Art Leonard’s Cultural Diary – March 22 through April 16, 2014

I’ve had a busy few weeks, both in terms of attending things and in terms of work having to get done, as a result of which there is a big pile-up of programs for me to write about, so herewith a diary of brief comments about the events I’ve attended from March 22 through April 16. I have omitted comment about the Jeremy Denk piano recital at Peoples’ Symphony Concerts, which I wrote about separately … <Read More>


Weekend Music in NYC: New York Polyphony & R. Strauss’s “Feuersnot”

Quite a combination, this….  On Saturday evening, I battled through the snow to Columbia University’s St. Paul’s Chapel to hear New York Polyphony present a splendid Christmas season program under the auspices of the Miller Theatre Early Music Series.  On Sunday afternoon, it was much less of a battle to get to Carnegie Hall and hear Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra present Richard Strauss’s early, and forgotten, opera, “Feuersnot.”

From the sublime to … <Read More>


From Machaut to Sondheim – A NYC Weekend Cultural Diary

This was a very busy weekend on my concert schedule — actually, an extended weekend since it began on Thursday night — so I have much to report.  On Thursday night I was at the New York Philharmonic from a program that included the NYC premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto, played by the NY Philharmonic’s excellent principal oboe player, Liang Wang.   On Friday night I attended “Armida: A Baroque Opera Celebration” presented by New … <Read More>