At a TIME:SPANS concert at DiMenna Center this summer, I sat next to a gentleman who asked me, “How do you find out about concerts like this one?” It used to be easy, but…..over the past decade or so we’ve seen the demise of New York Times’ “Guide to the Lively Arts”, Time Out New York‘s extensive performing arts listings, and The New Yorker’s classical and opera Goings On Around Town section decimated to a mere one or two events per issue. I have long wanted to create a classical events calendar for New York City, but my own limited resources
Read moreOne of the focuses of this year’s Proms, concentrated during the month of August, was the centennial of György Ligeti. The first of these, presented on August 11 by The London Philharmonic Orchestra, along with the London Philharmonic Choir, the Royal Northern College of Music Chamber Choir, and the Edvard Grieg Kor, conducted by Edward Gardner, started in what might be the most obvious place, especially for drawing a large audience, focusing on the music used in Stanley Kurbrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The movie certainly introduced Liget’s music to a larger audience than it had ever received before that
Read moreThe late night Prom on August 9, was billed as Mindful Mix Prom. It was presented by Ola Gjello, along with Ruby Aspinall, the Carducci String Quartet, and VOCES8. It was a little difficult initially for one to know exactly what one was in store for. The advanced material invited one to “relax into a late night musical meditation” which would explore “the universal, timeless themes of night, stillness and prayer through the lens of composers old and new,” with a playlist that “drifts from Renaissance to Radiohead.” In a Proms program for an earlier concert, Tom Service’s “The Proms
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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York, Strings, Violin
I don’t know when else you’d have a chance to see expert musicians interact with a sculpture by one of the most iconic American artists of the 20th century. This rare event, on August 20 at the Dimenna Center in New York, is part of the annual TIME:SPANS festival. In Earle Brown’s Calder Piece the artist’s mobile is an essential part of the piece. The artwork will “conduct” the Talujon Percussion Quartet as its sections sway from their pivot points. And, yes, you will also get to see the instrumentalists “play” the sculpture, though the artist himself initially expected a
Read moreFestival of Contemporary Music Chamber Music Sunday, July 30, 2023 LENOX – There were a number of firsts on the July 30th chamber music concert. I have never seen the stage at Ozawa Hall require several minutes of vacuuming up bits of wood, but Malin Bång’s Arching, for amplified cello, amplified tools, and electronics, created considerable, if entertaining, mayhem. Another first: hearing “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round,” paired in fugal counterpoint with the Brahms lullaby. The find for me at FCM was Tebogo Monnakgotla, a Swedish composer who curated Sunday’s concert. The aforementioned nursery
Read moreBoston 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
Read moreBoston Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor Avery Amereau, mezzo-soprano July 29, 2023 LENOX – This year’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood spotlighted female composers. Four created self-curated concerts, and others were featured on BSO concerts. Agata Zubel’s In the Shade of an Unshed Tear, originally composed for the Seattle Symphony, was on the program Saturday night in the Shed. Before its performance, conductor Dima Slobodeniouk talked briefly with Zubel onstage. Prominent among their remarks were the stipulations of the original commission. Seattle was pairing Zubel’s piece with works by Beethoven and wanted her to compose for a classical-sized
Read moreMichael Schell reconsiders the controversial legacy of composer Hanns Eisler for his 125th anniversary, with an in-depth look at his magnum opus: Deutsche Sinfonie.
Read moreManchester Collective Neon Bedroom Community Alex Jakeman, Flute; Oliver Pashley, Clarinet; Rakhi Singh, Violin; Hannah Roberts, Cello; Beibei Wang, Vibraphone; Katherine Tinker, Piano Manchester Collective’s fourth recording, Neon, includes totemic pieces by Steve Reich and Julius Eastman, as well as works by Hannah Peel and the first concert music composition by Lyra Pramuk. It is a well-considered and excellently performed program. The centerpiece is Steve Reich’s Double Sextet, a work for two “Pierrot plus Percussion” ensembles that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. The piece can either be performed live by twelve musicians or by a single sextet
Read moreThomas Adés Dante Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Symphony, Gustavo Dudamel, conductor Nonesuch CD Thomas Adés The Dante Project London Symphony Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Koen Kessels, conductor Opus Arte Bluray DVD It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to use Dante as the centerpiece of one’s own creative work. Thomas Adés has courage in spades, as he has created an ambitious ballet based on the Divine Comedy, for dancers, chorus, and orchestra, commemorating the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death. Two documents of the piece are currently available, a Nonesuch recording of the
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