LONDON—It has been 12 years since British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber put his cello back in its case for the last time, a herniated disc in his neck having brought a premature end to a career that had begun in 1972 with the first London … » Read

LONDON—Bastard Assignments, a collective in the thriving British experimental music scene, has received positive notices in the past (“one of the most exciting forces in contemporary music,” as quoted from the Financial Times in … » Read

AIX-EN-PROVENCE—As fine wines improve with age, so the Aix Easter Festival has matured into one of Europe’s unmissable classical music gatherings. While not a behemoth on the scale of London’s BBC Proms, it is a beacon among … » Read

CHICAGO—During a recent Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert, Katinka Kleijn sidled onto the Orchestra Hall stage, as she has for more than 30 years, to join her colleagues in the cello section for a program of rich, late-romantic … » Read

CHICAGO—Jakub Hruša has death on his mind. At least, his recent Chicago Symphony Orchestra program did. On April 9, he anchored his guest appearance with Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead and the Prelude and Liebestod … » Read

Innocence by the late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho has made an impact that few other recent operas can match. Following its premiere at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2021, Saariaho’s dramatization (with a multilingual libretto … » Read

In her role as principal guest conductor, Marin Alsop led the Philadelphia Orchestra in the local premiere of John Adams’s The Rock You Stand On at Carnegie Hall on March 31, part of the hall’s semiquincentennial series, “United … » Read

LONDON—Premiered on Good Friday 1727, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion followed on from the St. John Passion of 1724. What would have struck the Leipzig congregation immediately, however, was the sheer ambition of the new work, one composed … » Read

LONDON—The current season marks the 400 th anniversary of the death of John Dowland, the English composer, lutenist, and singer who came to personify the Elizabethan embrace of melancholia. To celebrate, Wigmore Hall invited countertenor … » Read

LOS ANGELES—Two reimaginings of portions of Philip Glass’ so-called Cocteau trilogy came to California during the month of March.  Hot on the heels of Opera Parallèle’s innovative multimedia production of the … » Read