is on the verge of change as more established companies in the music industry begin to view it for its profit potential.
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John Corigliano's Ghost of Versailles
Manhattan School of Music Brings the Ghosts to Life
By: - Apr 27th, 2012An opera mounted too seldom is everything you could want in the Manhattan School's production. This subversive opera pricks our understanding of history, of stories and of opera itself. Early on, the audience knowingly laughed when it was suggested on stage that opera was boring. There was nothing boring about the proceedings in uptown Manhattan.
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For The Love of the Music : The Club 47 Folk Revival
A film by Todd Kwait & Rob Stegman
By: - Apr 25th, 2012For The Love of the Music attempts to tell the story of the legendary Harvard Square coffeehouse and folk performance venue, Club 47, and its eventual successor, Club Passim over a ten plus year period from 1958 to 1968.
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Boston Lyric Opera's The Inspector
John Musto Sets Action in Mussolini-era Sicily
By: - Apr 22nd, 2012The audience laughed throughout and I laughed a few times as well, but tame comedy could have been more if composer had taken more risks. “The Inspector,†given here for the first time since its creative team tweaked it after its 2011 premiere at the Wolf Trap Opera in Virginia, is an amusing comedy in the Italian opera buffa tradition.
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Bernadette Peters Opens Pops May 9
Visions of America Inspires a season
By: - Apr 19th, 2012The Boston Pops 2012 “Visions of America†season under the direction of Keith Lockhart, opens in style on May 9 at 8 p.m. with Broadway sensation Bernadette Peters performing showstoppers such as There Is Nothing Like a Dame and Being Alive as well as her signature Not a Day Goes By and other tunes that have made the diva one of this country’s legendary stars of the stage and screen.
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A Conversation With Herb Gart - Part I
The Early Days
By: - Apr 19th, 2012Herb Gart had a hand in the careers of many entertainment icons including Bill Cosby, Janis Ian, The Youngbloods, Charlie Daniels, Don McLean and Ed Begly, Jr. Here he chats about how it all started.
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Cutting Edge Music at Manhattan's Symphony Space
Victoria Bond Presents Contemporary Composers
By: - Apr 18th, 2012Victoria Bond makes a case for the accessibility of contemporary music as the Great Noise Ensemble interprets. Her delightful short chamber piece, Coqui, concluded the first part of the program.
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Gotham Chamber Opera Presents Mozart
Il Sogno di Scipione Staged by Christopher Alden
By: - Apr 12th, 2012A lively production and great singing make early Mozart come to life in this revived production by the Gotham Chamber Opera.
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Ear Say II - Bearfoot and Joy Kills Sorrow
Ongoing Thoughts About Appealing CDs
By: - Apr 12th, 2012Bluegrass, Old timey, Mountain Music, Hillbilly, all cloaked these days as Roots or Americana. Here are two superb examples
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The Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall
His Imperial Majesty Arrives in the Mikado
By: - Apr 11th, 2012Not a minute passes over the whole world in which The Mikado is not being produced. Gilbert and Sullivan's arguably best but inarguably fun operetta was created quickly in the shadow of a Japanese executioner's sword.
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Christoph von Dohnanyi Conducts Brahms
BSO's German Requiem Performed Annually Since 1926
By: - Apr 11th, 2012Brahms composed The German Requiem, “Ein Deutsches Requiem,†at a time of bereavement and personal, piercing associations. The plunge in the Rhine of his mentor and spiritual father, Robert Shumann, as well as the death of his mother, Christiane, who died before he could reach her, are the inspiration for this memorial piece. “Ein Deutsches Requiem†is not a generic requiem; it differs from the standard, as it is neither a mass nor oratorio, and nowhere in the libretto is there a reference to the son of God. The score is composed of seven movements that use German texts from the Old Testament, New Testament and Apocrypha. The libretto is selected to spread blessings, rather than sadness and despair, to the living and to the dead.
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Anna Caterina Antonacci at Lincoln Center
A Great Singer at Alice Tully Hall
By: - Apr 10th, 2012Hearing Antonacci sing is like winning the lotto. She is not often in the US and catching her when she is reveals why her reputation as one of the world's great soprano-mezzos is so well-deserved.
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Los Lobos Scorches Mass MoCA
East LA Rocks Mill City
By: - Apr 06th, 2012East meets West. Last night the legendary Chicano band from East LA, Los Lobos, blew the roof off the Hunter Center of Mass MoCA. It was the ultimate bicoastal culture clash between the sizzling band with an eclectic mix of rock and interpretations of ratcheted up traditional Mexican music and a nearly full house of mostly blue collar locals, aging hippies, and bluebloods from neighboring, posh Williamstown.
