By Rebecca Schmid A timpanist just tall enough to rumble his mallets over the kettle drums stares out from beneath his specs as Lars Vogt slides onto the bench for the opening chords of Grieg’s Piano Concerto. “I like that sound!” says Music Director Donato Cabrera to the young percussionist as he walks out into [...]
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By Rebecca Schmid Hillary Hahn’s taste for the unconventional has in recent years taken her career onto a trajectory unlike that of most violin prodigies. Last October, she appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series improvising to traditional American melodies that inspired the works of Charles Ives, donning a fedora for the occasion. She maintains [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic are on a European tour for a couple of weeks, and for a change I didn’t roll my eyes in despair when I saw the list of repertoire. His predecessors as music director, Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel, for all their superb work at building [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark Many years ago I was sitting next to the p.r. director of the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall when a cellphone went off as Simon Rattle conducted. When the piece ended I asked him if that happened in Berlin. “Everywhere,” he said sadly. I left for vacation two days after the cellphone brouhaha at the New [...]
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by James Jorden “I’ve almost come to the conclusion that this Mr. Hitler isn’t a Christian,” muses merry murderess Abby Brewster early in the first act of Arsenic and Old Lace, and to tell the truth I’m beginning to think I’m almost as far behind the curve as she was. Recent new productions at the [...]
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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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