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…. continue
The New York premiere of “Music for New Bodies” at Lincoln Center as part of the Run AMOC* Festival at Summer for the City. (Lawrence Sumulong / Courtesy of Lincoln Center)
On November 1, Meany Center for the Performing Arts presents Matthew Aucoin’sMusic for New Bodies, a “vocal symphony” based on the poetry of Jorie Graham and staged by Peter Sellars — in other words, not to be missed. I spoke with Aucoin about New Bodies for The Seattle Times:
“The voice of the bottom of the ocean. The voice of the medicines moving through your veins. The voice of the core of the Earth.”
Composer Matthew Aucoin names them like a spell — presences that inhabit “Music for New Bodies,” his 70-minute vocal symphony that will receive its West Coast premiere at the University of Washington’s Meany Center on Nov. 1. ..
Gabriella Smith recording “Lost Coast” with cellist Gabriel Cabezas at Greenhouse Studios in Iceland. (Sandro Manzon)
Here’s my Seattle Timesprofile of the remarkable young composer Gabriella Smith. This week’s Seattle Symphony concerts will feature her innovative cello concerto Lost Coast, with Gabriel Cabezas as the soloist:
Her official bio reads like a manifesto: “Gabriella Smith is a composer whose work invites listeners to find joy in climate action.” The 33-year-old has built a creative world around that idea — one where music and environmentalism are inseparable…
And it begins! Ojai Music Festival launches its 79th edition today, 5 June, and will be streaming the concerts at Libbey Bowl on the OMF homepage at OjaiFestival.org and on the festival’s YouTube channel.
Writing the OMF program notes is always an immersive experience, but this year’s festival programming by Music Director Claire Chase has proved to be the most fulfilling since I began writing for the festival. The 2025 edition also carries a bittersweet resonance since Artistic and Executive Director Ara Guzelimian just announced that he will conclude his tenure with the 2026 OMF.
So many highlights to look forward to over this extended weekend, which showcases the incredible community of fellow artists with whom Claire Chase has chosen to collaborate. In the spotlight tonight are Marcos Balter and his epic Pan – a signature contribution to Chase’s ongoing Density 2036 project – and Annea Lockwood’s bayou-borne, an homage to the late Pauline Oliveros, her close friend, mentor to Chase, and a tutelary spirit watching over the music-making at Ojai.
Happy 80th birthday to Leonard Slatkin! I had a chance to speak with the great American maestro about his career — and ongoing projects — for this story in Gramophone‘s August issue:
His vivid curiosity is unmistakable in the variety of projects planned for this milestone birthday year. These range from publishing a pair of books and spending more time on his own composition to launching a new partnership as artistic consultant to the Las Vegas Philharmonic. Appearances on the podium are naturally also on the calendar. This autumn brings reunions with the three American orchestras indelibly shaped by Slatkin’s years at their helm (in St Louis, Washington DC and Detroit); some international conducting engagements beckon as well.
Damien Geter’s much-anticipated new opera American Apollo will be unveiled this weekend at Des Moines Metro Opera. The librettist is Lila Palmer and revolves around Thomas Eugene McKeller, a Black hotel worker who became a model for the painter John Singer Sargent.
“As a work of historical fiction, the opera imagines the story behind Sargent’s spare, nude portrait and sensual sketches of McKeller, whose image was transformed by Sargent into white-skinned Greek gods featured prominently in murals throughout Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Themes of erasure, the white gaze, and the intimate relationship between the two men are explored in this powerful new work,” according to DMMO’s website.
In the cast are baritone Justin Austin as McKeller, tenor William Burden as John Singer Sargent, soprano Mary Dunleavy as Isabella Stewart Gardner, with David Neely conducting and Shaun Patrick Tubbs directing.
Writes Geter in his composer’s note: “As a composer, one of my goals is to help bring to life stories that have long been ignored in the traditional canon, and more largely, across the spectrum of human experience. It is safe to say that many of these unknown or forgotten stories belong to Black people and other folks of color who, because of white supremacy, have not been represented to the fullest extent with regards to the vast array of personalities, emotions, and multi-dimensions that we see in real-life people. Stereotypes tend to run amok in opera when it comes to people of color. ..”
My essay on Taylor Mac and Matt Ray’s latest epic, Bark of Millions, for Cal Performances:
“All we do is sing songs,” says Taylor Mac about Bark of Millions, the new show he and composer Matt Ray have created together with their team of like-minded collaborators. “But there’s something about the ritual of song after song after song inspired by different queer people from world history that is really liberating” …
This year, with so much hate being spewed around the world, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is especially important. Seattle’s invaluable Music of Remembrance, now in its 25th year, is offering a free streaming of composer Lori Laitman’s Wertheim Park. The program will begin streaming on Friday, 27 January, and remain available online.
The streamed program is an enhanced video of the world premiere of Wertheim Park by Music of Remembrance on 30 October 2022 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. It features soprano Alisa Jordheim, with an instrumental ensemble of Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Jonathan Green, double bass; and Mina Miller, piano.
Laitman’s sixth commission for Music of Remembrance, Wertheim Park sets a poem by the late Susan de Sola and is a haunting elegy about the power of bearing witness. It pictures the annual gathering at Amsterdam’s Wertheim Park, where people come together each year for Holocaust remembrance.
“When Music of Remembrance asked me to compose a piece for their 25th season,” said Laitman, “I decided to explore the impact of the Holocaust on the next generation. Poet Susan de Sola lost many of her relatives in the Shoah, and Wertheim Park is an intimate depiction of the memorial march and its emotional impact on her.”
Today would have been the 100th birthday of George Walker. His legacy remains far too little known. In his honor, I’m reposting my story for The New York Times on this extraordinary American composer.
A Composer’s Final Work Contains ‘Visions’ of an American Master
Last fall, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery began to display, among its recent acquisitions, a photograph of the composer George Walker. It shows him close up, his right index finger and thumb bearing down on a pencil with the precision of a surgeon, at work on the manuscript score of his Sinfonia No. 5…
Honored to have been able to write the program notes for this weekend’s National Symphony concerts with Michael Tilson Thomas. The program features his own remarkable, unclassifiable Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind.
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 