review | MEMETERIA by Thomas May

March 7, 2017 • 3:12 pm Comments Off on Ignacio Prego’s Revelatory Goldbergs

Ignacio Prego’s Revelatory Goldbergs

A new review for Vanguard Seattle:

An opportunity to hear the Goldberg Variations in live performance on harpsichord is rare enough. But the latest offering from Byron Schenkman & Friends was special in several ways. For one thing, it marked the first time that Byron Schenkman has presented a program in his chamber music series without himself being one of the performers. The Spanish harpsichordist Ignacio Prego had the show to himself for about 80 uninterrupted minutes.

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Filed under: Bach, review, Vanguard Seattle

March 3, 2017 • 8:49 am Comments Off on Performing Art in the Trump Era: An Example from Seattle Pro Musica

Performing Art in the Trump Era: An Example from Seattle Pro Musica

Photo by Shaya Bendix Lyon (courtesy of Seattle Pro Musica)

Here’s my review of Seattle Pro Musica’s recent concert for Vanguard Seattle:

Since 1987, she has presided over one of the finest choral collectives in the competitive, choral-rich Northwest: Seattle Pro Musica. Her musical sensibility is ideally matched to the transportive a cappella soundscapes in which her singers excel.

On top of that, Karen P. Thomas has an enviable knack for creating programs that cohere while offering enough variety to surfeit a hungry, curious musical appetite. (That’s an art in itself, one too often taken for granted in our era of casual iPod curation.)

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Filed under: choral music, review, Vanguard Seattle

February 26, 2017 • 6:03 pm Comments Off on Review: A Searing Katya Kabanova on the Seattle Opera stage

Review: A Searing Katya Kabanova on the Seattle Opera stage

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Melody Moore sings the title role in “Katya Kabanova” on opening night at Seattle Opera. (Jacob F. Lucas)

My Seattle Times review of the new Katya Kabanova* production at Seattle Opera:

Nearly a century after it premiered, Leoš Janáček’s “Katya Kabanova” has made it to the Seattle Opera stage for the first time. The Czech composer’s portrayal of a sensitive young woman desperately in need of an escape route from her repressive surroundings contains all the ingredients for a searing music drama.

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*following the company’s English rendition of the title, sans diacriticals

Filed under: Leoš Janáček, review, Seattle Opera

February 11, 2017 • 2:09 pm Comments Off on Seattle Symphony Is Making Music Matter

Seattle Symphony Is Making Music Matter

Kinan Azmeh, Ludovic Morlot, and Seattle Symphony; image (c) Brando Patoc

Some thoughts on recent Seattle Symphony programs, now on Vanguard Seattle:

Say goodbye to ivory towers.

So far this month, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO) and music director Ludovic Morlot have presented three widely varied programs. Two of these addressed red-hot current events that would have seemed surprising in the middle of a “normal” concert season not too long ago.

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Filed under: American music, Beethoven, Debussy, Ives, Ludovic Morlot, Prokofiev, review, Seattle Symphony, Vanguard Seattle

January 26, 2017 • 9:56 am Comments Off on Music for Troubled Times: Seattle Symphony’s Shostakovich Concerto Festival

Music for Troubled Times: Seattle Symphony’s Shostakovich Concerto Festival

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Violinist Aleksey Semenenko, with Pablo Rus Broseta conducting the Seattle Symphony; photo (c)Brandon Patoc

My review of Seattle Symphony’s remarkable, two-part Shostakovich Concerto Festival is now available on STRINGS:

The Seattle Symphony just offered a rare chance to hear all six of Dmitri Shostakovich’s solo instrumental concertos back-to-back in a two-day marathon (January 19–20) featuring three young virtuosos, all led by the ensemble’s associate conductor, Pablo Rus Broseta.

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Filed under: review, Seattle Symphony, Shostakovich

January 6, 2017 • 2:08 pm Comments Off on At Seattle Symphony, Cosmic Radiation from Beethoven and Messiaen

At Seattle Symphony, Cosmic Radiation from Beethoven and Messiaen

The Seattle Symphony, with guest musicians and vocalists, perform works by Messiaen and Beethoven this weekend. (Brandon Patoc)

My Seattle Times review:

In their first program of the new year, Ludovic Morlot, the Seattle Symphony and guests offer an inspired pairing of Beethoven’s immortal Ninth and the spiritually attuned music of Olivier Messiaen.

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Filed under: Beethoven, Olivier Messiaen, review, Seattle Symphony, Seattle Times

December 6, 2016 • 8:35 am Comments Off on Elgar’s Dream a Transformative Experience at Seattle Symphony

Elgar’s Dream a Transformative Experience at Seattle Symphony

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Edward Gardner © Benjamin Ealovega

At this late date, it’s surprising how relatively little-known The Dream of Gerontiusremains among American audiences. Edward Elgar’s masterpiece – even if not the composer’s own favourite among his great oratorio trilogy – contains all the goods to move a concert audience to its core. ..

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Filed under: choral music, Edward Elgar, review, Seattle Symphony

November 25, 2016 • 12:00 am Comments Off on Learning To Listen: Fallujah Brings the Iraq War to the Opera Stage

Learning To Listen: Fallujah Brings the Iraq War to the Opera Stage

The tag “CNN opera” was always a misleading way to refer to operas grappling with current events, but it’s downright insulting when it comes to a work like Fallujah, the chamber opera by the Canadian composer Tobin Stokes and the Iraqi-American librettist Heather Raffo that just received its East Coast première in a co-production by New York City Opera and Long Beach Opera.

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Filed under: new music, New York City Opera, review

November 22, 2016 • 7:20 am Comments Off on Jaap van Zweden Takes the New York Philharmonic for a Test Drive

Jaap van Zweden Takes the New York Philharmonic for a Test Drive

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Last week Jaap van Zweden conducted the New York Philharmonic in their first concert together since he was named Alan Gilbert’s successor as music director (starting in the 2018-19 season).

The program was a rich one: the Prelude to Wagner’s Lohengrin, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and the New York premiere of a brand-new viola concerto, Unearth, Release, by the highly talented young LA-based composer Julia Adolphe.

My review for Musical America has now been posted (behind the usual paywall):

NEW YORK—Four-and-a-half years after making his New York Philharmonic debut, Jaap van Zweden ascended the podium on Thursday for his first concert with the orchestra since being appointed …

Filed under: Musical America, new music, New York Philharmonic, review, Tchaikovsky, Wagner

November 5, 2016 • 10:53 am Comments Off on A Primer in the Romantic Spirit from Seattle Symphony

A Primer in the Romantic Spirit from Seattle Symphony

khachatryan-12 Sergey Khachatryan. Image courtesy of Seattle Symphony.

My review of this weekend’s Seattle Symphony program with Ludovic Morlot and violinist Sergey Khachatryan is now live on Vanguard Seattle:

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO)’s sixth season with Music Director Ludovic Morlot has so far included a pair of electrifying programs that paired world premiere commissions by composers of today with Beethoven classics—the latter part of an ongoing two-year cycle of the composer’s complete symphonies and piano concertos.

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Filed under: Berlioz, Ludovic Morlot, review, Seattle Symphony, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Vanguard Seattle

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