LONDON—Simon Rattle is on record as saying that his inspiration to become an opera conductor came from the work of Czech composer Leoš Janácek. It’s not surprising then that this January 11 concert performance of Katya … » Read

Plunked down right in the middle of the Prototype Festival’s usually ultra-serious fare of experimental chamber opera came the first night, on Tuesday, of the latest revival of Donizetti’s frothy charmer L’Elisir d’amore … » Read

The Prototype Festival makes reputations more for creators than for performers, the latest being Emma O’Halloran, an emerging Irish composer here shown to be an important new voice. Her double bill, Trade/Mary Motorhead, a coproduction … » Read

The combination of Thomas Søndergård, music director designate of the Minnesota Orchestra; the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; and Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 produced an evening of music that drove one critic to superlatives. … » Read

Du Yun is a Shanghai- and U.S.- trained composer and performer, now based in New York. Her best-known works are the opera Angel’s Bone , first heard in 2016 at the Prototype Festival in New York and winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for … » Read

One needn’t look far for premieres of new music in the New York Philharmonic’s current season, but few will have the sheer size or impose the interpretive challenges of Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg’s Third Piano Concerto. … » Read

LONDON--Not content with being a consummate concert pianist—along with  gifted writer, poet, and painter—Sir Stephen Hough also composes. A busy work schedule has limited his output in the past but, thanks perhaps to the … » Read

The timing was a bit unfortunate. Just days before the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Fedora , the company announced in The New York Times that it was planning to intensify its focus on contemporary works. … » Read

The latest trifecta of recordings of new American orchestral and instrumental works includes a disc of strikingly immersive music by Steven Mackey played by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. These recordings hail from David Robertson’s … » Read

John Adams’s opera-oratorio El Niño - Nativity Reconsidered has always felt imposing, immense, and possibly something that could be a Christmas concert piece. Which could be one reason why the enterprising soprano Julia Bullock has … » Read