A few months ago I purchased the new recording (Bridge 9385) of the first opera by Mohammed Fairouz, “Sumeida’s Song,” and was very impressed by this piece and the wonderful performance. So I was excited to hear that a first staged performance would be given in New York as part of the new Prototype Festival. I went last night to the second performance, at the HERE performance space on 6th Avenue.
I ws a bit … <Read More>
The Emerson String Quartet was scheduled to present a program at Carnegie Hall on November 6, 2012, but the program was postponed as the hall was shut that week due to Hurricane Sandy – the lack of public transportation exacerbated by the dangling crane across the street that caused the City to block pedestrian traffic. The program was rescheduled to tonight, January 7, when Nov. 6 tickets were honored.
There were some good things tonight, … <Read More>
Once again, the new year begins in New York City with the Green Mountain Project, a presentation of the Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610) by Claudio Monteverdi, this year at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Times Square. I attended this presentation two years ago, and followed the Green Mountain Project last year when they presented a different vespers service drawn from Monteverdi’s 1640 publication, Selva morale e spirituale, together with compatible works … <Read More>
I haven’t been blogging about the concerts, operas, shows and films I’ve been attending so far this season with any kind of regularity. I’ve been so busy that blogging fell by the wayside. I’m going to try to play catch-up a bit now that classes have ended for the fall term, but wanted to start with an event I attended yesterday evening, a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, by conductor Harold … <Read More>
This has been such a busy semester for me — in terms of teaching, administrative duties at the Law School, and concertgoing — that my blogging has fallen by the wayside. (I was also distracted by following the national election campaigns, happily concluded from my perspective.) I have a big accumulation of musical events in particular to write about. But I thought I'd dip my toe back in with the most recent, last night's performance at … <Read More>
Peoples' Symphony Concerts launched their new season last night with a Musicans from Marlboro program at the High School of Fashion Industries auditorium, their substitute location this year while the auditorium at Washington Irving High School gets a make-over. (We are promised new seats, whoopee!!)
Several touring ensembles of young musicians who have participated at the summer Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont criss-cross the country each year, bringing chamber music to the multitudes in performances … <Read More>
Last night I attended the first concert of what may be the most ambitious concert series of the new season in New York City: an attempt to present in recital all of the solo songs by Franz Schubert, who wrote more than 600 of them during the first three decades of the 19th century. Two young New York City-based pianists, Lachlan Glen and Jonathan Ware, thought this up last spring, and have put it together … <Read More>
My concert season started this past Saturday, September 15, with a vocal recital by baritone Jesse Blumberg and pianist Jocelyn Dueck at Benzaquen Hall, one of several performance/rehearsal spaces in the DiMenna Center for Classical Music on West 35th Street in Manhattan. The performance marked the launch of Dueck's project, "The Center for Language in Song," which is intended to assist young vocal artists in developing the insights into text and music that support great performances.… <Read More>
I just heard a very satisying performance of Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto by Joshua Bell, Louis Langree and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the first of two presentations of this program, which began with Mozart's Symphony No. 1 and Schubert's Symphony No. 4. I understand that the Saturday performance is sold out, and deservedly so.
Joshua Bell is a definite favorite with New York audiences, so it is not surprising that both performances sold out … <Read More>
Last night I attended the Mostly Mozart Festival concert conducted by Osmo Vanska, music director of the Minnesota Orchestra. They performed Mozart's brief Symphony No. 32, K. 318 (1779), Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 37 (1800-03) — with Rudolph Buchbinder as soloist — and Schubert's Symphony in C Major (1825-28), usually referred to these days as the Symphony No. 9. I thought this concert qualified to be called "spectacular" at several points, particularly in … <Read More>