Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio and Friends Midsummer Musicfest at Kaufmann Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y July 9, 2025 NEW YORK – July often finds New York-based musicians playing in summer festivals well outside the city. The 92nd Street Y’s Midsummer MusicFest enticed a small handful of luminaries back to town to play chamber music at the venue’s Kaufmann Concert Hall. Violinist Joshua Bell, cellist Steven Isserlis, and pianist Jeremy Denk have joined forces before, but not for a while in New York. In 2024, to commemorate the one hundredth year of his passing, they toured programs of music by the French
Read moreTerry Riley turns ninety years old today! Happy birthday from us all at Sequenza 21! Today, our friends at Red Hot Org are sharing a raga performance by Terry Riley and Sara Miyamoto. A teaser track, it will serve as the b-side for a July release by Kronos Quartet. Both Riley’s raga and the pieces on the a-side are written as anti-nuclear war messages. Riley is entitled to rest on his laurels, but he is instead remaining an advocate for peace. Thank you for this present, Terry, on your birthday no less!
Read moreThe Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director and Conductor Angel Blue, Soprano Carnegie Hall, April 18, 2025 Published on Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Virtually since its inception, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Met Orchestra for short, has given concerts alongside its main role accompanying operas. For over a hundred years, this has allowed the ensemble to stretch itself, performing vocal works, unstaged or semi-staged operas, repertoire staples, and several premieres. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has relished the opportunity to work with the musicians in this capacity. On Wednesday night, the Met Orchestra premiered a suite from
Read moreKeith Jarrett New Vienna ECM Records Keith Jarrett turned eighty on May 8th, 2025, and to fete him, ECM Records has released New Vienna, a solo piano concert recorded on his last tour, in 2016, at the Goldener Saal, Musik Verein in the Austrian city. A previous recording, The Vienna Concert, recorded in 1991 and released in 2000, was also a solo outing by Jarrett, at the Staatsoper. It has been cherished by many listeners as a particularly fine example among the many live appearances by Jarrett that have been documented and released. New Vienna is a worthy successor.
Read moreDalit Warshaw Sirens Carolina Eyck, theremin Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor Dalit Warshaw (b. 1974) is a multi-threat artist. As a composer and pianist, she has created a distinguished career. Her first orchestra piece was commissioned when she was eight years old, and this prodigious distinction has been followed by a body of work that encompasses music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, vocalists, choruses, and Letters of Mademoiselle (2018), a staged song cycle for the talented soprano Nancy Allen Lundy. The theremin has become an important part of her work. Warshaw has performed the instrument in high
Read moreLast Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark by Gwenifer Raymond Gwenifer Raymond will release her third full length recording Last Night I Heard the Dog Bark (We Are Busy Bodies) on September 5th, 2025. Ahead of the release, she is sharing the track “Jack Parsons Blues.” A gentle vocal abetted by the tang of a strummed steel string acoustic guitar gradually gives way to layers of syncopated overlapping guitars. The intricate instrumental is typical of Raymond’s considerable capabilities as an instrumentalist. It may be hard to think of September releases at the outset of the Summer season but, when
Read moreSwimming Bell Somnia EP Perpetual Doom Summers have been getting progressively hotter in much of the world. Here in the Northeast United States, we have had a mild Spring, but anticipate that summer will be a scorcher. Happily, singer/songwriter Katie Schottland ‘s project Swimming Bell has returned to serenade the season. Swimming Bell’s latest EP, Somnia (Perpetual Doom, 2025) adopts a summery vibe. “95 at Night” both embraces the heat with fevered blur and seeks to assuage it with soothing vocals, pedal steel, and an undulating beat. The end of a summer romance could find little better to
Read moreFragments 3: Alisa Weilerstein at Zankel Hall May 20th, 2025 Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Alisa Weilerstein is a supremely gifted cellist, and it is hard to imagine being anything less than riveted by her playing. At Zankel Hall last Tuesday, she made decisions for her Fragments project that seemed to be needlessly distracting. There are six Fragments programs all told, each based on one of the Bach Suites, joined by new pieces commissioned for the project. Fragments 3 featured the third cello suite alongside pieces by Joseph Hallman, Thomas Larcher, Jeffrey Mumford,
Read moreSimone Dinnerstein and Baroklyn Perform Glass at Merkin Hall Kaufman Music Center Piano Dialogues Simone Dinnerstein with Baroklyn May 12, 2025 Published on Sequenza 21 NEW YORK – Last Monday, the pianist Simone Dinnerstein brought her Baroklyn project to Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall to perform an all Philip Glass program. Baroklyn is a string ensemble, augmented at the concert by harp and celesta, assembled by Dinnerstein from musician friends with an eye towards a mostly, but not exclusively, female group. The concert opener was The Hours Suite, excerpted from the film score and arranged by Michael
Read morePierre Boulez – Livre pour quatuor Quatuor Diotima Pentatone Record CD/download The centenary of Pierre Boulez’s birth has been celebrated with concerts, books and recordings. The Diotima Quartet’s Pentatone CD of Livre pour quatuor (1948-1949, 2017) is a distinctive offering in that it includes a previously unperformed version of the piece. With permission and supervision of Boulez, the composer Philippe Manoury assisted in completing the fourth movement for Diotima. Thus, this is the first complete recording of Livre pour quatuor. At nearly an hour long, it is one of the largest of Boulez’s early compositions. Pizzicato and glissando
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