SANTA MONICA, CA – Imagine getting the idea for an opera from the stamp collection that you had as a kid. So said composer Huang Ruo, for whom the mythological Chinese characters on some of his stamps eventually materialized into Book of … » Read

BOSTON—Two of today’s major artists, violinist Christian Tetzlaff and pianist Kirill Gerstein, made their first joint Boston appearance in Jordan Hall on April 7. And there may be another musician to thank for bringing them together. … » Read

LONDON—Judging by this April 9 concert at the Barbican’s Milton Court concert hall, versatility is the Britten Sinfonia’s middle name. The program ranged from Mozart to Judith Weir and featured a world premiere in the form of … » Read

The April 9 performance by Jakub Józef Orlinski at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall was a reminder that the Polish countertenor, in the words of the Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman, “really does seem to reach beyond what most artists … » Read

There’s something enigmatic about the music Sarah Hennies composes: Even when she describes exactly what she’s done and why, a listener still might wonder how she achieved this or that detail. Hennies doesn’t cut corners when it … » Read

Every spring, the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival in southern France invites a different phalanx to perform one or other of Bach’s completed Passions. This Good Friday it was the turn of the Swiss baroque orchestra La Cetra to perform the … » Read

Chamber music aficionados waiting until the last moment to get tickets for the April 5 all-Schubert recital by pianists Jonathan Biss and Mitsuko Uchida were plumb out of luck. The appearance by the co-directors of the Marlboro Music Festival at … » Read

New York’s ten-year-old Heartbeat Opera has made its reputation with stripped-down, radically reinterpreted versions of standard repertory pieces. Under its founding Artistic Directors Ethan Heard and Louisa Proske, the company presented, … » Read

With an official release date of April 12, Pentatone has recorded Paul Moravec’s ambitious operatic adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining . The story concerns Jack Torrance, a writer and recovering alcoholic who brings … » Read

“I keep concerts short, because a lot of the music that I write is quite introspective, and I think it kind of unfair to make people suffer,” Roger Eno cheerily informed an audience assembled on a recent Friday night at National … » Read