Issues in the Arts

DIGITAL REVIEW – Composer-pianist Penelope Thwaites, 79, performs at the center of a CD offering a retrospective on her purposefully “retro" body of work. Her music is rightly archived here as a last vestige of a lush British sound.

PERSPECTIVE – In the six years since his uneasy exit from the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert has become chief conductor of Hamburg's NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, music director of the Royal Swedish Opera, and busy guest conductor.

PERSPECTIVE – As conductor Marin Alsop features women composers at the Ravinia Festival, other high-profile summer seasons around the country are likewise paying attention to the historically notable contributions of women in classical music.

BREAKING NEWS – Evoking a world in which man-made robots threaten humanity, R.U.R. A Torrent of Light, by composer Nicole Lizée and librettist Nicolas Billon, takes the Music Critics Association of North America's 2023 Best New Opera Award.

PERSPECTIVE – Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács Quartet since 1993, has produced an excellent new book that examines works by Dvořák, Elgar, Bartók, and Britten and the connection they all felt to their native countries.

PERSPECTIVE – The tour April 14-23 marks the first time the orchestra has ventured east of the Mississippi River. Many of the musicians have strong connections to the United States, so excitement is high, says music director Jun Märkl.

PERSPECTIVE – Leon Kirchner was a man of many talents. He was also an adroit writer who inspired others to produce intriguing letters and articles to and about him. Nearly 70 of these documents have been compiled in a fascinating new book.

PERSPECTIVE – While the Vancouver Symphony in Washington is poised to become the city's cultural flagship, the Eugene Symphony in Oregon reflects the vision of its music director in exploring "what a symphony can be in the 21st century."

PERSPECTIVE – “In the midst of these seemingly endless obstacles that come our way, you have a group of musicians who play together with such a sense of community and empathy,” said Eric Garcia, music director of the Boise Philharmonic.

PERSPECTIVE – Gran Wilson is not in Oz anymore, or in his native Bessemer, Ala., for that matter. But after a colorful history of performances with far-flung opera companies, the 68-year-old tenor is still singing and pursuing new projects.

PERSPECTIVE – An eight-year hiatus from a recital tour in the U.S. has been unprecedented for 52-year-old Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, who begins a nine-city North American swing Jan. 19 in La Jolla, Calif. He finishes Jan. 31 at Carnegie Hall.

PERSPECTIVE – Julia Wolfe's fierce and exultant oratorio Her Story, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lorelei Ensemble led by Marin Alsop, capped CSO weeks that have defined the concert hall ascendancy of women.

PERSPECTIVE – Conductor Marin Alsop, who will lead a Chicago Symphony presentation of Julia Wolfe's Her Story, a multimedia work dealing with the generations-long struggle, reflects on the concert drama's import in politically frayed times. 

PERSPECTIVE – Jeremy Denk’s book Every Good Boy Does Fine is a coming-of-age story: how a gifted child living in a dysfunctional family discovers music and a love of the piano and advances through his youth to a career in music.

PERSPECTIVE – Henry Kennedy, a Shropshire lad and graduate of London's Royal Academy of Music, exemplifies a promising new wave of conductors who are acquiring music's great traditions – and wisdom – from the old guard.

PERSPECTIVE – The season's final operas at Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colón and Santiago’s Teatro Municipal offered a chance to assess how two iconic houses are emerging from the pandemic and to hear the widely banished Anna Netrebko.

PERSPECTIVE – The Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago have revived one of Verdi's greatest operas. While New Yorkers got the work in its traditional Italian version (photo), Chicago heard the French libretto for the first time.

PERSPECTIVE – It was heartening to see three recitals in Southern California by pianists from three generations: Stewart Goodyear, 44, András Schiff, 68, and Stephen Kovacevich, 82. The fare was iconic; when they were done, they were done.

PERSPECTIVE – Two productions of Strauss' lurid opera, in Basel directed by Herbert Fritsch and in Paris directed by Lydia Steier, contrasted Alice-in-Wonderland airiness with a heavy dose of ghoulish dystopianism, bloody and grim.

PERSPECTIVE – Esa-Pekka Salonen likens the difference between composing and conducting to "running a marathon and a 100-meter race." Concerts in San Francisco and Seattle offered a glimpse of the Finnish artist in both capacities.