Around the U.S.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. – Capping the 2023 Music on the Strait festival, pianist Jeremy Denk, violinist James Garlick, violist Richard O'Neill, and cellist Ani Aznavoorian offered glowing accounts of works by Robert and Clara Schumann and friend.

PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. – The Olympic Music Festival devoted its Aug. 20 concert to three visionary female composers of the past two centuries, with performances that combined seasoned professionals and festival Fellows.

HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. – The festival's chief conductor led the Chicago Symphony and Cliburn Competition winner Yunchan Lim in thrilling Rachmaninoff and added a charming Magic Flute. An elaborated Beethoven Ninth fared less well.

SEATTLE – Seattle Opera's choice of Wagner's Das Rheingold to open its 60th season is cause for celebration for opera fans. But the company's last full Ring was a decade ago, and there's doubt whether Seattle will revive its Wagner ambitions.

NEW YORK – The new pastiche directed by Susan Stroman closed its doors on Broadway after 110 performances, though the night I attended a packed house cheered to the rafters. The songs, the dances, the spectacle were all worth the price.

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Under music director Gerard Schwarz, the Eastern Music Festival has evolved from an orchestral and chamber music program to embrace educational experiences for young musicians and offer far-ranging repertoire.

WOOSTER, Ohio – Whether it's Gilbert and Sullivan or Lerner and Loewe, Ohio Light Opera approaches its productions with the attention to historical accuracy of an early-music group, from sets and staging to costumes and choreography.

LENOX, Mass. – Composers Tebogo Monnakgotla, Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, four distinct voices each with dozens of major works, commanded the spotlight at Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music.

SEATTLE – In the heart of summer, the Emerald City becomes a magnet for chamber-music enthusiasts, lured by the quality and variety of the concert bonanza that forms the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s month-long Summer Festival.

CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. – There is a new breeze blowing through the 86th Carmel Bach Festival. In her debut summer as artistic director, Norwegian conductor Grete Pedersen led Haydn's The Creation and the festival's first-ever Mahler.

NEW YORK – Musicologist Will Crutchfield's summer training and performance series offered Donizetti's tragedy Poliuto and the comedy Crispino e la comare (Crispino and the Fairy Godmother) by brothers Luigi and Federico Ricci.

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Pacific Northwest fans of orchestral music were offered quite the selection of concerts at the 2023 Bellingham Festival of Music: five different programs led by as many conductors in a wide range of works in 18 days.

HOLLYWOOD – As an LA Philharmonic concert demonstrated, one of Gustavo Dudamel’s key achievements as music director has been the championing of Latin American composers through his Pan American Music Initiative.

VAIL, Colo. – Nestled amid mountain peaks, the town of Vail is practically synonymous with skiing, but in summer it is a classical music mecca centered on the Bravo! Vail Music Festival and its bounty of concerts and music-education events.

NEW YORK – At Carnegie Hall, the musicians of the National Youth Orchestra-USA sported their signature uniform of bright red slacks, black blazers, white shirts, and black-and-white high-top sneakers. Andrew Davis conducted, clad in black.

SEATTLE – Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin, performing in his own Piano Quintet, headlined a July 13 concert of the Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival that added a Beethoven violin-piano sonata and a Brahms string sextet.

LENOX, Mass. – In its first programs of the 2023 summer festival, the orchestra led by Latvian music director Andris Nelsons offered works by Iranian Canadian and African American composers, along with core repertoire favorites.

SAN ANTONIO – The pixels were still wet on the musicians’ iPad displays at a festival of six way-out-there concerts by the Unheard-of//Ensemble, which is devoted mainly to exploring a widening musical universe and unconventional venues.

CHICAGO – Riccardo Muti, wrapping up 13 years at the helm, led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a crystalline account of the Missa solemnis. The conductor, who turns 82 in July, was named CSO Music Director Emeritus for Life.

CHICAGO – It is difficult to believe that Johann Adolph Hasse heard better artists than Lauren Decker and Kangmin Justin Kim in the title roles of his 1725 Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, produced with elegance and stylish detail by Haymarket Opera.