September 28, 2026 • 7:43 pm 0
For Seattle audiences, James Ehnes is more than another internationally celebrated soloist dropping in for a guest appearance. He has described both the city and Benaroya Hall as places he thinks of as home….
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Filed under: Berlioz, James Ehnes, Max Bruch, review, Seattle Symphony, Xian Zhang
September 26, 2026 • 9:45 am 0
Some thoughts on Yulianna Avdeeva’s recent recital presented by Seattle Chamber Music Society – reviewed for Bachtrack:
Yulianna Avdeeva opened Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Signature Series at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall in notably changed surroundings. Over the summer, Benaroya Hall underwent an extensive renovation of its public spaces, leaving both performance venues untouched while transforming their surrounding lobbies. The recital hall’s newly redesigned, mid-century-modern-inflected foyer is now dominated by Robert Rauschenberg’s Echo…
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Filed under: Bach, Beethoven, Maurice Ravel, pianists, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society
September 2, 2026 • 6:14 am Comments Off on Postcard from Port Angeles: Music on the Strait
I ecently paid a visit to Port Angeles for the opening of Music on the Strait‘s 2026 Festival. My report for The Strad:
Music on the Strait (MOTS) has always been a festival shaped by string players. Founded in 2018 by violinist James Garlick and Takács Quartet violist Richard O’Neill – longtime friends both raised on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula – MOTS brings chamber musicians from the international circuit to the Peninsula’s largest population centre, overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards Vancouver Island….
Filed under: Music on the Strait, review, Strad, violinists
August 19, 2026 • 12:41 am Comments Off on A Less-Familiar ‘Madama Butterfly’ at Santa Fe Opera
Here’s the fifth of my individual reviews of the 2026 Santa Fe Opera season, covering all five productions this year:
Madama Butterfly did not spring fully formed into the world as the repertory staple we know today. Bachtrack’s 2024 statistics ranked it the third most performed opera, yet Puccini’s convoluted revision history means that even this most familiar of works survives in markedly different forms. Musical and dramatic details, character relationships and even aspects of Cio-Cio-San herself changed across those revisions, until the 1907 Paris version emerged as the standard…
Filed under: conductors, Puccini, review, Santa Fe Opera
August 14, 2026 • 11:15 am Comments Off on Portrait of an Artist, Evolving: ‘Lili Elbe’ at Santa Fe Opera
My review of Tobias Picker’s Lili Elbe, which is receiving its American premiere this summer at Santa Fe Opera, is now up at Musical America Worldwide. Picker’s opera, with a libretto by Aryeh Lev Stollman, tells the story of the Danish painter Lili Elbe, one of the first people known to have undergone gender-affirming surgery, while placing her relationship with the artist Gerda Wegener at the heart of the drama.
Filed under: American opera, new opera, review, Santa Fe Opera, Tobias Picker
August 13, 2026 • 11:41 pm Comments Off on ‘Rodelinda’ at Santa Fe Opera
Another highlight of my week at Santa Fe Opera: the R.B. Schlather production of Handel’s Rodelinda, featuring a fantastic cast and led brilliantly by Harry Bicket. My review for Opera Now:
R.B. Schlather’s first-rate Santa Fe Opera production of Handel’s Rodelinda makes the opera’s imposing succession of da capo arias feel anything but static. The political ground keeps moving beneath the characters, while Rodelinda’s devotion to Bertarido remains fixed –Fidelio is just around the corner. Schlather treats the arias as windows into each character’s private world, filling them with telling gestures and reactions while simultaneously often keeping other characters active.
Filed under: Handel, Opera Now, review, Santa Fe Opera
August 6, 2026 • 8:40 am Comments Off on ‘The Magic Flute’ Re-enchanted
Santa Fe Opera’s joyous new production of Mozart’s beloved opera restores its sense of wonder and sheer fun. My review for Opera Now:
Being so familiar and beloved makes The Magic Flute unusually difficult to encounter free of the clichés and received ideas that have accumulated around it. The real magic of Christopher Luscombe’s new production at Santa Fe Opera lies in how effectively it recovers what makes the opera special in the first place.
Filed under: directors, Mozart, review, Santa Fe Opera
July 29, 2026 • 10:12 am Comments Off on A Fresh ‘Appalachian Spring’ Closes Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Party
And thus ends what Seattle Chamber Music Society bills as “the world’s largest chamber music party” – some thoughts for Bachtrack on the final concert of the 2026 Summer Festival:
The final concert of Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2026 Summer Festival capped an unusually eventful stretch. Owing to summer renovations at Benaroya Hall, its usual venue, the organisation found a number of alternate spaces to perform in, while also expanding its reach through free events in parks and other public spaces across the region…
Filed under: Aaron Copland, James Ehnes, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Shostakovich, Shostakovich chamber music
July 13, 2026 • 2:34 pm Comments Off on Four Hands, 32 Strings, and Shared Fire at Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Opener
My review of Seattle Chamber Music Society’s opening concert of the 2026 Summer Festival for Bachtrack:
Seattle Chamber Music Society’s month-long summer ritual began in the familiar place – the intimate, 536-seat Nordstrom Recital Hall inside downtown Seattle’s Benaroya Hall. Also familiar was the air of anticipation in the packed room, filled with listeners eager for the kind of high-level chamber music-making that violinist and artistic director James Ehnes continues to assemble in Seattle.
Filed under: George Gershwin, James Ehnes, Mendelssohn, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society
June 30, 2026 • 8:25 am Comments Off on Two West Coast Orchestras Put the Ninth to the Test
My Musical America review of Xian Zhang/Seattle Symphony and James Gaffigan/San Francisco Symphony in two very different West Coast encounters with the choral symphony:
SEATTLE AND SAN FRANCISCO—Call it the Ninth, times two. Last week, two major West Coast orchestras ended their seasons with Beethoven’s choral symphony, reminding us that this familiar ritual need not be merely routine.
In the Pacific Northwest, it marked the close of Xian Zhang’s inaugural season as music director of the Seattle Symphony, preceded by onstage tributes to three longtime orchestra members whose retirements were announced. At the San Francisco Symphony, the season-ending program unexpectedly acquired a memorial charge following Michael Tilson Thomas’s recent death, with musicians wearing blue ribbons—MTT’s favorite color—as a token of remembrance….
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Filed under: Beethoven, Musical America, review, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Xian Zhang
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