The harp, an instrument long associated with female musicians and a standard classical repertoire, is undergoing a transformation as gender roles are redefined and new works are introduced. In a conversation for Van Magazine , Parker Ramsay … » Read

Pianist Gabriela Montero follows her own creative muse, with a flourishing career as both classical virtuoso and talented improviser. Her contrapuntally rich fantasies on themes (often suggested by audience members) have been captured on her 2006 … » Read

One of the major events of the international opera season has undergone a significant disruption, with Daniel Barenboim, now 79, having to pull out from the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden’s new Ring for health reasons. He has been … » Read

Anna the opera star is back onstage in certain cities—Verona, Paris, Vienna, and Cologne among them--but not without protest in the streets. Having supported Putin’s 2012 presidential election and made no effort to distance herself … » Read

The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) has named Sonja Kostich as its new executive director, effective in mid-October 2022 after board approval. She succeeds Cora Cahan, the organization's president and CEO from October 2019 and credited with … » Read

The Nashville Symphony has promoted its assistant conductor Nathan Aspinall , in the job since 2019, to associate as of this season, pointing to his reading last year of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony as a particular success. Upcoming is … » Read

Following its final performance of the season last Friday, the La Jolla Music Society SummerFest announced that it had renewed pianist Inon Barnatan’s contract as music director of the series. Barnatan first signed in … » Read

Lauren Fagan is a singer whose vocal flexibility is matched by faultless diction and a seemingly effortless ability to put across the meaning behind the words. She’s an impressive stage animal too, as proven by her recent debut in Ethel … » Read

The 55-member Central City Chorus, an all-volunteer Manhattan-based ensemble now in its fourth decade, has appointed Bryan Zaros, a protégé of New York choral king Kent Tritle, to be its music director, starting with the coming … » Read

The Los Angeles Ballet, now in its 17th season, has selected Melissa Barak as the company’s new artistic director. An accomplished ballet dancer and choreographer, she succeeds Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary, the founding co-artistic … » Read