January 25, 2023 • 6:14 am Comments Off on ‘I’m always looking for something new’: Midori in The Strad
February’s issue of The Strad includes my new profile of Midori, in which I take stock of the violinist on the 40th anniversary of her professional debut. Along with Midori’s reflections on her priorities, I include observations by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Derek Bermel, and Michael Stern.
link to article (subscription required)
Filed under: profile, violinists
December 4, 2019 • 11:45 am Comments Off on The Miró Quartet at 25
The November-December 2019 issue of Strings magazine is now available. I wrote a profile of the marvelous Miró Quartet and their Archive Project, which celebrates the ensemble’s quarter-century milestone.
When the Miró Quartet started out in October 1995, a prediction that it would be thriving a quarter century on must have sounded wildly optimistic. “Because we were such different personalities in terms of musical approach and demeanor, we had a lot of fights and disagreements in the first couple of years,” recalls cellist Joshua Gindele…
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Filed under: Beethoven, profile, string quartet, Strings
November 17, 2019 • 6:59 am Comments Off on Teodor Currentzis in North American Debut
Teodor Currentzis will make his North American debut with musicAeterna this week at The Shed in New York. On the program is Verdi’s Requiem, together with an experimental film by the late Jonas Merkas. I was asked to write a profile of Currentzis for Early Music America magazine.
Filed under: conductors, Early Music America, profile, Teodor Curentzis
November 8, 2019 • 8:56 am Comments Off on An Interview with Beatrice Rana
Beatrice Rana: photo (c) Nicolas Bets
Beatrice Rana was in town recently to perform with the Seattle Symphony. I was fortunate to have a chance to interview this remarkable young pianist — Silver Medalist at the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition — who has become known for her consistently soulful, honest performances and probing musical intelligence.
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Beatrice Rana has just released a new album of Ravel and Stravinsky. Excerpts here.
October 3, 2019 • 6:25 pm Comments Off on Morten Lauridsen’s Homecoming
Here’s a profile of the composer Morten Lauridsen I wrote for this weekend’s Seattle Sings Festival. The choral festival pays homage to Lauridsen on its Friday evening program:
As a musical ecosystem, the Pacific Northwest is acclaimed for the range and diversity of the choral ensembles that flourish here. Not nearly as well known is the fact that one of the most significant and popular living choral composers, Morten Lauridsen, makes his home in the region as well — and has transformed his love of its natural beauty into compositions that are sung around the world…
Filed under: choral music, Morten Lauridsen, profile
September 11, 2019 • 4:58 am 1
Looking ahead to his American debut at The Shed in November, my profile of Teodor Currentzis for the fall issue of Early Music America magazine is now available.
Within a few moments of listening to a performance led by Teodor Currentzis — whether live or recorded — you realize something different is unfolding. Nothing sounds taken for granted. What you assumed to be familiar parameters of a well-known piece — tempo, dynamics, accentuation — are suddenly open to question, the music propelled by a spirit of fierce collective concentration….
Filed under: conductors, early music, Early Music America, profile
April 22, 2019 • 10:05 am Comments Off on Finding a Way Back to the Garden: Caroline Shaw’s Music for String Quartet
Caroline Shaw image (c)Kait Moreno
The May-June issue of STRINGS magazine has just come out, with my cover story on Caroline Shaw and her music for string quartet.
Filed under: Caroline Shaw, profile, string quartet, Strings
December 20, 2018 • 12:22 pm Comments Off on Predictably Unpredictable: John Harbison at 80
Here’s my profile of John Harbison for this month’s Strings magazine:
From large-scale works for the opera house and concert hall to intimate violin solos, John Harbison has created an abundant catalogue of music that engages in an extraordinary dialogue between past and present. His compositions are typically atypical, as he continually seeks out fresh angles through which to reconsider the traditional forms, models, and styles that inspire him. Whether his references are Henry Purcell, J.S. Bach, Stravinsky, or the idioms of jazz, the result never comes across as a facile eclecticism. Rather, these are threads of a rigorously crafted language he has made into his own.
Filed under: John Harbison, profile, Strings
November 9, 2018 • 12:02 am Comments Off on Joan Tower at 80
My profile of Joan Tower, who recently turned 80, is in the September issue of Strings magazine (starts p. 27).
Filed under: chamber music, Joan Tower, profile, string quartet, Strings
May 2, 2018 • 8:17 am Comments Off on Patricia Kopatchinskaja Comes to California
Patricia Kopatchinskaja is an ideal choice to be this year’s music director of the Ojai Festival. In advance of the festival’s northern edition, Ojai at Berkeley, here’s my profile of this incomparable artist for Cal Performances:
Matters of technical proficiency are well accounted for in the arsenal of words that critics have at their disposal to describe what sets a musician apart. What is sorely lacking is …
Filed under: Cal Performances, Ojai Festival, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, profile, violinists
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MEMETERIA by Thomas May 