March 16, 2019 • 3:18 am Comments Off on Der Kindheit Verzauberung
Tonight was the final performance of Berlin Staatsoper’s new Zauberflöte production, directed by Yuval Sharon. Very happy to have been able to catch this — report forthcoming for Musical America. (Available here.)
Filed under: Berlin Staatsoper, directors, Mozart, Musical America, Yuval Sharon
March 14, 2019 • 1:36 am Comments Off on Liszt Meets Dante
“It is hard to say what the characteristics of Dante’s Hell are. Turmoil, hurry, incessant movement, fire, roaring wind, and utter discomfort are there; but so they are also in a London house when the kitchen chimney is on fire.” — George Bernard Shaw on Liszt’s “Dante” Symphony — an amusing but facile put-down.
Filed under: Franz Liszt, music criticism
March 12, 2019 • 10:25 am Comments Off on San Francisco Symphony’s 2019-20 Season
Here it is: Michael Tilson Thomas’s farewell season with the San Francisco Symphony has just been announced.
MTT concludes his quarter-century tenure with the orchestra with a season that features a notably more diverse lineup of contemporary composers than has been the case with his usual programming. The season will include commissions and world premieres of works by John Adams, Julia Wolfe, MTT, Ghiannon Giddens, Mason Bates, Camille Norment, Adam Schoenberg, Pamela Z, and Aaron Zigman. There will also be first SFS performances of music by Tania León, Allison Loggins-Hull, Wynton Marsalis, Jessie Montgomery, Steven Stucky, and MTT. All of this is folded into a programmatic theme called “celebrating the American Sound.” MTT’s beloved Mavericks will also be heard from again: Copland, Ives, Ruggles …
Also exciting is the announcement of season-long artist residencies by soprano Julia Bullock, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter (which include not only at SFS concerts but events such as recitals, SoundBox shows, and community initiatives).
Of course there will be Mahler: MTT will conduct the ultra-bleak Sixth, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny), and — as the grand finale to the MTT era, leading us upward: the Faustian Eighth.
Oh, and did you forget it’s the “Beethoven Year”? Which means, for SFS, the Second, Fifth, and Seventh Symphonies and the Second Piano Concerto and the Violin Concerto, plus some all-Beethoven recitals (Yefim Bronfman, Igor Levit, and Anne-Sophie Mutter).
And Esa-Pekka Salonen will give a foretaste of his upcoming directorship over two weeks of concerts.
Complete press release here.
Filed under: programming, San Francisco Symphony
March 10, 2019 • 3:42 am Comments Off on Derek Bermel at Octave 9
This afternoon, in Seattle Symphony’s new Octave 9 space, Derek Bermel and friends present Brooklyn to Ballard. The program, featuring cellist Seth Parker Woods, pianist Ethan Iverson, and Seattle Symphony musicians, will focus on the permutations of jazz and its inspiration on a wide range of composers. Bermel additionally collaborates with Seattle-based visual artist Barbara Earl Thomas.
Filed under: American music, new music, Seattle Symphony
March 4, 2019 • 7:21 am Comments Off on Poetry and Politics: Sir András Schiff Does Double Duty with Seattle Symphony
Sir András Schiff © Nadia F. Romanini
Sir András Schiff began a remarkable weekend of music with his appearance as guest conductor of the Seattle Symphony. My review:
For a long time, Seattle audiences have made clear their admiration for the artistry of Sir András Schiff whenever he comes into town for solo recitals – including one occasion 17 years ago, when his Bösendorfer had an unfortunate encounter with black ice while being transported across the continent and a replacement had to be found at the last minute.
Filed under: András Schiff, Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, review, Seattle Symphony
February 27, 2019 • 10:43 am Comments Off on Frank Gehry at 90
The brilliant architect Frank Gehry turns 90 on 28 February. He has had an indelible impact on the world of music, and at one of his recent masterpieces, the Pierre Boulez Saal — which he designed pro bono — the occasion will be celebrated with a concert of Boulez and Schumann. Honored to have written the program notes for this concert.
Filed under: Frank Gehry, Pierre Boulez
February 22, 2019 • 1:04 pm Comments Off on Dido and Aeneas at Juilliard
Here’s my program essay for Juilliard Opera’s production of Dido and Aeneas at the Willson Theater, directed by Mary Birnbaum and led by Avi Stein, with choreography by Claudia Schreier. Closes tomorrow.
“Even this little boarding-school opera is full of [Purcell’s] spirit, his
freshness, his dramatic expression, and his unapproached art of setting
English speech to music.” This was the verdict that Cornetto di Basso (aka
George Bernard Shaw, using his pen name as a music critic) reached when
covering an otherwise less-than-thrilling performance of Dido and Aeneas
in 1889. Though two centuries old by then, the score had only first been
published in 1841; the opera would not be performed outside England until
1895, when the bicentennial of Henry Purcell’s death stimulated curiosity
about his work.
Filed under: Henry Purcell, Juilliard
February 22, 2019 • 9:20 am Comments Off on Seattle Baroque Partners with Whim W’Him
Seattle Early Music is presenting a collaboration between Seattle Baroque Orchestra and Whim W’Him this weekend in a production of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater choreographed by Olivier Wevers and led by Alexander Weimann. Here’s my preview for Early Music America:
SEATTLE — It’s one of the best-loved scores in the literature — and has been so for nearly three centuries. Yet the Stabat Mater — the final work Giovanni Battista Pergolesi completed before his death in 1736 at the age of 26 — continues to allow for an extraordinary variety of interpretations. The emotional involvement and straightforward lyricism that make it so enduringly popular are precisely what have rendered Pergolesi’s setting suspect for those alarmed by such characteristics in sacred music.
Filed under: choreography, early music
February 21, 2019 • 11:13 am Comments Off on Seattle Symphony Announces 2019-20 Season
As part of its inaugural season under new Music Director Thomas Dausgaard, Seattle Symphony has just announced an impressive and inspiring lineup of 25 living composers: John Adams, Eddie Mora Bermúdez, Anna Clyne, Chick Corea, Charles Corey, Anthony DiLorenzo, Reena Esmail, Janice Giteck, Daniel Kidane, Elena Langer, Hannah Lash, Flo Menezes, Olga Neuwirth, Juan David Osorio, Angelique Poteat, Huang Ruo, David Sampson, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Kate Soper, Bent Sørensen, Tyshawn Sorey, Conrad Tao, Lotta Wennäkoski, Ryan Wigglesworth, and the 2020 Celebrate Asia Composition Competition winner.
Composer-in-residence Tyshawn Sorey will write a Cello Concerto for artist-in-residence Seth Parker Woods. Other SSO commissions: Reena Esmail’s Sitar Concerto — which promises to be a highlight of the season, given her inspired work to date — Elena Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce Suite, Hannah Lash’s Double Harp Concerto, and Angelique Poteat’s Cello Concerto, and pieces by Charles Corey and Janice Giteck. (Concertos clearly remain one of the most popular orchestral genres contemporary composers seem to prefer.)
I’m less excited about yet another Rachmaninoff concerto festival — but tickets do need to be sold — and we’ll have to see how the obligatory Beethoven Festival for the 2020 anniversary year works out. I do like juxtaposition of the symphonies with several of the above-mentioned commissions.
And there will be plenty of upcoming news about the soon-to-open Octave 9 project.
The complete press release can be found here.
Filed under: season programming, Seattle Symphony, Thomas Dausgaard
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 