After the six winners were announced at the Metropolitan Opera’s Grand Finals Concert on May 1, the culmination of its annual National Council Auditions, I realized that I had already seen one of them in two significant productions. The … » Read

The upcoming weekend of June 3 and 4 was to mark the conclusion of the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra’s (SASO) 2021-22 season. Instead, the two evenings usually devoted to music will feature nothing but the darkened Tobin Center for the … » Read

Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem has always been political, and never more so than now. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s May 26 performance felt especially topical, conducted as it was by Vasily Petrenko, the orchestra’s Russian … » Read

Music has long been a means of expressing resistance to political and social oppression. Beethoven knew this, so did Verdi and many other composers. And so, too, does Ahmed Al Abaca, a 38-year-old Black, non-binary composer whose Ode to Liberty … » Read

Composer Tom Coult’s new opera Violet is a work whose animating theme of disappearing time proved emblematic of the pandemic that delayed its opening to this year’s Aldeburgh Festival in June. “I didn’t want an … » Read

One dancer drops her weight into a deep squat before ricocheting back to standing. Another sweeps his right leg and arm toward each other, bending the limbs easily at the joints once his knee and elbow make contact. Two more walk from upstage to … » Read

David Radzynski, concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since 2015, is to be the next concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra. He succeeds William Preucil, who was initially suspended in 2018 and subsequently fired for sexual … » Read

Concert Artists Guild today announces the four winners of its annual Victor Elmaleh Virtual Competition . They are: soprano Magdalena Kuzma, bassoonist Eleni Katz, pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner, and the Chicago-based Galvin … » Read

After a year’s delay, the 16 th iteration of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition returns to Fort Worth on June 2. Thirty pianists ages 19 to 31 will represent 15 countries during a 16-day contest over four rounds that include a … » Read

The League of American Orchestras has announced the new Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program. With the foundation’s support, the League will partner with the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) to commission … » Read