MEMETERIA by Thomas May

Music & the Arts

November 29, 2025 • 4:20 am 0

Reflecting on the 2025 Honens International Piano Competition

Élisabeth Pion was named Gold Laureate at the 2025 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary (Tim Nguyen)

My report on the 2025 edition of the Honens Competition, which I attended in Calgary in October, has been published here by International Piano magazine.

For a few days in October two leading piano competitions overlapped. In Calgary, gateway to the Canadian Rockies, the 2025 Honens International Piano Competition reached its finale just days after the Chopin Competition in Warsaw had announced its winners. North American pianists took the top prize at both. At Honens, the spotlight fell on 29-year-old Élisabeth Pion from Quebec, who was named Gold Laureate and also took the Audience Choice Award, ahead of fellow Canadian Carter Johnson and Russia’s Anastasia Vorotnaya, who respectively took Silver and Bronze….
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Filed under: Honens International Piano Competition, International Piano, piano

November 28, 2025 • 3:35 pm 0

Gathering around the Hearth: Inside the Miró Quartet’s New Holiday Album

Miró Quartet: Daniel Ching (violin), Joshua Gindele (cello), John Largess (viola) and William Fedkenheuer (violin); photo: Barry Carlton

I interviewed John Largess, violist of the Miró Quartet, about the ensemble’s new holiday album:

Celebrating 30 years together, the Miró Quartet swaps concert halls for the fireside with Hearth, a collection of festive songs newly arranged by fifteen leading composers. Violist John Largess talks about collaboration, nostalgia and what togetherness means after three decades on the road….

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Filed under: holiday, string quartet, The Strad

November 26, 2025 • 3:32 pm 0

Richard O’Neill and Jeremy Denk in Recital

Jeremy Denk and Richard O’Neill; photo: Jorge Gustavo Elias

Seattle Chamber Music Society presented Richard O’Neill and Jeremy Denk in a sold-out recital Sunday. Here’s my review for The Strad:

Seattle Chamber Music Society brought the inaugural season of its new Signature Series to a compelling close with this sold-out recital by violist Richard O’Neill – best known as a member of the Takács Quartet – and pianist Jeremy Denk.

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Filed under: review, Beethoven, Seattle Chamber Music Society, The Strad, viola

November 25, 2025 • 9:57 am 0

Music For Saxophone Evokes Emotional Swirl Summoned By The Wind

Saxophonist Timothy McAllister, composer Steven Mackey, and conductor Lawrence Renes take bows; photo: Jon Pendleton

A wonderful new saxophone concerto by Steven Mackey featuring Timothy McAllister and some classic John Adams from Seattle Symphony – my review for Classical Voice North America:

SEATTLE – Rather than propose a grand narrative of American music, the Seattle Symphony’s all-American program on Nov. 20 with guest conductor Lawrence Renes set three sharply contrasting voices side by side: Copland’s atmospheric Quiet City, Steven Mackey’s brand-new saxophone concerto Anemology, and John Adams’ ever-astonishing Harmonielehre — a lineup that underscored how differently American composers have approached the orchestra over the past century….
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Filed under: American music, commissions, John Adams, review, Seattle Symphony

November 18, 2025 • 2:51 pm 0

‘The Monkey King’: Opera Now Review

Jusung Gabriel Park as Master Subhuti and Kang Wang as the title role in Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Monkey King; photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Monkey King is a very palpable hit at San Francisco Opera. The rest of the run appears to be already sold out, but a livestream of tonight’s performance at 7.30 PT will be available here starting at 7.30 pm PT ($25); the stream will also be available on demand from 23 Nov at 10am PT to 25 Nov at 10am PT.

My review for Opera Now:

Just after singing what may be the most beautiful music in The Monkey King, the opera’s irrepressible hero promptly marks his territory with a triumphant stream of urine. It’s an indelible assertion of Monkey’s contradictions – and a characteristic example of Huang Ruo’s assured pacing. His underlying musical control gives this sweeping, adventure-driven tale cohesion, navigating its comic and sublime registers with unforced confidence. The transitions are so natural they scarcely call attention to themselves. …

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Filed under: new opera, review, San Francisco Opera

November 14, 2025 • 9:12 am Comments Off on A Shape-Shifting Hero for a ‘Third Culture’ Opera

A Shape-Shifting Hero for a ‘Third Culture’ Opera

Huang Ruo and a Monkey King puppet at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco; Cayce Clifford

My New York Times feature on Huang Ruo and his brand-new opera “The Monkey King,” with a libretto by David Henry Hwang – opening tonight at San Francisco Opera.

Inside a cavernous rehearsal space near the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, the singer portraying the monk-like sage Subhuti was wielding a golden kung fu staff with serene precision. “Power alone is not enough” he intoned to the trickster hero of “The Monkey King,” Huang Ruo’s opera, which premieres this month at San Francisco Opera.

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Filed under: new opera, New York Times, San Francisco Opera

November 12, 2025 • 10:35 am Comments Off on Breath and Soul: Bach’s Eloquent Oboe at the Seattle Bach Festival

Breath and Soul: Bach’s Eloquent Oboe at the Seattle Bach Festival

Debra Nagy, Tekla Cunningham, Hannah De Priest and Tyler Duncan

The second of this past weekend’s wonderful Baroque programs, courtesy of Seattle Bach Festival – my review of Tekla Cunningham and friends’ ‘The Eloquent Oboe’ for the aptly named Bachtrack:

Launched as recently as January, the Seattle Bach Festival is already becoming a force in the Pacific Northwest’s Early Music landscape…

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Filed under: Bach, review

November 11, 2025 • 12:56 pm Comments Off on Concert review: Tafelmusik with Rachel Podger

Concert review: Tafelmusik with Rachel Podger

Rachel Podger with members of Tafelmusik; photo: Jorge Gustavo Elias

Early Music Seattle presented a stimulating evening with Tafelmusik and the inimitable Rachel Podger. My review for The Strad:

Early Music Seattle, the region’s principal presenter of period performance, welcomed Tafelmusik for the Seattle stop on its twelve-city tour of the North American West Coast – aptly titled ‘Brilliant Baroque’. With principal guest director Rachel Podger leading from her baroque violin, the sixteen-member ensemble offered a sequence of works shaped, in part, by an aesthetic of translation and rearrangement – whether from solo to chamber forces or from the opera stage to more intimate instrumental settings. 
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Filed under: early music, review, The Strad

November 2, 2025 • 5:22 pm 1

Hongni Wu: Musical America’s New Artist of the Month

Hongni Wu; photo: Ed Choo

Here’s my profile of mezzo-soprano Hongni Wu, Musical America’s New Artist of the Month for November:


When Hongni Wu bounded across the stage as Cherubino in Santa Fe Opera’s Marriage of Figaro last summer, she seemed to compress a teenager’s swirl of conflicted emotions into a single breath. …

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Filed under: Musical America, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, singers

November 1, 2025 • 9:45 am 2

‘Parsifal’ at San Francisco Opera

photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

My review of San Francisco Opera’s new production of Parsifal has been posted on the Opera Now website:

Time moves differently in San Francisco Opera’s Parsifal. Under Eun Sun Kim’s baton, Wagner’s score breathes with a kind of suspended inevitability, while movement and light unfold in ritual slow motion, evoking a theatre of Baudelairean correspondences, where sound, image and gesture seem to mirror one another in continual exchange. 

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Filed under: review, San Francisco Opera, Wagner

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