Enchanted Woods: Shakespeare & Song, Feb. 2-11 at Portland Opera, is an evening of story and song inspired by 20th-century adaptations of Shakespeare’s enduring works. It will feature poetry and music by a variety of composers and literary figures, collected in homage to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. https://www.portlandopera.org/
Eun Sun Kim, music director of the San Francisco Opera, makes her debut with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Feb. 15-17. She will conduct Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition as well as two works featuring pianist Louis Lortie: Mozart’s Rondo, K. 382, and Fauré’s Ballade, Op. 19. https://www.osm.ca/en/concerts/mozart-and-faure-with-louis-lortie-and-eun-sun-kim/
On Feb. 16-17, music director Rafael Payare will lead the San Diego Symphony in two works by Ravel—Le tombeau de Couperin and La valse—and one by Debussy—Images—as well Gabriela Ortiz’s Altar de bronce. The Ortiz, a co-commission by the SDS, will feature guest trumpeter Pacho Flores. This will be the work’s West-Coast premiere. https://jacobsmusiccenter.org/archives/events/ravel-debussy-and-ortiz/
Throughout the 2023-34 season, the San Francisco Symphony will present its SoundBox series, curated by four musicians on each of four weekends. The small Soundbox space is designed to allow for multi-sensory, interactive experiences. Expect the unexpected. Get ready to see musical experiments in action. The details of the SoundBox programs remain under wraps, but […]
The West Coast will have its first chance to see Robert O’Hara’s new staging of Anthony Davis’ The Life and Times of Malcolm X when Seattle Opera presents the work Feb. 24-March 9. The cast includes Kenneth Kellogg, Joshua Stewart, Leah Hawkins, and Ronnita Miller. Kazem Abdullah conducts. https://www.seattleopera.org/
As part of its Recovered Voices series Feb. 24-March 17, the LA Opera and conductor James Conlon will perform two little-known one-acts. William Grant Still’s Highway 1, USA stars Norman Garrett and Nicole Heaston as an ordinary American couple making misguided choices to get ahead. Alexander Zemlinsky’s The Dwarf is based on a heartbreaking tale […]
American composer Mason Bates completed his Violin Concerto in 2012, but it has never been performed on the West Coast. The San Diego Symphony and violinist Gil Shaham will correct that omission on Feb. 24-25 in a program that also includes The Ring Without Words, an orchestral arrangement by Lorin Maazel of highlights from Wagner’s […]
Alexander Scriabin’s symphonic poem Prometheus, The Poem of Fire celebrates synesthesia and cosmic unity. San Francisco Symphony music mirector Esa-Pekka Salonen has partnered with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Cartier in-house perfumer Mathilde Laurent to create a multisensory production of Prometheus that aims to realize Scriabin’s vision of a truly synesthetic work of art. March 1-3. https://www.sfsymphony.org/Discover-the-Music/Prometheus
