July 31, 2025 • 12:32 pm Comments Off on Showbiz and Shadows: ‘Rigoletto’ at Santa Fe Opera
It’s great to be back in Santa Fe. Here’s my take on the first of this week’s five productions @Santa Fe Opera:
Santa Fe Opera’s new Rigoletto delivers flashes of vitality that help compensate for a staging that is often muddled. From the outset, Carlo Montanaro’s conducting signalled an intense level of involvement from the orchestra. The opening curse motif, stated a touch more aggressively than usual, is as emphatic as an oracle. …
Filed under: review, Santa Fe Opera, Verdi
July 21, 2025 • 10:07 pm Comments Off on Yes, Chef – With Strings Attached
My story on Seattle Chamber Music Society’s upcoming second edition of the Tasting Notes program:
Before they ever shared a stage, James Beard media award-winning cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt and violinist James Ehnes had already discovered a mutual obsession with the art of cooking and Beethoven string quartets. ..
Filed under: James Ehnes, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Seattle Times
July 17, 2025 • 10:27 pm Comments Off on Another Evening at Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2025 Summer Festival
From my review for The Strad:
With the other major classical institutions largely on summer hiatus, the Seattle Chamber Music Society takes centre stage in July, commanding the city’s musical life with a month-long festival that has been packing Benaroya Hall’s chamber music venue. Its varied slate of mainstage concerts, related events and guest artists has become a cultural fixture. Indeed, SCMS is expanding its presence with the recent announcement of an extended year-round season of offerings….
Filed under: James Ehnes, Mozart, review, Schumann, Seattle Chamber Music Society
July 11, 2025 • 12:28 pm Comments Off on Anne Akiko Meyers: Champion of Contemporary Music
Even before the year reached its mid-point, Anne Akiko Meyers had released her third album of 2025, each strikingly different and, characteristically, showcasing new works she has commissioned.
My profile of this extraordinary violinist – and human being – is the cover story of this month’s Gramophone:
‘Curiosity’ doesn’t do justice to the force that drives Anne Akiko Meyers. A better word might be the German Neugier (literally, ‘greed for the new’), which suggests not just a hunger for the unknown, but an urgent, almost ravenous pursuit – a term that has a more active and impassioned meaning than does its English counterpart…
Filed under: Anne Akiko Meyers, Gramophone, violinists
July 10, 2025 • 10:34 pm Comments Off on Bach’s Lost ‘Markus-Passion’ Imagined Anew – with a Dramatic Twist
Sacred music lay at the heart of Johann Sebastian Bach’s creative life. His vast output includes hundreds of choral works written for the principal churches in Leipzig, Germany, where he oversaw musical programming….
Filed under: Bach, early music, Early Music America, Seattle Times
July 8, 2025 • 8:38 am Comments Off on Smolder and Spark: Seattle Chamber Music Society Launches Its 2025 Summer Festival
I covered Sunday’s opening concert for Bachtrack:
The Seattle Chamber Music Society has not only emerged from the pandemic slump stronger than ever but seems to have hit on a golden formula. The opening concert of its month-long 2025 Summer Festival attracted a devoted audience to fill downtown’s 536-seat Nordstrom Recital Hall to near capacity – even before the concert officially began…
Filed under: Fanny Mendelssohn, James Ehnes, Mendelssohn, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 