CHICAGO—In 1582, four teenage boys—Mancio Ito, Miguel Chijiwa, Julião Nakaura, and Martinho Hara—left Nagasaki, and the only homeland they’d ever known, to travel across Europe and the Portuguese Empire. They … » Read

Half a century ago Pinchas Zukerman was the groovy face of classical music, much as the Aix Easter Festival’s Artistic Director Renaud Capuçon is today. Like the two violinists’ mutual friend Daniel Barenboim, the 75-year-old … » Read

BOSTON—Olivier Messiaen’s massive Turangalila -Symphonie , which on April 11 received its first Boston Symphony Orchestra performance in 24 years, has a special place in the BSO’s history. Commissioned in 1946 by Serge … » Read

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