February 7, 2026 • 3:54 pm 0
For my latest story in The Seattle Times, I spoke with Xian Zhang about this week’s program featuring Iris dévoilé by Qigang Chen:
As her first season at the helm of the Seattle Symphony moves into its second half, what Music Director Xian Zhang is hoping to achieve with the orchestra — and with the local audience — is beginning to crystallize….
Filed under: Seattle Symphony, Seattle Times, Xian Zhang
January 31, 2026 • 10:30 am 0
Ahead of their Carnegie Hall appearance together on Sunday, February 1, with the Colorado Symphony, I spoke with Itzhak Perlman and Peter Oundjian for The Strad about their enduring friendship and shared musical values:
A few weeks before their reunion on stage at Carnegie Hall with the Colorado Symphony, Itzhak Perlman and Peter Oundjian reflected on a relationship shaped over many decades. They spoke from different locations – Perlman from Florida, where he was leading this year’s edition of the Perlman Music Program, and Oundjian from his home in Connecticut – ahead of their joint appearance on 1 February, which marks both the orchestra’s first performance at Carnegie Hall in nearly half a century and a return to shared music-making for two artists whose connection began in mentorship and has evolved into enduring friendship.
Filed under: Colorado Symphony, conductors, The Strad, violinists
January 30, 2026 • 10:26 am 0
I spoke with Minnesota Orchestra principal violist Rebecca Albers for The Strad about preparing the North American premiere of Donghoon Shin’s Threadsuns – a viola concerto inspired by Paul Celan’s poetry, which she performs this weekend. Fabien Gabel conducts. Given everything happening in Minnesota right now, the piece feels heartbreakingly timely.
In a moving decision, the Minnesota Orchestra also announced a change to the program in response to tragedy in the community. Opening the concerts is the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, offered in memorial for Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and shared “with love for our audience and our beautiful city” on a program that explores resilience and the search for “songs to sing” amidst darkness.
January 29, 2026 • 11:07 am 0
Last week’s New York Philharmonic program under Thomas Adès, anchored in the newly expanded version of his America: A Prophecy, was one of the most thought-provoking, unusual, and compelling programs I’ve encountered in ages. My review for Musical America (sorry for the paywall):
NEW YORK—Thomas Adès was 28 when the New York Philharmonic first programmed his music on a major subscription concert. America: A Prophecy was commissioned as part of a series marking the threshold of a new millennium and received its premiere in November 1999 under Kurt Masur. At last week’s concerts, a new, expanded version of America anchored the program, this time with Adès himself on the podium. …
Filed under: Charles Ives, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Musical America, New York Philharmonic, review, Saariaho, Thomas Adès
January 26, 2026 • 8:33 pm 0
I reviewed the The American Revolution: Music From The PBS Documentary, produced by Johnny Gandelsman for the excellent Ken Burns documentary series on PBS, in the February issue of Gramophone:
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, providing the soundtrack to The American Revolution – a 12-hour documentary by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt – is no ordinary assignment, especially at a moment when the public institutions responsible for airing such work are themselves under attack …
Filed under: Gramophone, review
January 23, 2026 • 5:44 am 0
Some thoughts on Seong-Jin Cho’s recent Seattle recital:
The self-effacing persona Seong-Jin Cho projected from the Benaroya Hall stage throughout his solo recital stood in striking contrast to his musical confidence – a confidence grounded not only in extraordinary technical security but in an evident willingness to take risks. Cho’s sense of interpretive freedom made itself felt from the outset, in a program that invited close attention and repaid it generously…
Filed under: Bartók, Beethoven, Chopin, Franz Liszt, pianists, review
January 20, 2026 • 10:11 am 0
My Bachtrack review:
Richard Strauss’ Daphne is among the works most plausibly suited to Seattle Opera’s recent turn toward including concert performances as part of its main-stage season. Written late in the composer’s career, Daphne belongs to the turbulent political and cultural climate of 1930s Germany….
Filed under: review, Richard Strauss, Seattle Opera
January 16, 2026 • 11:44 am 0
Virginia Symphony Orchestra premieres Curtis Stewart’s I wouldn’t stop there: in the words of a KING this weekend. He spoke with The Strad about the work:
Curtis Stewart embodies a distinctly contemporary vision of the classical violinist today. On stage and off, he operates with a directness that resists polish for its own sake, favouring instead a sense of immediacy and responsibility. As a violinist and composer in equal measure, with education central to his work, he treats classical music as something to be actively made, not simply handed down….
Filed under: American music, The Strad, violinists
January 12, 2026 • 8:36 am 4
A fine start to the new year at Seattle Symphony:
Romanticism has proved more adaptable than its obituaries suggested. Across the 20th century, composers continued to return to music grounded in subjective expression, even when critical fashion leaned elsewhere….
Filed under: Leonard Bernstein, Rachmaninoff, review, Romanticism, Seattle Symphony
January 4, 2026 • 6:36 pm Comments Off on Bryce Dessner in Prague
I wrote a profile of Bryce Dessner in connection with his residency this season with the Czech Philharmonic:
This February, a pair of electric guitars will slip into the sonic bloodstream of the Czech Philharmonic. Then, later in the season, in May, audiences at Prague’s Rudolfinum will hear a new cello concerto written for and performed by Anastasia Kobekina. Both moments centre on Bryce Dessner, the orchestra’s first ever composer-in-residence, in a role that brings several strands of his musical life into rare alignment.
Filed under: Bryce Dessner, profile
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 