Classical Voice North America | MEMETERIA by Thomas May

August 30, 2023 • 2:01 pm Comments Off on In A Sunny Vale Where Hemingway Sheltered, Free Concerts Resound

In A Sunny Vale Where Hemingway Sheltered, Free Concerts Resound

A high-definition LED wall screen made its debut this season on the lawn outside the Pavilion at the Sun Valley Music Festival. (Photo by Nils Ribi)

On my visit to the Sun Valley Music Festival this month:

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — A couple of golden eagles wheeling across the sky offered a dramatic welcome during my inaugural visit to the Sun Valley Music Festival. Viewed on the drive into town from nearby Friedman Memorial Airport, these fabled messengers of Zeus complemented the stark majesty of Bald Mountain with their agile flight. The area’s most-prominent Rocky Mountain peak towers 9,150 feet into the heavens and has been beckoning serious ski lovers since the area was first promoted as a winter sport destination — part of a pioneering campaign by Union Pacific Railroad in the late 1930s…

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Filed under: Classical Voice North America, music festivals, musical travels

June 30, 2023 • 10:03 am Comments Off on Osmo Vänskä’s Precision-Calibrated Mahler with Seattle Symphony

Osmo Vänskä’s Precision-Calibrated Mahler with Seattle Symphony

Osmo Vänskä led the Seattle Symphony in a breathtaking account of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. (Photos by Carlin Ma)

I reviewed the final concert of the Seattle Symphony season — an excellent performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2 with guest conductor Osmo Vänskä:

SEATTLE — The Seattle Symphony’s season of guest conductors concluded with a visit by Osmo Vänskä. On June 24, he led a breathtaking, meticulous performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Conventional program structure offers a chance to experience each visiting conductor’s skills with a variety of pieces and styles. But with the entire concert devoted to this single work, Vänskä took on the additional test of sustaining the musical narrative over the length of a feature film.

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Filed under: Classical Voice North America, conductors, Mahler, review, Seattle Symphony

April 26, 2023 • 5:23 pm Comments Off on Music Of Shostakovich Brings Fresh Drama To Silent Film ‘Potemkin’

Music Of Shostakovich Brings Fresh Drama To Silent Film ‘Potemkin’

Music from Shostavich’s Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh Symphonies was performed live to Eisenstein’s film. (Seattle Symphony photo)

I wrote about a very interesting film + live symphony event at Seattle Symphony with guest conductor Frank Strobel:

In 1925, Sergei Eisenstein made cinematic history with the release of Battleship Potemkin, his feature debut. Dmitri Shostakovich, still a precocious teenager, was hard at work on his First Symphony, which also caused a sensation when it was premiered the next year by the Leningrad Philharmonic.

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Filed under: Classical Voice North America, film, film music, review, Seattle Symphony

September 1, 2022 • 3:20 pm Comments Off on In Pastoral Vastness, Grand Art Harmonizes With Music’s Intimacy at Tippet Rise

In Pastoral Vastness, Grand Art Harmonizes With Music’s Intimacy at Tippet Rise

Composer Reena Esmail and cellist Arlen Hlusko

Here’s my report on Tippet Rise Art Center and its opening weekend for the 2022 season, which I wrote for Classical Voice North America:

FISHTAIL, Mont. — Set amid endlessly rolling hills, mesas, and grasslands that are framed by rugged mountains and the vast Montana sky, Tippet Rise Art Center beckons with a unique intersection of pristine nature and interdisciplinary artistic adventure. The surrounding landscape inevitably injects itself into each musical experience, while looming sculptural shapes retune the sounds of wind and distant thunder. The metaphors proliferate so abundantly here that you need to take care not to step on them — to adapt Brahms’ famous observation about a favorite summer idyll that stimulated his creativity…

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Filed under: Classical Voice North America, commissions, Reena Esmail, Schumann, Tippet Rise

November 11, 2021 • 10:33 am Comments Off on Gabriel Kahane Returns to the Stage

Gabriel Kahane Returns to the Stage

My review of Gabriel Kahane’s return to live performance at the University of Washington’s Meany Center with a preview of the new crop of songs from his internet hiatus:

SEATTLE — In November 2019,Gabriel Kahane embarked on a yearlong hiatus from the internet. He disengaged himself completely from social media and cut off the cell phone umbilical cord. But several months into this experiment, he was forced into further isolation by the pandemic. His appearance Nov. 6 at Meany Center, the University of Washington’s main performance venue, marked one of Kahane’s first occasions enjoying live contact with the public since lockdowns began. The singer-songwriter-pianist is one of four Meany Center Creative Research Fellows this season at the UW.

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Filed under: Classical Voice North America, Gabriel Kahane, review

October 31, 2019 • 8:25 am Comments Off on Beijing Music Festival: A Report

Beijing Music Festival: A Report

Du Yun’s “Angel’s Bone,” in its premiere production in the People’s Republic of China (photo credit: Beijing Music Festival)

Earlier this month, I visited the 22nd annual Beijing Music Festival. Here’s my report for Classical Voice North America, with a focus on BMF’s emphasis on new music under the dynamic leadership of Shuang Zou (now in her second year as the festival’s artistic director):

“Golden Week” is the name for the national holiday period held in the People’s Republic of China at the beginning of October. This year, it also signaled an earlier-than-usual start to the annual Beijing Music Festival (BMF) — the country’s largest and most extensive festival devoted to classical music…

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Filed under: Beijing Music Festival, Classical Voice North America, festivals, Long Yu, new music, new opera, Shuang Zou