Weinberg Opera Rarity And ‘Hamlet’ In Concert Score High At Salzburg
SALZBURG – This year’s Salzburg Festival boasts an impressive variety, from a new staging of Weinberg’s The Idiot, the summer's hit, to recitals and a concert treatment of Thomas’ opera Hamlet – in which the melancholy Dane is crowned king!
Britten Opera Revels In Dream Al Fresco Setting, And In Midsummer, Too
WORMSLEY ESTATE, U.K. – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its intimate forest setting, is the perfect summer-festival opera. How fitting to see it at Garsington Opera, an al fresco enterprise located in a woods between London and Oxford.
Not Quite Traditional: ‘Ring’ Without The Rhine, But Rewards Are Golden
ZURICH – At its best, live opera is a visceral experience. Zurich Opera delivered just that with Wagner’s full Ring cycle. Conductor Gianandrea Noseda led the Philharmonia Zürich with a fine cast headed by Tomasz Konieczny's Wotan.
Batons, Bowings, Beats: A Maestro’s New Guide To Modern Masterworks
BOOK REVIEW – Leonard Slatkin’s new book belongs to a distinguished tradition, reflecting a lifetime of study and podium experience at the highest level. And it can be absorbed by anyone with a working knowledge of how to read music.
Quasi-Robotics Concert, Where AI Perhaps Stood For Almost Involved
SAN FRANCISCO – The 10th season of the San Francisco Symphony's SoundBox series ended with a conceptually fascinating program called “Press Play,” curated by “Carol Reiley and her robots.” But it needed more AI compositions.
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.
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."
‘Insurrection Songs’: Rzewski Redux, Only This Time It’s Global
DIGITAL REVIEW - Echoing his prodigious, politically inspired variations The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, for solo piano, Frederic Rzewski offers a still more ambitious work, Songs of insurrection. Pianist Thomas Kotcheff nails it.
Juilliard Turns Table, Creates Splendid New Music School in China
TIANJIN – Chinese students have long enjoyed a presence at The Juilliard School in New York. Now Juilliard has brought to China an impressive single-building campus with an international faculty to focus on ensemble training.