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Verdi's La Traviata in Met HD
Coming to the Clark April 14
By: - Apr 06th, 2012Willy Decker’s strikingly beautiful production of Verdi’s La Traviata, a hit when it premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2005, comes to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute on Saturday, April 14 at 1:00 pm, live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera. Soprano Marina Poplavskaya stars as opera’s most fascinating heroine. “Poplavskaya rules...the Russian soprano is riveting...the total effect is stunning†(Associated Press).
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Boston Pops Season Starts May 9
Previews with Video Clips
By: - Apr 05th, 2012The Boston Pops 2012 season under the direction of Keith Lockhart, opens in style on May 9 with Broadway sensation Bernadette Peters performing many of the signature songs that have made her one of this country’s legendary stars of the stage and screen. The Boston Pops 2012 unifying theme, Visions of America, inspires a season dedicated to celebrating many of this country’s greatest musical traditions, culminating in a multimedia “Visions of America Photo Symphony†program to end the season on June 14, 15, and 16. These special concerts will feature R&B sensation Patti Austin, jazz vocalist Steve Tyrell, photographs by Joseph Sohm, music by Roger Kellaway, and lyrics by the unrivaled team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, with a recorded narration provided by Clint Eastwood.
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Roaring Twenties at Ozawa Hall June 2
Presented by Close Encounters with Music
By: - Apr 05th, 2012The cabaret beckons at Ozawa Hall Saturday, June 2, 6 pm as Close Encounters With Music ushers in the summer season in the Berkshires. In a performance that evokes the twenties of the last century—a time exemplified by Art Deco, Prohibition, the loosening of social restraints, Jazz, the Charleston and flappers—“Roaring Twenties†offers a panorama of composers and styles that defined and shaped the era: Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter, Poulenc, Schoenberg, and Erwin Schulhoff provide a bi-continental glimpse into a decade that still looms colorful, mythical and seductive in cultural history.
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The Mount Launches Spring Programming
Hildegard Hoeller Lecture on Wharton April 21
By: - Apr 05th, 2012The Mount will kick-start its 2012 season with two programs planned for late April. On Saturday, April 21 at 3:00 PM, Berkshire resident, Wharton scholar and Professor of English, Hildegard Hoeller will give a informative talk on Edith Wharton and her changing views of New York, entitled Edith Wharton: Old and New New York. On Sunday, April 22, The Mount will present Music in the Drawing Room with an afternoon performance by Elizabeth Morse, principle harpist of the Berkshire Symphony.
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Yale at Carnegie for April Fool's Day
The De Profundis Program Became De Gaudeum
By: - Apr 02nd, 2012World class performers who teach at Yale and often perform in the Berkshires during the summer took to the stage at Carnegie in New York and whipped up music for the ages, tooting sackbuts and all.
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Michael Tilson Thomas Continues with His Mavericks
Carnegie Hall Hosts Partch, Bates, Del Tredici and Harrison
By: - Apr 01st, 2012We have had time to appreciate maverick composers of the 20th century. Now they often seem distinctively beautiful. Instruments are a treat for the eye. The music fully engages. Michael Tilson Thomas is a daring and committed conductor.
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Ahmad Jamal at the Colonial Theatre
New Album Blue Moon and European Tour
By: - Apr 01st, 2012The recently released CD Blue Moon is being hailed by critics as among the best of a recording career that started in 1955. With an amazing rhythm section of Herlin Riley, drums, Manolo Badrena, percussion, and Reginald Veal, bass the iconic jazz pianist performed at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield. They are about to embark for Italy to launch a European tour in support of the critically acclaimed new album.
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Opera Notes: Peter Gelb Controlling the Message
Does the Met Deserve Great Divas Dessay, Mattila, Blythe?
By: - Mar 29th, 2012Diva after diva arrives at the Met this spring. Their quality is uneven, but if they are thin and pretty, the General Manager., Peter Gelb, hopes can sell tickets. Even if they can't sing, or when they do, occasionally, they are off pitch.
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Michael Tilson Thomas Brings Mavericks to Carnegie Hall
Jessye Norman, Joan La Barbara, Meredith Monk, John Adams, All Live.
By: - Mar 28th, 2012If you wonder how to get young people into a classical concert, just follow the San Francisco Symphony and its peerless leader. If Tilson Thomas was not born into a famous theater family, we probably wouldn't be treated to such exciting concerts.
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