Princeton Symphony, Rossen Milanov, conductor Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University March 7, 2026 Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey PRINCETON – Some regional professional orchestras play it safe, not straying far from Mozart and Beethoven and considering a Brahms symphony their most adventurous outing. Not so the Princeton Symphony. Last Saturday, they played two new works by Viet Cuong and Julian Grant, as well as the complete ballet version of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Each composer in their own way dealt with a mélange of styles and multiple reference points. In Extra(ordinarily Fancy, Viet Cuong uses the baroque concerto style as a
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ACO, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, New York, Orchestral
On March 11, 2026 at Carnegie Hall, the American Composers Orchestra will perform the world premiere of Cosmologyscape by the composer and violinist Kite. The work was commissioned by the ACO. An essential aspect of the work is crowd-sourced: the audience is invited to submit descriptions of their dreams ahead of time via the Cosmologyscape website. These dreams will be translated by an AI app into a visual language of Lakota symbols, which will be projected on stage at the performance. The composition is a concerto grosso of sorts, as the Cosmology Ensemble (Marilu Donovan, harp; Nava Dunkelman, percussion; JJJJJerome
Read moreMusic for Guitars, Bass Clarinets & Contrabasses – Various Artists (Aural Terrains) Last month, I was pleased to have my music visit Cafe Oto for the first time, with Feier, a solo piece, performed on a contrabass clarinet. The venue is well known for presentations of experimental music of many kinds. Not all of the shows there are in circulation, but Cafe Oto has some releases for sale on their website. Others have been documented for the label Aural Terrains, including a new recording of a gig from 2023, made by a most heterogeneous grouping of instrumentalists: guitarists, bass clarinetists,
Read moreBanish the inescapable treacly holiday music with this palette cleanser for Boxing Day. Other Minds has shared this recital of music by “Blue” Gene Tyranny and Robert Ashley, performed by pianists Sarah Cahill and Joseph Kubera on Sunday, September 7, 2025 at Mills College. Much of the programmed music was premiered by the performers.
Read morePierre-Laurent Aimard in Recital 92nd Street Y November 19, 2025 Published in Sequenza 21 NEW YORK – Pianist Pierre-Laurant Aimard has had a long and fruitful collaboration with the composer George Benjamin. Aimard’s recital program this past Wednesday at the 92nd Street Y was conceived and built around two of Benjamin’s pieces, Shadowlines, a group of six canons for solo piano, and Divisions, a new four-hand piece on which the composer joined him for this New York premiere. The other programmed works were meant to complement the Benjamin pieces and proved to be strong foils for them. Nikolai
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Classical Music, Commissions, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, jazz, Lincoln Center, New York, Orchestras, Premieres
An expansive palette of colors was on display at the New York Philharmonic concert at David Geffen Hall on Friday. David Robertson shone a light on the performers and the scores, exposing nuances of hues, pastels, brights and brilliance. The entire program – Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, the Violin Concerto by Wyton Marsalis and the world premiere of a new work by Caroline Mallonee – focused on color and mood. I had high hopes in particular for this performance of Petrushka, to erase my memory of a flaccid reading of the work a couple of years ago. The Philharmonic redeemed themselves,
Read moreChris Thile at 92nd Street Y Kauffmann Concert Hall October 19, 2025 NEW YORK – Chris Thile is one of the best mandolinists around, and he has established himself as a singer, songwriter, and storyteller as well. On Sunday, he performed a solo concert at the 92nd Street Y that brought together these various activities. From 2016 to 2020, Thile hosted Live from Here, a variety show for public radio modeled on its predecessor A Prairie Home Companion. The pandemic made continuing the show impractical but he has since returned to the concept via podcasting, and his performance at
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Choral Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Criticism
In listening to a three-hour concert of music by Arvo Pärt, the brilliance of the Estonian composer’s craft becomes clear. His use of percussion is a masterclass in orchestration, announcing the beginning of a piece with a chime, punctuating string passages with a ding or a gong, and clamorous timpani rolls in rare fortissimo moments. This all-Pärt concert on October 23 was the first program in a season-long celebration of the 90-year old composer at Carnegie Hall. Pärt holds the Composer’s Chair at Carnegie this season (that’s the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair, to you). The occasion was also the American
Read moreThe NY Philharmonic Celebrates Boulez’s Centenary Works by Bartók, Boulez, Debussy, and Stravinsky Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano New York Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Saturday, October 4, 2025 Saturday, October 11, 2025 NEW YORK – In October, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted the New York Philharmonic for two consecutive weeks. Both programs celebrated the centenary of the composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), who was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 1971-1977. Boulez was a key figure of the post-WWII avant-garde and a proponent of serial music, then in its early stages. By the 1970s, Boulez was an internationally renowned conductor of
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Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism, Piano, Review
At first glance, it seems like a stunt: 50 pianos and pianists, plus 25 other instrumentalists, all arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the vast Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. They were there to perform 11,000 Strings, a 66 minute composition by Georg Friedrich Haas, commissioned and performed by the Austrian new music ensemble Klangforum Wien. Performances began September 30 and run through October 7, 2025 (I attended on October 2). At the onset, I was ready to condemn this work as B.S., a party trick, but it’s definitely more than that.
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