My 2015-16 concert season began early this year, with season-opening concerts by the Five Boroughs Music Festival on September 11 and the Brooklyn Art Song Society on September 18.
5BMF decided to start their season in Manhattan, at the National Opera Center’s recital hall, with a program by the American Contemporary Ensemble, a youthful group of composers who perform their own music in ensemble. Group members Caleb Burhans, Timo Andres, Caroline Shaw, Clarice Jensen and … <Read More>
New York Law School’s Spring Break period this year was March 8-16. I ended it with a real bang, attending concerts on five consecutive days (overlapping the beginning of classes): Thursday, March 13 – Vienna Philharmonic led by Andris Nelsons at Carnegie Hall; Friday, March 21 – Les Delices, Five Boroughs Music Festival, at the King Manor Museum in Jamaica, Queens; Saturday, March 14; Saturday, March 15 – New York Philharmonic led by Alan Gilbert … <Read More>
I found myself in Ithaca, N.Y., for a meeting at Cornell Saturday afternoon, so checked out the bulletin board in the Music Department building to discover that a student group was presenting a performance last night of Guillaume de Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame, the earliest complete mass setting to survive (from the 14th century) and one of my favorite pieces of “early music.” I hastened to attend, of course. Graduate student Lorraine Fitzmaurice put … <Read More>
One of my favorite singers is baritone Jesse Blumberg. I first heard him sing at a Wolf recital at the Austrian Cultural Forum many years ago. I had gone because another singer who had recently attracted my attention, Tom Meglioranza, was on the program. I came away from the event a Blumberg fan as well, and began to look out for his other concert appearances. Over the past month, I’ve attended three of them!
On … <Read More>