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On Outside, Looking In: Music Honors Cultures At Margins Of Society

NEW YORK – Life is a cabaret. For outsiders, it’s also a struggle that has long acted as creative inspiration. The American Composers Orchestra explored that inspiration in a concert at Carnegie Hall called America in Weimar: On the Margins.

Focus On Bright Stars, Ambitious Arts Festival Creates A Constellation

ADELAIDE – To offset other risks, the venerable Adelaide Arts Festival offered two shows directed by favorites of the annual event, Robert Lepage's treatment of Stravinsky's The Nightingale and Barrie Kosky's setting of The Threepenny Opera.

Sound Of Nordic Music Echoes Through Festival Touching Diverse Styles

BOSTON – The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Music of the Midnight Sun Festival, with four concerts spanning two weeks, explored music of Scandinavia ranging from Grieg's Peer Gynt to works by Sibelius and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

Breaking Covid Silence, Music From Japan Goes On Generational Venture

NEW YORK – In its first live festival in New York City since 2020, the organization celebrated its 49th season with a survey of “Japanese Contemporary Music: Past and Present,” including five composers spanning more than a century.

From Rear Perspective, Rotterdam Philharmonic Creates A Potent Sound

ORLANDO – Led by principal conductor Lahav Shani, the visiting orchestra proved to be a powerhouse of calibrated precision in Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. It was my first time sitting in the grand-tier chorus section, facing the conductor.

Cage’s Opera Potpourri: Mixed Bundles Of Hits Offered In Playful Vibe

DETROIT – Detroit Opera's Yuval Sharon bravely staged John Cage’s Europeras 3 & , in which singers perform arias of their choice, pianists play opera transcriptions, and record players provide instrumental sections, all determined by chance.

Sounding The Long Fall Of Belle Epoque, From Bruckner To Schoenberg

NEW YORK – In three March concerts at Carnegie Hall, conductor Franz Welser-Möst led the Vienna Philharmonic in programs that outlined a sea-change course from the Bruckner Ninth though the Mahler Ninth to the Second Viennese School.

An Oboe Ode To Joy: Youth Meets Diversity In A Profusion Of Delights

SEATTLE – Artistry and camaraderie shared top billing at Oboe / Oboe, a high-spirited concert presented by Emerald City Music, whose creative series aspires to open classical music to younger and more diverse audiences and performers.

To Orchestra In Need, Guest Conductor Brings Affinity Of An Old Friend

SEATTLE – in its search for a new music director, the Seattle Symphony has played under the wide-ranging styles of seven different conductors this season, but the high-level playing under David Robertson conveyed an aura of mutual comfort.
Spoleto USA

Energized Spoleto USA Runs Brash Gamut From Barber To Balloon Pops

CHARLESTON, S.C. – An imaginative revival of Barber's Vanessa was the 2023 festival highlight, but the offerings around town also included edgy and outré works along with standards like The Rite of Spring and the New World Symphony.

On Portland’s Vibrant Music Scene, New Is Nourished Everywhere

PORTLAND, Ore. – This city has become a busy hub for new music. Its vigorous creativity ranges from chamber ensembles dedicated to contemporary music to companies that explore the latest operas. The place is jumping.

A Ring Of Authenticity: ‘Das Rheingold’ Played On Period Instruments

PERSPECTIVE – Kent Nagano led the early-music ensemble Concerto Köln in a version based on lengthy research by a special committee that sought the sound Wagner might have hoped for when composing the piece in the 1850s.

Michael Tilson Thomas Returns To SF Podium In Warm Homecoming

SAN FRANCISCO – His characteristic erect posture unaltered by the recent physical and emotional challenges of brain-tumor surgery, MTT, who turns 77 on Dec. 21, led the San Francisco Symphony in his own music and Schumann's.

Hail, Bright Abode! Life (And Art) Reaffirmed At The Resurgent LA Opera

LOS ANGELES – Defiantly back in business after a long pandemic-induced hiatus, the LA Opera took a giant step toward normalcy by staging Wagner’s Tannhäuser, the company’s first production of anything by Wagner in eight and a half years.

Not Bass, Not Baritone, Davóne Tines Revels In A Register All His Own

PERSPECTIVE – Tines, who has burst onto the world's music stages, commands a range of more than three octaves, from low D to high E-flat. He says he is neither a bass nor a baritone: “It’s a broader conception of how to think about voice.”

Summer Fests: Warm Air Renews Its Familiar Lure Across Midwest

PREVIEW – At last, some good news! William Grant Still's opera Highway 1, U.S.A. is among the offerings this summer as Midwest opera and orchestra festivals offer their novel enticements to draw people back into the concert habit.

Sleuths Pursue Chopin As Genius And Enigma Across Pages Of Time

BOOK REVIEW – Three recent books about the composer-pianist offer rich insights into his life as man and musician. All three offer much to ponder, and time and again had this reader reaching for a score or a recording to follow up.

Composer Schwantner, Marching To His Own Drum, Chimes, Crotales

PERSPECTIVE – Even with some 60 works and a Pulitzer Prize to his credit, Joseph Schwantner's far-ranging sound palette and distinctive voice remain something of a hidden treasure, unfamiliar to much of the concertgoing public.

On Foot And In Song, Retracing Stony Course Of Blacks In New York

NEW YORK - In its series of site-specific operas in unconventional locations throughout the city, On Site Opera now offers The Road We Came, walking tours with streamed music recalling the richness and the trials of Black history here.

Radio Host Is Bridging Gap Between Blacks, Classical Music World

PERSPECTIVE – Terrance McKnight has always lived his life "between the two worlds" of being Black and being part of the classical music culture. He wants to bring everyone’s culture to the table, "not putting one above the other."
Classical Voice North America