Around the U.S.

By John von Rhein

Theodore Morrison's new opera Oscar starred countertenor David Daniels as the poet and playwright, while Joyce DiDonato and Susan Graham, two of America's finest mezzo-sopranos, were treated to showcase productions of their own.

By Daniel Hathaway

Russian pianist Stanislav Khristenko, 29, took first prize at the invigorated 2013 Cleveland International Piano Competition, which used bold recruitment techniques to lure the world's top talent and planted keyboards on the city's streets to create neighborhood buzz.

By Ken Hoover

I expected to see a good production of Wagner's Ring cycle at the Seattle Opera, and I was not disappointed. Created under the natural influence of the northwest environment – lots of trees, cliffs, etc. -- it may be closer to Wagner's original concept than any Ring currently being performed.

By Gary Lemco

A Music@Menlo program of Bach's French connections, given in a season devoted to the influence of various aspects of Bach's art on the composers who came after. Tournier, Debussy, Saint-Saëns and Franck are featured.

By Grace Lichtenstein

“These buildings aren’t nouns, they are verbs,” says Aspen music director Robert Spano about the festival's new facilities as “spiritually transformative” places where the orchestras are better because the rooms themselves “encourage what sounds right. It’s truly exhilarating.”

By Gary Lemco

The profound impact of Bach's contrapuntal genius on multifarious generations of composers was the subject of a recent Music@Menlo concert, which marked the West Coast debut of the Danish String Quartet and featured Swiss-born pianist Gilles Vonsattel.

By Stephen Dankner

For a significant number of devoted performers, conductors and intrepid listeners, Carter's career was uniquely inspiring. Carter created his own path, undeflected by the vagaries of trends that left no mark on his style or aesthetic.

By Mike Greenberg

The wartime composition, a capstone of the Cactus Pear Music Festival, resonates with a universal human sense of something beyond experience and reason, a feeling that touches the religious and the materialist in equal measure.

By Gary Lemco

Music@Menlo, now underway through Aug. 10, is focusing its season on Bach's influence throughout musical history. Founded by Wu Han and David Finckel, the California Bay Area festival opened with an impressive concert of Bach-influenced works from Schubert to Bartók.

By John W. Lambert

Ignat Solzhenitsyn contributes some edge-of-your-seat Shostakovich to the Eastern Music Festival, and adventuresome programming under the direction of Gerard Schwarz goes beyond the usual subscription fare.

By Elaine Strauss

CoOPERAtive — a summer program that coaches aspiring singers in the many facets of a professional vocal career — now opens master classes to all, via the web. Rider U.'s Westminster Choir College runs the program, with artists such as collaborative pianist Martin Katz on hand for guidance.

Compiled by CVNA Editors

In attendance at the 2013 Boston Early Music Festival were dozens of music critics who are members of the Music Critics Association of North America, and who held their national meeting in the midst of the festival's rich program of performances and exhibitions.

By Earl Arthur Love

The most anticipated offering of this year’s bi-annual Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) was the North American debut of Handel’s rarely performed first opera, Almira. Composed when Handel was only 19, it premiered in Hamburg in 1705. Displaying an abundance of riches, the dazzling production flew by.

By John W. Barker

Among the 93 fringe events offered at the Boston Early Music Festival were six of Biber's so-called Rosenkranz-Sonaten, each on a different violin with unique "scordatura" tuning to allow for novel fingerings and coloristic effects.

By Robert Markow

The theme of this year's Boston Early Music Festival was "Youth: Genius and Folly" and a concert called "The Birth of the Orchestra" included music from the earliest days of orchestral writing. Vitality, freshness, total conviction and infectious enthusiasm infused every moment, often leavened with a touch of humor.

By Ken Keaton

There are few opportunities for a magical performance of Medieval song in a glorious hall, but Boston Early Music Festival is on that short list. Music: Cantigas de Santa Maria. Performers: Newberry Consort and Exsultemus. Place: Jordan Hall.

By Perry Tannenbaum

Toshio Hosokawa's Matsukaze, presented at Spoleto Festival USA 2013, is an odd mishmash derived from a very old Japanese Noh play that vividly evokes the Orient, but Hannah Dübgen's German libretto jars and director Chen Shi-Zheng's spare concept disdains even basic props.

By Jack Sullivan

This year's Spoleto Festival USA struck a decidedly bittersweet note with the swan song of Joseph Flummerfelt, the choral heartbeat of the festival in both Italy and Charleston since 1971, and the last of the original Spoleto team. His finale was a soaring Verdi Requiem.

By Barbara Jepson

This year brings noteworthy programs from scenic magnets like the Glimmerglass Festival, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, the Bard Music Festival, and the Caramoor Summer Music Festival. But diehard City dwellers also have an abundance of riches available.

By Robert P. Commanday

There's choice aplenty for music lovers in Northern California, where 11 summer festivals light up the evening skies. Here's a look ahead at those devoted to concert or art music. More U.S. and Canada festival coverage below.