Today is not a day in which one considers celebrations, but we are pleased to send Arvo Pärt greetings and congratulations on his ninetieth birthday.
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CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Recording review, Recordings, Twentieth Century Composer
Tobias Picker NOVA Various Artists Bright Shiny Things Composer Tobias Picker won a Grammy for his 2020 operatic version of The Fantastic Mister Fox, and many pianists have first encountered him through the diatonic piece The Old and Lost Rivers. Picker has another side to his musical persona that is in no small measure reflective of his time as a student of Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Charles Wuorinen. The Bright Shiny Things recording NOVA includes chamber music that celebrates these high modernist roots, as well as forays into postmodernism. The title work is the latter, a riff
Read more2025 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
Read moreBell-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
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