November 29, 2017 • 8:40 am Comments Off on Seth Parker Woods Comes to Seattle
Here’s a recital debut I’m especially looking forward to: Seth Parker Woods at the Performance Chapel. My Seattle Times story on this remarkable cellist.
Performances by Chicago-based cellist Seth Parker Woods are not only ear-opening: They expand your perceptions of his instrument’s identity itself.
Filed under: cello, new music, Seattle Times, Seth Parker Woods
November 24, 2017 • 8:17 am Comments Off on An Unfinished “Phantom Opera” Is Completed with Love
Pauline Oliveros; photo by Allan J. Cronin
Remembering the great Pauline Oliveros, one year after her death: my New York Times story on The Nubian Word for Flowers:
Pauline Oliveros, the beloved composer who died last November, spent her long career experimenting — with improvisation, with technologically enhanced sound design and with “deep listening,” her term for a kind of heightened, mindful perception of sound.
Filed under: new opera, New York Times
November 16, 2017 • 11:27 am 2
Simon Woods, who as President & CEO has worked so closely with Ludovic Morlot to reshape the Seattle Symphony and enhance its sense of mission, will head south in January to become Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Michael Cooper reports in The New York Times:
In Los Angeles, Mr. Woods will have far greater resources — and a far larger organization to run. The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s annual budget, the largest of any American orchestra, is approximately $125 million — nearly four times Seattle’s, which is $32 million. But he said he was undaunted.
Here’s the full Seattle Symphony press release:
Seattle Symphony Board to Launch Search for Successor
SEATTLE – The Seattle Symphony’s President & CEO Simon Woods, who has led the organization since 2011, will leave in January to become the Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, widely regarded as one of the nation’s most important and forward- looking orchestral organizations. A search committee led by Board Chair Leslie Jackson Chihuly and Chair-Elect René Ancinas will be formed to launch an international search for Woods’ successor.
Filed under: Los Angeles Philharmonic, music news, Seattle Symphony
November 13, 2017 • 9:47 am Comments Off on Strange Beauty: The Berlioz Requiem in Seattle
(c) Brandon Patoc
My review of the Berlioz Requiem performed by Ludovic Morlot and Seattle Symphony:
Even for a composer as naturally original as Hector Berlioz, the Grande messe des morts stands apart for its wild uniqueness…
Filed under: Berlioz, review, Seattle Symphony
November 8, 2017 • 9:08 am Comments Off on The Magic Lute: Aaron Grad’s New Concerto for Electronic Theorbo
Aaron Grad
My story for the Seattle Times on Aaron Grad’s Strange Seasons, which will receive its world premiere this weekend:
Stories of falling head over heels for an instrument are not unusual. What is unusual is love at first sight — or sound — when that instrument is the theorbo….
Filed under: new music, Seattle Times
November 7, 2017 • 8:48 am Comments Off on Byron Schenkman & Friends Present the Poetry of Schumann
Byron Schenkman (Will Austin/Will Austin Photography)
For Robert Schumann, the Romantic concept of poetry was the common denominator that inspired him to compose across a wide range of genres…
Filed under: Byron Schenkman, Schumann, Seattle Times
November 3, 2017 • 6:18 am Comments Off on Making Mozart’s Garden Grow
Conductor Joseph Colaneri and director Mary Birnbaum during a rehearsal for Mozart’s ‘Finta’
My story on Juilliard’s upcoming production of La finta giardiniera:
It may be hard to imagine that there was a time when pre-Baroque figures were generally treated as an obscure footnote to the alleged master narrative of Western music history. But when it comes to the lifework of individual composers, a similarly myopic attitude is still sometimes found…
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 