This year marks the centenary of modernist master Pierre Boulez (1925–2016), music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1971 to 1977. In tribute, the orchestra offered a back-to-back pair of programs devoted to the composer/conductor. … » Read

LONDON—Northern Irish composer Conor Mitchell earned plaudits for his 2023 opera Abomination: A DUP Opera , a lacerating satire on homophobia, hate speech, and the people who perpetrate it all. His latest project is still in its early days, … » Read

LONDON—A decade or so back, UK productions of Handel’s operas were as rare as hens’ teeth. English National Opera scored a notable success with Xerxes ( Serse ) in a ravishing staging by Nicholas Hytner, plus well received … » Read

In the final scene of Bellini’s La sonnambula , as laid out in Felice Romani’s libretto, the Swiss maiden Amina sleepwalks precariously on the roof of the village millhouse, clutching a bouquet of faded flowers, a gift from her … » Read

CHICHESTER, West Sussex, UK—It is a quarter century since director Harry Christophers first took his vocal group The Sixteen on a Choral Pilgrimage, visiting some of the finest cathedrals in the U.K. He started the group 21 years earlier, … » Read

The world premiere of Timothy Higgins’s  Market Street, 1920s on Oct. 3 by the San Francisco Symphony led The San Francisco Chronicle  critic to describe the work as a collision between “one rather straightlaced theme … » Read

Among a handful of new opera recordings, few labels are as adventurous as BMOP/sound. Working in tandem with Odyssey Opera and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, their latest release is the debut studio recording of Dominick Argento’s gothic … » Read

LONDON—This season marks the first time English National Opera will divide its programming between London and Manchester in a controversial move forced upon it by Arts Council England. If the company is fazed by the challenge, it … » Read

CHICAGO—Gathering an audience at Chicago’s newest music venue on a recent evening, Seth Boustead introduced himself: composer, founder and president of the nonprofit Access Contemporary Music, and, as of earlier that day, … » Read

The Park Avenue Armory’s Drill Hall has long been home to avant-garde spectaculars. A 2008 production of Bernd Zimmerman’s Die Soldaten propelled the audience around on railroad tracks; a 2016 staging of Louis Andriessen's De Materi e … » Read