On Oct. 19, Michael Tilson Thomas, music director laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, led a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was, notes Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle , “all too likely to be his final … » Read

How many song cycles can you think of that were conceived for a female protagonist? Most fanciers of the art of song will name Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben , but can they come up with others? Mezzo-soprano Kate Linsey did so in fine … » Read

Kate Soper’s new opera The Hunt , premiered Oct. 12 at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, reveals its quirky identity immediately. The three primary characters seem to have stepped out of a medieval tapestry; they have fairy-tale … » Read

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla made her New York debut in September of 2016 conducting the Juilliard Orchestra—just as the group was coming together for the first time in the academic year. Of her subsequent local outing in 2018, leading the MET … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO—For the second week in a row, the San Francisco Symphony unveiled a world premiere of a concerto it had commissioned. The two works stand high contrast. Whereas Jesper Nordin’s violin concerto Convergence , debuted … » Read

LONDON—There’s a distinct feeling of change in the air at the London Symphony Orchestra, although Antonio Pappano is still a year away from officially taking up his new role as chief conductor. His first three programs as designate … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO—Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen turned to his left on the Davies Hall podium and waved a flattened hand in the air, eliciting a gently rippling bell-like melody. It wasn’t produced by the players before him, but rather by … » Read

LONDON—While English National Opera’s woes may not be as bad as initially feared, the breadth and depth of the company’s 2023-24 season has clearly been impacted.  And while new productions are decidedly thinner on the … » Read

In writing about what transpired on September 29 at David Geffen Hall in New York City, some allusion to calamitous conditions and nature’s fury feels obligatory: “Joshua Bell confronts The Elements— and so does his … » Read

CHICAGO— “The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic. There is hardly a moment in between.” Those words are Gertrude Stein’s, first delivered nearly a century ago in a lecture at … » Read