Musical America Blogs

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 11, 2014 MUNICH — Could leaders here finally be moving ahead with a sorely needed new concert hall? Plans and sketches released this morning indicate progress on what has been an excruciatingly slow drive to supplement, or really supplant, the small Herkulessaal and hideous Gasteig venues. As presented by chief […]

Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors talk with Eric Jacobsen about choosing repertoire. Hailed by the New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative programming projects. As co-founder and Music Director of the adventurous orchestra The Knights and […]

Tre Voci Works by Debussy, Takemitsu, and Gubaidulina Marina Piccinini, Flute; Kim Kashkashian, viola; Sivan Magen, harp ECM New Series CD 2345   One of his last completed works, Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (1915) has been variously construed as a crystallization of Impressionism into a neoclassical mold, a nod to Debussy’s […]

Music of Peter Lieberson Volume 3 Piano Concerto No. 3 Viola Concerto Stephen Beck, piano; Roberto Diaz, viola; Odense Symphony Orchestra, Scott Yoo, conductor   Peter Lieberson (1946-2011) was a composer capable of creating affecting works in a wide range of styles. He was well known for collaborations with his wife, mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    Dear Law and Disorder: We have arranged for one of our foreign groups to perform a showcase at the upcoming APAP conference in New York. Will they need artist visas? Obviously, we’d like to avoid that time and expense. The artists are all from Europe and could enter as […]

Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors speaks with members of eighth blackbird, one of the world’s most acclaimed new music ensembles, about the patience and persistence needed to receive grants. eighthblackbird’s 2014-2015 season kicked off in Chicago and New York with a new staged, memorized production of composer Amy Beth Kirsten’s “Colombine’s Paradise […]

By Rebecca Schmid Last week at the Philharmonie featured the debut of the young conductor Joshua Weilerstein with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin alongside a guest appearance of Riccardo Chailly with the Berlin Philharmonic. It was an interesting opportunity to consider the qualities that can make or break a leader at the podium. A rumoured candidate […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 30, 2014 MUNICH — Along with the whole U.S., this city was on Krystian Zimerman’s “avoid” list. His Bavaria visits would take in Augsburg, Nuremberg, Regensburg, any place but the capital, following a harsh review of a performance he gave a dozen or more years ago. Somehow Munich’s musical life […]

Flutist Valerie Coleman and bassoonist Monica Ellis of Imani Winds talk to Noted Endeavors about how Imani became the world-famous group it is today. Advice for young ensembles: have a plan and be be patient waiting for commitments. The only full-time touring American wind quintet, Imani Winds has been together for 17 years, and travel […]

In the 1980s, Punk Rock, Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” and Mike Tyson’s boxing championships made the ear-splitting, the nocturnal, and the hard-hitting de rigueur. Contemporary dance followed, becoming faster, more brazen and muscular. When the Belgian Wim Vandekeybus arrived on the scene with his first work, “What the Body Does Not Remember” (1987), New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff began her review with these six slamming words: “Tough, brutal, playful, ironic and terrific.” And so it was with great anticipation that I attended, at Madrid’s Teatros de Canal on November 23, the reprisal of the dance, which is making a two-year world tour in celebration of its 25th anniversary.