Conductors

Choral Music, Composers, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Orchestras

Adés Conducts the New York Philharmonic

Adés Conducts the New York Philharmonic David Geffen Hall January 24, 2026  Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey   NEW YORK – Thomas Adés is best known as a composer, but he is a talented conductor as well. Leading the New York Philharmonic in a program of recent works and a neglected early twentieth century piece, his approach was effusive and commanding, with a versatile and fluid gestural repertoire. The orchestra’s musicians always play at a high standard, but their performance on last Saturday’s concert was superlative, and given the challenges posed by the programmed pieces, all the more

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by Christian Carey
Composers, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music: Orchestra Concert

  2025 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra July 28, 2025   LENOX – This year’s Festival of Contemporary Music was curated by composer Gabriela Ortiz. Born in Mexico City, Ortiz is one of the most prominent Latinx figures in twenty-first century classical music. Among other honors, she is composer-in-residence at Carnegie Hall and the Curtis Institute. Revolucióndiamantina, a recording of her music by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, won three GRAMMY Awards in 2025. This year, FCM has spotlighted music from Mexico, as well as that of women composers. After four chamber ensemble

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by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Lincoln Center, New York, Orchestras, Twentieth Century Composer, Vocals

Remaking a Rug Concert: Boulez at 100

Sound On: A Tribute to Boulez The New York Philharmonic, Conducted by David Robertson Jane McIntyre, Soprano David Geffen Hall, January 25, 2025 By Christian Carey – Sequenza 21   NEW YORK – If you think that audience development is a relatively new practice, then you may not have heard of Rug Concerts. In the 1970s, during Pierre Boulez’s tenure as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, these were an experiment to attempt to attract young people and downtown artsy types to try a concert at Avery Fisher Hall. Instead of rows of seating, rugs were strewn about the

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by Christian Carey
Canada, Cello, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Composers Now, Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, New York, Orchestral, Premieres, viola, Violin, Women composers

Momenta Festival IX: Ives at 150 and a Quartet at 20

On Thursday evening in New York, Momenta Quartet’s October festival – now nine years running – closed with an assorted program, enthusiastically curated by violist/composer Stephanie Griffin. Griffin is the last founding member still actively performing with the group. Noting that this festival has ever featured the opportunity for each member to have curatorial carte blanche on one night only, Griffin nodded to the overall 2024 theme – Charles Ives at 150 – while admitting that “this is not a thematic program, but rather a joyous collection of pieces that I saw fit to celebrate the genius of Charles Ives

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by Adam Sherkin
Concert review, Conductors, File Under?, Orchestras, Twentieth Century Composer

Concert Review: NY Philharmonic performs Ligeti

New York Philharmonic, Susanna Mälkki, conductor Jenõ Lisztes, Cimbalom David Geffen Hall November 4, 2023 NEW YORK – Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (1851) is such a challenging barnstormer of a piece that one often wonders how ten fingers suffice. On Saturday evening, Jenõ Lisztes, making his New York Philharmonic debut, used two mallets on a cimbalom to realize the rhapsody. His arrangement replicated the work in its entirety, and he played it with extraordinary virtuosity. Liszt was known to improvise a cadenza at the end of the piece, and Lisztes improvised one of his own, improbably one-upping the

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by Christian Carey
Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?

Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, 7/30/2023 (Concert Review)

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Anna Rakitina, conductor Joshua Bell, violin Eliza Bagg, Martha Cluver, and Sonja Dutoit Tengblad, vocalists July 30, 2023   LENOX – The Boston Symphony’s offerings on the weekend of the annual Festival of Contemporary Music dovetailed with its curation, lifting up female composers and, on Sunday, a conductor. Leading the orchestra on Saturday, July 30th was Anna Rakitina, who has served as the ensemble’s Assistant Conductor until this Summer. She is a rising star and led the orchestra with assuredness, providing detailed interpretations of all of the scores on the program. The orchestra, for their part, were

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by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Seattle

Boulez and Berio highlight Morlot’s farewell [untitled] concert at Seattle Symphony

Seattle Symphony’s [untitled] series was inaugurated in 2012 by its then-new Music Director, Ludovic Morlot. Three Fridays a year, small groupings of Symphony and visiting musicians set up in the Grand Lobby outside the orchestra’s main Benaroya Hall venue for a late night of contemporary music. This year’s series has been devoted to the European avant-garde, starting with Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee in October and continuing this past March 22 with two landmarks of Darmstadt serialism: Berio’s Circles and Boulez’s sur Incises. The latter performance, which featured Morlot conducting the work’s regional premiere, offered an opportunity to contemplate the legacies of

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by Michael Schell
Best of, Boston, CD Review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Criticism, Critics, File Under?, Orchestral, Recordings, Review, San Francisco, Saxophone

Best Orchestra Portrait CD: BMOP Plays Peterson

Wayne Peterson Transformations Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor; PRISM Quartet BMOP/sound 1053   Composer Wayne Peterson (b. 1927) served as one of his generation’s fixtures on the West Coast music scene where, in addition to several other academic appointments, he elevated the composition program at San Francisco State to prominence. Despite fine recordings of his chamber music, this is his first portrait disc of orchestral music. 2017 has been a year where Boston Modern Orchestra Project, under the inspired direction of Gil Rose, has released a number of fine recordings, including CDs of works by Paul Moravec, David

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by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Composers, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?, Interviews, Orchestras

Interview: Julia Adolphe

This week, The New York Philharmonic premieres their second commission by composer Julia Adolphe. The first, 2016’s Unearth, Release, was a warmly received viola concerto for Philharmonic Principal Violist Cynthia Phelps. The latest, White Stone, will be premiered July 26th as part of the orchestra’s Bravo! Vail series in Colorado. I recently had a chance to catch up with Adolphe about both of these collaborations, as well as her opera Sylvia.    Who were/are your composition mentors at Cornell and USC? What is something that you’ve learned from each?   I’ve had two incredible mentors who’ve inspired me to become a composer. The first was Steven Stucky, who gave me private

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by Christian Carey
Composers, Conductors, Deaths, Obits

RIP Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

English composer and conductor Peter Maxwell Davies died on Monday, March 14th 2016. At the age of 81, Davies passed away in his Orkney home. The cause of death was leukemia. In 2004, Davies was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music. Farewell to Stromness is one of Davies most popular works for solo piano. The piece is a piano interlude from his work The Yellow Cake Revue, a work he created for the campaign against the proposed uranium mine on the Oakley Isles. In this recording of his Symphony No. 7, Davies displays his skills as both composer and conductor

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by Cortlandt Matthews