Review

Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism, Piano, Review

Georg Friedrich Haas’ 11,000 Strings At Park Avenue Armory

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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by Gail Wein
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Minimalism, Review

Philip Glass Solo – 88 keys at 87 (Review)

Philip Glass Solo Philip Glass, piano Orange Mountain Music This is the second piano album made by Philip Glass. Solo Piano (1989) contains some overlap of tracks with the latest recording, Philip Glass Solo (2024), but there are distinct differences between the renditions on each. At 87 years of age, and in demand from opera houses, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, and filmmakers for a steady spate of new works, a solo performance recording might seem like an unnecessary addition to Glass’s catalog. But it is in those aforementioned differences found in the music that he shares a different vantage point

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by Christian Carey
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Review

Wicked GOAT – Stories

On Sunday, March 24, 2024 the Pasadena Conservatory of Music presented the second in this season’s Wicked GOAT concert series of Contemporary Music for Young People. The concert is free to the Conservatory community and every seat in Barrett Hall was filled with eager faces and proud parents. The theme for this occasion was Stories and a stellar group of Los Angeles-based performers were on hand to bring four new music compositions to life, including a world premiere. Sopranos Hila Plitmann and Elissa Johnston brought their extraordinary voices to the stage, and this was the first Wicked GOAT concert to

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by Paul Muller
Film Music, Review

Bernstein as performance: Bradley Cooper’s Maestro

If you’re up for seeing Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s much-heralded Leonard Bernstein biopic, then try to do it now, in a movie theater, before it gets remanded permanently to Netflix. The big-screen experience is worth it, for reasons I’ll get to momentarily. But let me preface this by noting that—as was the case with Todd Field’s Tár—the last place to look for cogent analysis of Maestro as a film is the throng of classical music professionals offering strong opinions about its errors and omissions. Maestro—again like Tár—is permeated by music but is not primarily about music. It’s ultimately a Hollywood love

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by Michael Schell
Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Lincoln Center, New York, Review

Turangalila at New York Philharmonic / Nightcap with Gamelan Dharma Swara

Just before the NY Philharmonic concert began playing Turangalila by Olivier Messiaen at David Geffen Hall on Saturday, the stranger sitting next to me asked if I thought he would like it. I told him it’s very different and very thrilling. Just keep an open mind. For classical music enthusiasts of a certain ilk, a performance of Turangalila is a hotly anticipated special occasion. It doesn’t get performed all that often, perhaps because it requires additional personnel on stage (ten percussionists!), it takes up an entire program, AND you have to find an ondes martenot (an early 20th century electronic

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by Gail Wein
Contemporary Classical, Review

Gene Pritsker – Cloud Atlas Symphony

NEscapes Records has released Cloud Atlas Symphony, by Gene Pritsker, performed by the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony and choir, conducted by Kristjan Jarvi. Some ten years in the making and based on music from the film ‘Cloud Atlas’ by Tom Tykwer, Jonny Klimek and Reinhold Heil, Cloud Atlas Symphony is a re-imagining of the film music into the wider context of a contemporary symphonic performance. As the composer writes in the liner notes: “I wrote this symphony because I was inspired by this story, by this movie and by a new concept of taking music, that was created specifically for

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by Paul Muller
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York, Orchestral, Review, Twentieth Century Composer

The Parker Quartet premieres Jeremy Gill’s “Motherwhere”

April the First proved a propitious date for the New York Classical Players’ much anticipated program featuring a new collaboration – and premiere – with the Parker Quartet. In the mere twelve years since their inception, NYCP has consistently brought spirit and devotion to so much of what they do, and this early Spring concert at W83 Auditorium was no exception. In many respects, the highlight of the evening was Jeremy Gill’s joyous new work, “Motherwhere,” a concerto grosso for the Parker Quartet and NYCP. But well-worn, oft’-loved music by Tchaikovsky was also on offer, delivered with great heart. And

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by Adam Sherkin
Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Piano, Review

Video: Musical Interludes – The Vexations

The Pasadena Conservatory of Music has recently produced The Vexations, a new YouTube video that is an overview of the life of Erik Satie as based on the novel by Caitlin Horrocks. Part of the Conservatory’s Musical Interludes series, this video features narration by actress Jane Kaczmarek in the role of Satie’s sister Louise, along with Nic Gerpe and Kathryn Eames performing on the piano. Filmed in the warm acoustic of Monk Space with a credible staging of Belle Époque Paris, The Vexations is an appealing and accessible way to a greater understanding of the life of Satie and his

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by Paul Muller
Classical Music, Recordings, Review

Beth Gibbons Astonishes in a New Górecki’s Third

After a decade-long studio hiatus, Beth Gibbons steps from behind the curtains with a project that feels as organic as it does surprising. Organic because its integration is undeniable, and surprising only to those unfamiliar with her trajectory. The Portishead frontwoman has always been known for her intensity as singer and songwriter, navigating a range uncommon both within and without the scene to which she has been aligned. The darkly inflected splash of Portishead’s 1994 debut, Dummy, threw her and bandmates Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley into a drawer marked “Trip Hop,” a label that risked gessoing over the genre-defying

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by Tyran Grillo
CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, New York, Recordings, Review

Ghost Ensemble: We Who Walk Again (LP Review)

We Who Walk Again Ghost Ensemble Indexical LP/Download Since 2012, New York’s Ghost Ensemble has pursued a deep listening ethos that incorporates a range of repertoire, both pieces by ensemble members and works by composers such as David Bird, Kyle Gann, Giacinto Scelsi, and Gerard Grisey. Any ensemble in the US that references “deep listening” invariably is also interested in Deep Listening, the piece that evolved into a discipline and subsequent body of musical and theoretical work from sound artist Pauline Oliveros. Since its inception Ghost Ensemble has been associated with Oliveros’ work, both her compositions and sound practices. It

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by Christian Carey