By James Conlon A few months ago I wrote about two extraordinary projects in Rome that introduce children, from five to eighteen years of age, to opera. Performances of The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni were presented to thousands of young people by two completely separate entities: the Rome Opera and the Tito Gobbi Foundation. […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: February 17, 2013 MUNICH — There is a genteel inscrutability about Herbert Blomstedt. Authoritative, tall and silver-haired, he has never cut the profile of a star. But the gaze is probing. Musicians play well for him perhaps out of a sense of being acutely monitored. Two years ago Bayerischer Rundfunk hired […]
Read the rest of this article »By: Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. In my first column of this year, I listed among my New Year’s resolutions “try to go to at least one concert a month that offers music unfamiliar to me, preferably new music.” Little did I know then how rewarding that would prove to be. […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark The Warm European Touch Andris Nelsons is one of the hottest young conductors around. Hailing from Riga, Latvia, he has been music director of the Birmingham Symphony since 2008 and made a splash in March 2011 at Carnegie Hall, substituting on a day’s notice for James Levine in a Boston Symphony performance […]
Read the rest of this article »By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq. Dear Law and Disorder: May we borrow music for an orchestral performance from another organization that purchased this music, but is currently not using it? When you write that the other organization “purchased this music”, do you mean that they actually purchased all performance rights to the music or merely […]
Read the rest of this article »By Rebecca Schmid The Berlin Philharmonic is celebrating the centenary of Lutosławski with several concerts this month. The first of the series on February 7—featuring his Concert for Orchestra—opened appropriately with Anne-Sophie Mutter, who premiered one of his most important works, Chain Two, in 1988. In an interview I conducted two years ago, the violinist […]
Read the rest of this article »By: Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. I am extremely grateful to the following individuals whose input was of great assistance in preparing this week’s column: Nadine Asin, Emanuel Ax, Bärli Nugent, Jay Campbell, David Finckel, Ani Kavafian, Jennifer Koh and Lucy Shelton. Dear Edna: I have read a number of your blog […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark Daniil Trifonov is a diplomat at the keyboard, not a pounder. We’re so used to powerhouse Russian pianists that the slight young man who bounded onstage Tuesday evening for his Carnegie Hall recital debut and proceeded to caress the keys took at least one listener by surprise. Winner of the prestigious Tchaikovsky […]
Read the rest of this article »Justin Peck’s “Year of the Rabbit” begins with a whirligig virtuoso solo by Ashley Bouder. The principal New York City Ballet dancer performs her multiple turns into off-kilter leaps with playful abandon. The total effect is that of “Road Runner” cartoon: Here comes Bouder. Beep Beep! The company that George Balanchine developed is known for moving speedily. But Justin Peck, a 25-year-old corps dancer who has now made three works for NYCB (this is his second), gets his dancers to move even faster than the company’s founding choreographer. About half way through Peck’s 2012 piece—to Michael P. Atkinson’s orchestration of Sufjan Stevens’ electronica album “Enjoy Your Rabbit” (2001)—one had to wonder what all the hurry was about.
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: February 1, 2013 MUNICH — In a statement issued today here, Lorin Maazel shed light on the brevity of his tenure as Chefdirigent of the Munich Philharmonic: “I congratulate Valery Gergiev on his appointment as principal conductor … starting the 2015–16 season. I am honored to have been serving as the […]
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