CHICAGO—When organizations dust off little-known rarities, the adjective they often bandy about, con gusto, is “rediscovered.” Gratefully, Haymarket Opera Company staked no such claims before its March 22 performance of Maria … » Read

Jaap van Zweden’s six-year tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic comes to a close with the current season, by which time he will have conducted the orchestra in 31 world, U.S., and New York premieres. Numbers 30 and 31 were … » Read

Anyone expecting characteristic JACK quartet fare at the group’s concert on March 15—say, something like Helmut Lachenmann or John Luther Adams—was in for a big surprise. After the house lights went down at the Brooklyn … » Read

BOSTON—The Celebrity Series of Boston was offering something of a rarity: an orchestral concert with a real point of view (March 17). The Orchestre de Paris, under Music Director Klaus Mäkelä, was presenting a program at Symphony … » Read

LONDON—When it premiered in 1994, Hans Zender’s kaleidoscopic take on Schubert’s Winterreise gave the critics major conniptions. Up to then, composers had arranged the odd song, but no one had dared to go the whole hog. Worse, … » Read

On paper, the program for the Takács Quartet’s recent 92nd Street Y appearance was unremarkable: standard works by Haydn and Beethoven sandwiching a piece of new music. But the March 13 concert carried no trace of routine, … » Read

Alexei Ratmansky’s first new work as artist-in-residence of the New York City Ballet stands apart from his internationally acclaimed body of work. Neither a reconstruction of a full-length ballet nor an innovative treatment of codified … » Read

CHICAGO—When Bernard Rands crossed the threshold from adolescence to adulthood, his parents had had enough. It was time, they said, to give up this music business—it was fine as a hobby, but not as a profession. Rands’s … » Read

LONDON—The tale of Charles Byrne, known to history as the Irish Giant, is a tragedy of operatic proportions. That’s one reason Sarah Angliss’s dramatization of his final year on earth makes such a powerful piece of music … » Read

George Lewis is a man with a mission, opening the concert-music field to composers previously marginalized or overlooked, and International Contemporary Ensemble audiences are reaping the benefits of his zeal. Since he became artistic director in … » Read