The literary giant and peace activist has died at 79 — another terrible loss of 2018.
Filed under: literature
December 24, 2018 • 2:05 pm Comments Off on A Fuller Monty: Christmas Vespers by Monteverdi
A Fuller Monty: Christmas Vespers by Monteverdi
David Fallis and colleagues
Early Music Seattle presented this remarkable concert over the weekend: and it was just what the doctor ordered in these jaded times.
Even if he hadn’t composed a single opera, Claudio Monteverdi would still belong to the greatest of the great for his achievements as a master of sacred music. His Vespro della Beata Vergine, published in 1610, is hailed as a landmark of the literature – and is the work instantly conjured whenever you hear the phrase “the Monteverdi Vespers.” But it was an altogether different setting of the Vespers service that Early Music Seattle presented at this concert, the most recent installment in the ongoing Northwest Baroque Masterworks Project.
Filed under: Monteverdi, review
December 23, 2018 • 5:14 am Comments Off on Kinan Azmeh and His CityBand
Kinan Azmeh and His CityBand
My piece for Boulez Saal on Kinan Azmeh as he completes an incredibly creative year with stops with his CityBand and friends in Berlin and Amsterdam:
Filed under: Kinan Azmeh, Pierre Boulez Saal
December 20, 2018 • 12:22 pm Comments Off on Predictably Unpredictable: John Harbison at 80
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
December 16, 2018 • 5:19 pm Comments Off on Nydia
Nydia
Randolph Rogers: Nydia, sculpture inspired by Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii
Filed under: photography
December 11, 2018 • 12:03 pm Comments Off on At BAM: An Early Turnage Opera Still Packs a Punch
At BAM: An Early Turnage Opera Still Packs a Punch
Photo: Richard Termine
My Musical America review of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s debut opera Greek, given its belated New York premiere at BAM in a visiting production directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins:
NEW YORK–Raw rage and political engagement were the driving forces behind Mark-Anthony Turnage’s debut opera Greek. Familiar enough for a young artist just setting out, such motivations can make a powerful initial impact but tend to give the art they inspire a rapidly expiring shelf-life. And yet Greek has not staled in the three decades since its premiere.
continue [paywall]
Filed under: Mark-Anthony Turnage, Musical America, review
December 8, 2018 • 5:31 pm Comments Off on Plaudits
Plaudits
Gianni Schicchi accepts the applause.
Filed under: photography
December 6, 2018 • 2:42 pm Comments Off on John Adams on the Yin and Yang of His Musical Life
John Adams on the Yin and Yang of His Musical Life
My story for the Juilliard Journal on John Adams as he returns to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra next week at Alice Tully Hall. Program details here.
“What does it take to move us from our customary place?” John Adams asked in his commencement speech to the Juilliard class of 2011. “That is what we want when we confront a work of art, whether it’s a completely new creation or an impassioned performance of a masterwork from the past.” The acclaimed composer returns to Juilliard December 10—this time to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in a program that pairs the Brahms Fourth Symphony with two 21st-century pieces: Ciel d’hiver by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and Adams’ own Doctor Atomic Symphony.
Filed under: Brahms, conductors, John Adams
December 5, 2018 • 9:08 am Comments Off on Esa-Pekka Salonen to San Francisco Symphony
Esa-Pekka Salonen to San Francisco Symphony
The ever-adventurous Esa-Pekka Salonen will take over the reins from Michael Tilson Thomas to lead San Francisco Symphony after Michael Tilson Thomas steps down in 2020.
From Michael Cooper’s report in the New York Times about this decidedly inspired choice:
“He definitely is somebody who has that sense of the interesting mission that the West Coast has been on for a while, and he has certainly been a part of it,” Mr. Thomas said, adding: “I’ve always felt with the San Francisco Symphony, since I first began to work with them, that they are really up for looking at things in new ways.”
From the San Francisco Symphony press release:
“From the very first approach, the San Francisco Symphony leaders and musicians and I were buzzing with
possibilities,” said Esa-Pekka Salonen. “The ‘what-ifs’ of the orchestra world were suddenly on the table in a real
way. Here is a top symphony orchestra in the place in America where things start; where the ways things have always
been done are interrogated, and where problems are first identified and then solved. In San Francisco itself and in
the San Francisco Symphony, I see both the big ideas being thought and the actual work being done, and that, to me,
is irresistible.
I wasn’t looking for another Music Directorship. I am so proud of the work we did together at the Swedish Radio
Orchestra, at the LA Philharmonic, and at the Philharmonia Orchestra, and that those organizations where I’ve held
music director titles thrive without me gives me great joy. But there was a ‘no brainer’ aspect to this that I’ve been
fortunate to have experienced a few times before in my career, so I know it when I see it. The San Francisco
Symphony is an ensemble and an organization at the top of their game, renowned for their interpretations of
masterpieces and unafraid to treat new works the same way. They have had the powerhouse combination of
Michael’s exacting musicality and freedom of spirit for 25 years: a legacy I’m privileged to inherit.“
Filed under: conductors, music news
December 3, 2018 • 10:11 am Comments Off on Going Greek
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 