The beauty of attending a complete cycle of the Beethoven string quartets is the chance to go on a journey, experiencing “a complete life in music,” as the Danish String Quartet puts it in its lively program note. From February 7-18, … » Read

Forget Beethoven’s 250th birthday, this year’s most inspirational anniversary is the centenary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment (“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by … » Read

LOS ANGELES – Even for an organization that routinely shoots for the new and unusual, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2017 Reykjavik Festival was really out there, a gamble that music from remote Iceland would find an audience in … » Read

Caroline Shaw won the Pulitzer Prize in Music Composition in 2013, the youngest person to do so. The winning work, Partita, written for the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member, displays a plethora of musical styles, ranging … » Read

With its scheming politicos, sexual shenanigans, and an air of jaded amorality, Handel’s Agrippina is the perfect opera to hold a mirror up to our own times. It’s not surprising then that Sir David McVicar chose a contemporary … » Read

MILAN--Alexander Pereira's two-decade tenure as Intendant of Zurich Opera ended eight years ago, but his legacy appears to be alive and kicking. The Austrian manager gave Cecilia Bartoli a number of early breaks at the company (she celebrated 30 … » Read

MILAN--From Leoncavallo's I Medici to Giordano's La cena delle beffe , the grisly world of Renaissance Italy was repeatedly explored by verismo and late-verismo composers. Perhaps the brutality associated with the period sat well with a musical … » Read

BOSTON--Choreographer/dancer Caleb Teicher and pianist/composer Conrad Tao opened a short run of their More Forever, on January 31 in the Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theater at New England Conservatory. Part of Boston’s Celebrity Series, … » Read

LOS ANGELES—The legend of Orpheus and Eurydice has been prime fodder for composers for centuries, from Monteverdi to Stravinsky and beyond. Yet for reasons that no one has been able to definitively explain, the fetish for all things … » Read

Alexei Ratmansky is known as a highly musical choreographer, celebrated for his reconstructions of 19th-century classics and explorations of Eastern European folk-inspired styles. So the announcement that his newest work for New York City Ballet … » Read