Music Reviews
Jun 1st 2015
In his 70s, the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim continues to attract attention not only for his performance schedule but also for his views on global issues.
May 27th 2015
When an aging Radu Lupu sauntered onstage in Bordeaux Tuesday evening (27 May) a hush fell over the packed Auditorium. This pianist is generally recognized as one of the world’s most accomplished keyboard artists, and the full house of 2,200 attendees knew it.
May 8th 2015
One can easily imagine an opulent home of a Seattle billionaire like Bill Gates or Paul Allen as a setting for Richard Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos.” So after the curtain went up for Seattle Opera’s opening night (May 2) at McCaw Hall, the contemporary setting, created by Robert Dahlstrom, aptly
Apr 22nd 2015
When legendary soprano Patricia Racette, currently starring at the Met in Pagliacci, called and asked if I would like to produce her new CD, I had to pinch myself. This is the kind of request that can make my day, week and month.
Apr 20th 2015
Young Boston area players performed a broad range of instrumental and vocal works by the up-and-coming Boston University (BU) composer Christopher LaRosa (in the picture) Friday night at Boston’s United Church of Brookline, virtually rattling the stained-glass win
Apr 11th 2015
Music Director Andris Nelsons’s Thursday [April 9, 2014] BSO program, comprising a wide range of musical styles and eras, induced an enthusiastic reception in the nearly full house. The program will be repeated tonight (Friday), Saturday and next Tuesday.
Apr 2nd 2015
When scheduling an orchestral program a year or more in advance, it is probably impossible to know how a brand new piece will match up with any other work, but Michael Gandofi’s “Ascending Light,” which received its world premiere last weekend from Boston Symphony, had a lot in common with Gusta
Mar 29th 2015
The Handel and Haydn Society celebrated its 200th anniversary with an intense and moving performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” before a full house at Symphony Hall (Boston) on Friday (March 27).
Mar 25th 2015
Billions of people enjoy music; many feel that they can’t live without it.
Why?
Mar 14th 2015
Alessandro Deljavan, the charismatic Italian pianist whose playing created a sensation at the 2013 Cliburn International Piano Competition, has produced his much-anticipated CD of Robert Schumann works. Distribution is scheduled for the end of this month.
Mar 2nd 2015
When the thunderous introduction to Grieg’s piano concerto erupted in Carnegie Hall on a spring evening in 1951, the audience was poised for a great musical experience.
Mar 2nd 2015
You might think that watching a Baroque opera with its endless da capo arias would be akin to watching paint dry, but Seattle Opera’s all-new production of Handel’s “Semele” tosses that notion out the window.
Feb 26th 2015
Frances Wilson: Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?
Feb 19th 2015
As a long-time West Sider, I've happily traipsed through the bowels of Brooklyn for my last few posts in pursuit of the most happening events in classical music, theater and opera. But sometimes, as L. Frank Baum and Judy remind us, there is truly no place like home.
Feb 19th 2015
When American song writer Jerome Kern announced he was going to write a show based on Marco Polo, an enthusiastic reporter asked, “Mr. Kern, your new musical is based on an Italian who crossed the Alps and then the Leviathan desert, got to Mongolia, then China and finally returned home to Italy.
Feb 12th 2015
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The world premiere of Snowstorm, a 20-minute feast of orchestral colors and cl
Feb 12th 2015
On Friday night (February 6) at Keller Auditorium, Sandra Piques Eddy gave one of the best performances of Carmen that anyone can possibly imagine. She captivated Portland Opera’s audience with a tantalizing combination of emotions that made Carmen absolutely bewitching.
Feb 2nd 2015
Leonard Bernstein said, “The nineteenth century dies hard.” By that he meant his American concert-going audience would rather hear the lush, romantic music of over a hundred years ago —Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Verdi — than the angular, anguished music of the twentieth —Stravinsky, Schoenberg, S
Jan 25th 2015
I left jazz behind many years ago when I got hooked on Handel. The harmonies, the bounce and the melodies of the old German seemed to hold much more promise. I remember boasting to a friend, “I even have The Messiah in English.” I had a lot to learn.