CD Roundup: Tchaikovsky miniatures, Rococo flute pieces and duo-violin works
By Roy C. Dicks: What's the Score?
CD Reviews: Tchaikovsky miniatures, Rococo flute works and duo-violin pieces
Bolcom Premiere Crowns 80th Year For Chicago Fest
By Kyle MacMillan
CHICAGO – The Grant Park Music Festival has long championed Pulitzer-winning William Bolcom, beginning with his landmark Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1986. Now comes Millennium: Concerto-Fantasia.
Swinging, Soulful B’way Cast Clicks In ‘West Side Story’
By Richard S. Ginell
Rejecting Leonard Bernstein's disjointed operatic approach, Michael Tilson Thomas' new recording is all of a piece, the sound of 1957 Broadway stretching confidently into fresh, tragic territory instead of a work at war with itself.
John Luther Adams Melds Music, Open Air Milieu For ‘Sila’
By Gail Wein
NEW YORK – To kick off the Mostly Mozart Festival, 80 musicians gathered in and around Lincoln Center's plaza pool for the premiere of Sila: The Breath of the World as the audience roamed. Spectacular weather played its part.
Hearing the Los Angeles Philharmonic Outdoors and iPalpiti Indoors
By Richard S. Ginell: From Out of the West
In the good old summertime in the Los Angeles area, classical music heads outdoors to Hollywood...
Spoleto Fest USA Turns Modernist With 2014 Lineup
By Perry Tannenbaum
CHARLESTON, S.C. – A new sense of adventure pervades Spoleto Festival USA, where the scales have tipped toward newer works. Among this year's offerings is the U.S. premiere of Michael Nyman's opera Facing Goya.
The Electric Don Ellis Remembered in a New Video
By Richard S. Ginell: From Out of the West
Why isn’t Don Ellis up there in the pantheon of big band jazz icons with Duke,...
Chicago SO Fetes Three Composers In ‘Truth to Power’
By Nancy Malitz
CHICAGO - A Chicago Symphony festival will celebrate Shostakovich, Britten and Prokofiev under guest Jaap van Zweden, who admires the composers' ability to "create beautiful flowers in the darkest of times."
Seattle Symphony Spotlights Carter In Label Launch
By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW - Joining the go-it-alone recording trend, the Seattle Symphony under Ludovic Morlot has issued an all-American release including Elliott Carter's Instances, written for them at the unbelievable age of 103.
Rouse and Adams Scores Make Carnegie Debuts
By Heidi Waleson
NEW YORK – The first two concerts in the fourth and final "Spring for Music" featured the New York Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony, the latter in the Pulitzer-winning Become Ocean by John Luther Adams (right).
Toronto ‘Devereux’ Strong But Short On Stylishness
By Colin Eatock
TORONTO – The Canadian Opera Company is delving into lesser-known repertoire, including Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, which is onstage in a production that replaces bel canto subtlety with verismo-like intensity.
B’way, Opera Join In Chicago Lyric’s ‘Sound of Music’
By Nancy Malitz
CHICAGO -- An ambitious venture into the golden era of Rodgers and Hammerstein pursues an increasingly recognized connection between the mid-century American musical and the European tradition of operetta.
Holocaust Concert Celebrates Music As Remembrance
By Philippa Kiraly
SEATTLE – It's been 16 seasons since Mina Miller began to present Music of Remembrance chamber music concerts memorializing Kristallnacht and the Holocaust. These concerts are like no others.
Poignant Baroque ‘St. Matthew’ Gets An Airing At Last
By Adeline Sire
BOSTON – Lutenist Paul O'Dette tried to introduce Johann Sebastiani's Passion According to Saint Matthew in 1997, but he had to wait until last weekend to realize his dream at the New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall.
Wildly Inventive ‘Rheingold’ Opens ‘Ring’ In Houston
By Mike Greenberg
HOUSTON – Is it opera? Is it film? Is it circus? Yes. And the miraculous, acrobatic European production of Richard Wagner's 'Das Rheingold,' in its U.S. debut by Houston Grand Opera, is also politically fearless.Sarasota Opera’s Verdi Project Sets the Standard with ‘Jérusalem’
By Roy C. Dicks: What's the Score?
"Jérusalem," Sarasota Opera's latest entry in its Verdi Cycle, is a satisfying, often thrilling production.CD/DVD Roundup: Haydn, Heggie, Britten & Vivaldi
By Roy C. Dicks: What's the Score?
CD/DVD Reviews: New releases of Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, Heggie's Moby-Dick, Britten's Cello Symphony and Vivaldi's Four Seasons
‘Flying Dutchman’ Weathers Rough Seas In Sarasota
By Roy C. Dicks
SARASOTA, Fla. – Florida's plucky, adventurous Sarasota Opera opened its 2014 Winter Festival with Wagner's 'Der Fliegende Holländer,' in a production that had a number of gratifying moments and as many that missed the mark.
Sarasota’s Verdi Crusade Advances With ‘Jérusalem’
Bv John Fleming
SARASOTA, Fla. – Where would an obscure 19th-century opera be the most anticipated work of the season? Only at Sarasota Opera, and only if it's Verdi. This year, 'Jérusalem' fits the all-Verdi plan begun in 1989.
