The familiar dread that accompanies air travel — Will my flight be delayed? Will I end up stranded? — has only become aggravated in the time of the coronavirus. But the reverse side to such anxieties is the promise of escape, which leads us ever onward. The resulting ambiguity gives airports their tremendous symbolic power.
The Spring Festival Tippet Rise on Tour from April 16 to 18 will premiere 10 short films featuring eclectic music performances, readings of poetry, and live discussions with musicians. Highlights of the Spring Festival include flutist Claire Chase giving the world premiere of a new work by Bora Yoon, an homage to Surrealism by pianist Pedja Mužijević, and performances by violinists Benjamin Beilman, Katie Hyun, and Tessa Lark, cellist Gabriel Cabezas, pianists Richard Goode, and Baritone Tyler Duncan. The performances were filmed in sculptor Joel Shapiro’s studio and in the DiMenna Center for the Arts in New York City.
The three-day event will also feature Canadian cellist Arlen Hlusko, who was recently appointed cellist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Arlen put an ask out on social media during lockdown to see if any composers would be interested in writing miniatures for solo cello that would be premiered on her Instagram in September 2020. This resulted in exhilarating collaborations with numerous composers and four of the works were subsequently filmed by Tippet Rise and will be offered during the Festival.
Each night of the Spring Festival will begin at 5:30PM MDT with a live backstage Zoom discussion before the evening’s performances.
Les Arts Florissants recorded its concert program Charpentier, Grands Motetsat the Royal Chapel at Versailles on 28 February following cancellation of two public performances (at Versailles and La Rochelle) due to the pandemic. The film will be available on Qwest TV starting on April 9
From the press release:
Les Arts Florissants collaborates for the very first time with Qwest TV, a global video platform, to offer the exclusive broadcast of the film Charpentier, Grands Motets recorded at Versailles’ Royal Chapel.
Digital Concert – public premiere Musical Direction: William Christie Choir and Ensemble: Les Arts Florissants Royal Chapel – Versailles Filmed on 28 February 20212 without a live audience
Coproduction Les Arts Florissants and Château de Versailles Spectacles
Qwest TV recently launched a “Classical” category on their premium SVOD platform, across which Charpentier, Grand Motets will be released.
SVOD broadcast (access by subscription, with 7 days free trial) For more details on how viewers can stream the film on Qwest, click here.
My review of this marvelous BMOP anthology of Robert Carl’s music for Gramophone has now been posted here.
Aficionados of contemporary music will already be familiar with the name Robert Carl as a writer. He has authored extensive reviews for Fanfare and a recent, thought-provoking collection of essays on the challenges faced by 21st-century composers…
If you haven’t yet experienced the Peter Sellars staging of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, I can’t recommend it highly enough — and the Berliner Philharmoniker production with Simon Rattle is currently available to view for free (until Monday) at the Digital Concert Hall.
Meanwhile, Bach’sSt. John Passion will be performed by John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists. It can be viewed for a fee of 9.90 Euros on a Deutsche Grammophon Stage stream from the historic Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, starting at 3pm CET on Good Friday, 2 April.
Remarks Gardiner: “I look forward to this performance for DG Stage of Bach’s St John Passion. “I recorded the piece for the first time for Archiv Produktion back in 1986 and it remains truly special to me. Bach conceived the piece as much as an act of worship as a work of religious art. Almost 300 years after it was heard for the first time, it continues to move listeners of all faiths and none.”
And here’s a performance from 2019 of the 1725 version of the St. John Passion (available for the next 48 hours) from Solomon’s Knot: recorded live at the Nikolaikirche, Bachfest Leipzig, on 19 June 2019. Dramatization by John La Bouchardière.
Vance played the charismatic and show-stopping attorney Johnnie Cochran in The People v. O.J. Simpson. Now he takes to the pulpit as Aretha Franklin's father, Rev. C.L Franklin, in Genius: Aretha.
Zhanna Slor's debut novel, set in a funky neighborhood of Milwaukee, follows two Russian immigrant sisters on very different paths. one now searching for the other after her mysterious disappearance.
In 1904, Cassandra Lane's great grandfather Burt Bridges was lynched. In telling his story, Lane offers her own memoir — and lessons on family and American history for her future child and readers.
The former president's book features his portraits of 43 immigrants — athletes, public servants, business leaders, educators — in an effort to join those saying, "The system's broken. Let's fix it."
There's clearly a limit to what the former president will say --even on his own platform. Obama's conversation with the Boss is at its most fluid and introspective when the two discuss masculinity.
Coleman, who died in 2015, had a knack for writing catchy melodies in a distinctive voice. Saxophonist Miguel Zenón loves Coleman's music and put together a quartet to play some.
Hough was 15 when her family left the Children of God cult. Afterward, she struggled to face the trauma of her past. Her new collection of personal essays is Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing.
Broadway has been dark for quite some time due to the pandemic. Some out of work Broadway actors are using singing telegrams to earn some cash and make use of their talents.
"He always made people feel like they belonged," says a former Bourdain producer. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide is based on the TV chef's writings and an interview conducted just before his death.
