It’s a rare to encounter all four symphonies of that cranky, visionary American iconoclast Charles Ives live over the span of just a week. That’s what happened six months ago in Walt Disney Concert Hall, in the last purely symphonic … » Read

Amid the current artistic doom and gloom, each of Bang on a Can’s three marathons have stood as beacons of light, while also providing psychological insights into where artists, particularly composers and musicians, find themselves in these … » Read

There’s a telling photo included in the booklet for the world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison . Taken in 1922 at the inaugural International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Salzburg, there she stands, … » Read

Pondering the state of classical music, especially opera, in a post-Covid world is not a happy pastime. Indeed, one wonders when, if ever, it will again be possible to see operas we want to see—including demanding ones of ample … » Read

While the majority of this year’s summer festivals either pulled back to a handful of chamber concerts or recycled content from previous years, the Salzburg Summer Festival showed considerable grit and determination by announcing a … » Read

With so many artists and broadcasters finding themselves with time on their hands, lockdown has been quite a time for podcasts. What makes Aaron Cohen’s Embrace Everything—The World of Gustav Mahler stand head and shoulders above the … » Read

David Lang is an insatiably prolific composer. At any given point in time, it seems, there is a world premiere of a Lang piece happening somewhere. His website lists 24 choral or vocal works of various lengths coming out in the last five years … » Read

San Francisco Symphony amassed an impressive catalog of recordings on its SFS label during Michael Tilson Thomas’ 25-year marathon run—Mahler and Schumann symphony cycles; Beethoven; lots of Charles Ives, and other American composers, … » Read

MILAN--After three months of silence, Italy’s opera companies are making a comeback. The lockdown in Europe has, for now, brought the health crisis under control, so the government gave socially distanced live performances the green light … » Read

Orchestras may have fallen silent but, with lockdown restrictions slowly easing, chamber ensembles have been slowly re-emerging—if not in the concert hall, then at least in the recording studio. The result has been a steady flow of new … » Read