by Keith Clarke Having ditched EMI after 15 years, demon fiddler Nigel Kennedy is making a splash with his new label, Sony Classical, his first disc re-exploring Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, complete with improvisation, progressive rock, female vocals. Oh, and drums. As he gracefully explained to The Scotsman: “With Vivaldi I always think I f***ing own [...]
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by Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. I am grateful to several colleagues who assisted me in preparing my response to the following question: the distinguished entertainment attorney, Donald Franzen, and his associate, Mark Robertson; Jaime Campbell Morton, who is a viral marketing and social networking expert and who founded Artspromo, and [...]
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Forty years is a long time to make dances with just one other person. At the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the avant-garde dance makers Eiko & Koma present “Residue,” an exhibit tracing their four-decade collaboration. From their beginnings in post-World War II Japan, to their first artistic success in Germany, to their decision in 1977 to become New Yorkers, Eiko & Koma have chosen a path less taken.
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by Keith Clarke How many percussionists does it take to fill a concert hall? Just two, apparently. I am on retreat in South Wales, where on Tuesday the annual Tenby Arts Festival served up O Duo, aka Owen Gunnell and Oliver Cox, two young musicians who met at music college and put together an act [...]
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BY JAMES JORDEN Two monochromatic color schemes, two towering box sets, two wardrobes of lavish period costumes, two ensemble casts, two authentic orchestras—even two brightly-colored dream sequences: There are more than a few superficial similarities between two big-scale revivals playing in New York this week: Atys at BAM and Follies at the Marquis Theater on [...]
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By Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. Dear Edna: I read your blog regularly and am happy that you welcome questions from people of all ages and all corners of the arts world. I have worked in the orchestra sector, in the area of arts administration, for the past seven years. I [...]
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by Keith Clarke OK, I admit it, the editor was right. I went along to the Lincoln Center production of South Pacific at the Barbican last week and had a jolly good time. It wasn’t an overnight conversion to the world of the musical, and I can’t say I didn’t look at my watch just [...]
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by Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. Dear Edna: I am a member of a string quartet. We are all just out of college and trying to get our individual careers going, as well as dedicating a lot of our time to establishing our quartet. We were recently in a situation where [...]
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On Saturday, September 10 2011, Alan Gilbert spoke before the New York Philharmonic performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, on A Concert for New York. Following are his reflections that preceded the performance, which was telecast nationally on PBS and can be watched in full at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/a-concert-for-new-york/watch-the-fully-edited-broadcast-program-with-tom-brokaw/1182/. We are faced, on this anniversary, with the responsibility [...]
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by Keith Clarke If you’re in the classical music business and say you don’t much care for musicals, everyone just assumes you’re a musical snob. So I shall be turning up at London’s Barbican Theater tonight for the Lincoln Center production of South Pacific wearing as much of a smile as I can muster. But [...]
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