Mahlerpalooza: 10-Day Fest Drew 5 Orchestras, Fans From…Everywhere
AMSTERDAM – For the third time in its history, the Concertgebouw presented Mahler's complete symphonies, this time played by high-profile ensembles from Budapest, Tokyo, Chicago, and Berlin as well as the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Aspiring Composers Get A Leg Up; Audiences Are On Their Feet, Cheering
MINNEAPOLIS – For the lucky composers chosen to participate in the Minnesota Orchestra's Composer Institute, performance of their music is only the culmination of an intense, multi-day immersion in diverse cultural life of an orchestra.
Marsalis Adds Personal Flair To Film Honoring Jazz Legend Armstrong
SAN DIEGO – At a screening of the 2010 silent film Louis, fellow New Orleans-bred trumpeter Wynton Marsalis sat in with a 13-member band to play music he'd written or arranged from originals by Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and others.
Barrage Of Jazz Riffs Deepens The Blue In Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody’
PORTLAND, Ore. – Pianist Makato Ozone made a splashy debut with the Oregon Symphony in a jazz-infused performance. Under conductor Kevin John Edusei, the pianist, whose fans flooded the hall, wove in his own electrifying improvisations.
Love, Light, Letters: Song Cycle Embraces Painter, Photographer
NEW YORK – Kevin Puts' The Brightness of Light, a setting of correspondence between Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz tracing the arc of their relationship, was performed by Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry with the New York Philharmonic.
Percussion Recording Becomes Memorial For Featured Tabla Master
DIGITAL REVIEW – Third Coast Percussion's 20th anniversary album was transfigured when the celebrated tabla player Zakir Hussain died two months after his recording sessions for his own work Murmurs with the Chicago-based group.
‘Die Frau Ohne Schatten’ Sinks In A Cumbersome Production Sans Taste
AMSTERDAM – Katie Mitchell, director of Strauss' fairy tale at the Dutch National Opera, has dismissed Hugo van Hofmannsthal's libretto as "dated and misogynistic," declaring her own largely unfortunate take a “feminist sci-fi thriller.”
IN THE NEWS: MCANA MEMBERS' PICKS
- The Classical Music Our Critics Can’t Stop Thinking About - by Joshua Barone and others at NY Times
- Meet Rakhi Singh, the time-travelling violinist bringing together baroque and techno - by Josh Spero at Financial Times
- This 27-disc Steve Reich box set is not the work of a minimalist - by Michael Andor Brodeur at Washington Post
- A major new opera the Met has ignored - album review - by Ralph P. Locke at Arts Fuse
- ‘Jacqueline du Pré: Genius and Tragedy’ Review: Bittersweet Strings on PBS - by John Anderson at Wall Street Journal
- We said pay what you want for opera - the audience changed overnight - by Nancy Durrant at The London Times
- How I became an opera composer in a maximum security prison - by Joseph Wilson at The Marshall Project
- In S.F. debut, Isidore String Quartet is just getting started - by Rebecca Wishnia at San Francisco Classical Voice
- Violinist Curtis Stewart on making music: By serving others, I am serving myself - by Curtis Stewart at The Strad
- How I became an opera composer in a maximum security prison - by Joseph Wilson at The Marshall Project
- ‘Own every note’ – Zuill Bailey pays homage to his teacher Joel Krosnick, who died April 16 - by Larry Lapidus at Spokesman Review
- Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera - by Ralph P. Locke at Short Fuse Review Round-up
- A brilliant young tenor gets a role worthy of his voice - by Philip Kennicott at Washington Post
- Do Pittsburgh's symphony and opera suffer from 'hypeflation'? - by Jeremy Reynolds at Post-Gazette
- A conductor quietly rising into first echelon: Karina Canellakis’ bravura night with the CSO - by Lawrence B. Johnson at Chicago On the Aisle
- The Saint-Laurent Choir and its acolytes, creators of music and dreamers of dreams - by Béatrice Cadrin at Ludwig Van Montréal
- Les Arts Florissants on a Quest to Discover the Real Vivaldi - by Michael Ziebach at SF Classical Voice
- Pianist Conrad Tao explores colors of Debussy - and the Lumatone - by Janelle Gelfand at Cincinnati Business Courier
- Peninsula Music Festival features award-winning soloists, rising stars in its 73rd season - by Christopher Clough at Green Bay Press-Gazette
- Opera out loud: Rossini Festival celebrates arts for all, y'all - by Leslie Bateman at Inside of Knoxville
- Young classical musicians are disrupting the industry -- by going viral - by Jessica Duchen at iPaper
- Brooklyn man tries to break barriers with youth orchestra - by Rocco Vertuccio at NY1
- Classical music at Coachella? LA Philharmonic makes desert debut - by Danielle Broadway at Reuters
- Next-gen pianists defining the sounds of tomorrow: 10 fresh takes on Chopin - by Hermione Lai at Interlude
- We said pay what you want for opera -- The audience changed overnight - by Nancy Durrant at The Times
- New Century Chamber Orchestra sends out a 'Prayer for Peace' - by Micheal Zwiebach at San Francisco Classical Voice
- Young classical musicians, undeterred by Trump's DEI reversal, earn standing ovation at Symphony Center - by Emmanuel Camarillo at Chicago Sun-Times
- This Ukrainian genius shaped the Russian empire. His lost opera could now shatter Putin's - by Christine Chraibi at Euromaidan Press
- Tintinnabulation and the wrath of God - by Susan Miron at Boston Musical Intelligencer
Around the US
Salome Is Fraught Sum Of Her Younger Selves In Met’s Radical Version
NEW YORK - This awesome, perhaps even brilliant take on Strauss' opera, created by Claus Guth and starring Elza van den Heever, utilizes multiple incarnations of Salome at various ages, making Oscar Wilde's lurid spin on the biblical tale new.
A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT
Welcome to Classical Voice North America, the online journal of the Music Critics Association of North America. CVNA was launched in 2013 to provide an outlet for music criticism at a time when the market for traditional print journalism was shrinking. Over the past decade this trend has continued. Yet concert societies and opera companies remain vibrant and enthusiasm for what they do is undiminished. The need for informed commentary is as pressing as ever.
The mission of CVNA is to meet this need with expert coverage by members and occasional guest contributors. If you are a writer with experience in classical music, please consider joining the association. If you are a reader with thoughts to share, please write us at info@mcana.org. We believe in criticism!
AROUND CANADA
INTERNATIONAL
DISC AND STREAM
Pulled From Shadows: ‘Simon Boccanegra’ As Verdi’s Original Vision
DIGITAL REVIEW – It's usually the 1881 revival version that one encounters, and the impression not surprisingly betrays something spliced from two eras of Verdi's life. Now Mark Elder leads an integrated recording of the work written in 1857.
PARLANDO: VIVIEN SCHWEITZER'S PODCASTS
The composer, pianist and climate activist Gabriela Lena Frank talks about the environmental damage caused by the music industry, how her significant hearing loss has impacted her career, and more.
ISSUES IN THE ARTS
For Jerusalem Quartet, Shostakovich Cycle Is Dive Into Elusive Layers
PERSPECTIVE – Ahead of the ensemble's complete turn through the 15 works April 21-30 in Cleveland, its founding cellist, Kyril Zlotnikov, reflected on an arc of music not even begun until well into Shostakovich's often perilous artistic life.
MCANA HOSTED BLOGS
Prototype Festival 2020: Iron and Coal
The Prototype Festival of new opera offers a mid-winter adrenalin booster for New York opera lovers.
