Michael Brown News

The Argus Quartet, Co-First Prize Winner of the 2017 CAG Competition, will make its Weill Recital Hall debut on Tuesday, November 13 at 7:30pm. The ensemble performs its trademark blend of masterworks by Haydn and Janácek alongside music by contemporary composers Ted Hearne, Juri Seo, and Christopher Theofanidis.

The Argus Quartet, Co-First Prize Winner of the 2017 CAG Competition, will make its Weill Recital Hall debut on Tuesday, November 13 at 7:30pm. The ensemble performs its trademark blend of masterworks by Haydn and Jana?ek alongside music by contemporary composers Ted Hearne, Juri Seo, and Christopher Theofanidis.

Baruch Performing Arts Center is pleased to present the world premiere of Words on the Street, a hybrid music-theater event that wrestles with power, complacency, and excess. Originally written by Anna Rabinowitz as a series of poems, Words on the Street has been transformed into a unique production, collaboratively conceived and developed by Rabinowitz, director Kristin Marting, the late composer Matt Marks (1980-2018), and video designer Lianne Arnold. In response to the untimely death of Matt Marks, a community of composers, Lainie Fefferman, John Glover, Mary Kouyoumdjian, David T. Little, Kamala Sankaram, Caroline Shaw, and Randall Woolf have contributed additional compositions to create a highly original sonic world for the work. Music direction is by Mila Henry.

The Argus Quartet, Co-First Prize Winner of the 2017 CAG Competition, will make its Weill Recital Hall debut on Tuesday, November 13 at 7:30pm. The ensemble performs its trademark blend of masterworks by Haydn and Jana?ek alongside music by contemporary composers Ted Hearne, Juri Seo, and Christopher Theofanidis.

THE BITTER GAME, a 'high-impact' immersive theater experience ripe with pain, poetry, and laughter that explores the experience of being black in America, debuts at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, November 14 through Saturday, November 17, 2018, outdoors on The Wallis' Promenade Terrace. Playwright-actor Keith A. Wallace's multi-character, solo performance in five acts, structured as the four quarters and overtime of a basketball game, tells the story of Jamel Smith, who witnesses a neighborhood act of violence as a child and later must learn to navigate his interactions with police. It speaks to both a personal and universal truth that is 'a sharp reminder of the persuasive powers of live theater,' according to The New York Times, which also described the play as closing the gap between artist and audience, giving the familiar subject an 'unignorable visceral immediacy.' Based on Wallace's youth in Philadelphia, THE BITTER GAME is created, written and performed by Wallace, co-created by Deborah Stein, and directed by Malika Oyetimein.

Baruch Performing Arts Center is pleased to present the world premiere of Words on the Street, a hybrid music-theater event that wrestles with power, complacency, and excess. Originally written by Anna Rabinowitz as a series of poems, Words on the Street has been transformed into a unique production, collaboratively conceived and developed by Rabinowitz, director Kristin Marting, the late composer Matt Marks (1980-2018), and video designer Lianne Arnold. In response to the untimely death of Matt Marks, a community of composers, Lainie Fefferman, John Glover, Mary Kouyoumdjian, David T. Little, Kamala Sankaram, Caroline Shaw, and Randall Woolf have contributed additional compositions to create a highly original sonic world for the work. Music direction is by Mila Henry.

THE BITTER GAME,  a 'high-impact' immersive theater experience ripe with pain, poetry, and laughter that explores the experience of being black in America, debuts at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, November 14 through Saturday, November 17, 2018, outdoors on The Wallis' Promenade Terrace.

The 2018 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition culminated Wednesday evening, October 17, at CAG's Winners' Showcase Concert, featuring performances by the winners of the annual international competition.

Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino has announced key casting for the 2019 season, including Michael Blake as Othello and Amelia Sargisson as Desdemona in the season opener, Othello, one of Shakespeare's greatest and best-known tragedies.

POV Shorts, American Documentary's newest broadcast series, launches this week on PBS and streaming on amdoc.org. The series is one of the first on public television dedicated to independent short-form documentaries. 

Alberta Bair Theater's Orser Outstanding Performances Series kicks off today, October 5 at 7:30 p.m. with Canellakis Brown Duo performing Chopin and More, featuring the only two works Frederic Chopin wrote for cello and piano: Introduction and Polonaise Brilliante, a lively virtuosic Polish dance, and Sonata, one of his final and most forward-looking works.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center opens its 2018-19 season in Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday, October 16 with a program titled Russian Inspiration, a concert underlining CMS' season-long focus on Russia's moving and deeply felt music. The performance will present pianists Michael Brown and Gloria Chien, violinists Benjamin Beilman and Ida Kavafian, violist Paul Neubauer, and cellist David Requiro in a program of works spotlighting composers who influenced Russia's musical evolution, from Viotti and Mozart to Liszt and Schumann.

Alberta Bair Theater's Orser Outstanding Performances Series kicks off on Friday, October 5 at 7:30 p.m. with Canellakis Brown Duo performing Chopin and More, featuring the only two works Frederic Chopin wrote for cello and piano: Introduction and Polonaise Brilliante, a lively virtuosic Polish dance, and Sonata, one of his final and most forward-looking works.

Concert Artists Guild opens its 2018-19 season of concerts with WORDS AND MUSIC: A CELEBRATION OF SONGS COMMISSIONED BY CAG.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center opens its fall season in Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday, October 16 with a concert titled Russian Inspiration, underscoring its 2018-19 focus on Russia's inspirational and deeply felt music.

Baruch Performing Arts Center is pleased to present the world premiere of Words on the Street, a hybrid music-theater event that wrestles with power, complacency, and excess. Originally written by Anna Rabinowitz as a series of poems, Words on the Street has been transformed into a unique production, collaboratively conceived and developed by Rabinowitz, director Kristin Marting, the late composer Matt Marks (1980-2018), and video designer Lianne Arnold. In response to the untimely death of Matt Marks, a community of composers, Lainie Fefferman, John Glover, Mary Kouyoumdjian, David T. Little, Kamala Sankaram, Caroline Shaw, and Randall Woolf have contributed additional compositions to create a highly original sonic world for the work. Music direction is by Mila Henry.

Baruch Performing Arts Center is pleased to present the world premiere of Words on the Street, a hybrid music-theater event that wrestles with power, complacency, and excess. Originally written by Anna Rabinowitz as a series of poems, Words on the Street has been transformed into a unique production, collaboratively conceived and developed by Rabinowitz, director Kristin Marting, the late composer Matt Marks (1980-2018), and video designer Lianne Arnold. In response to the untimely death of Matt Marks, a community of composers, Lainie Fefferman, John Glover, Mary Kouyoumdjian, David T. Little, Kamala Sankaram, Caroline Shaw, and Randall Woolf have contributed additional compositions to create a highly original sonic world for the work. Music direction is by Mila Henry.

Concert Artists Guild opens its 2018-19 season of concerts with WORDS AND MUSIC: A CELEBRATION OF SONGS COMMISSIONED BY CAG. The concert is on Tuesday, September 25 at 7:30pm at the Kosciuszko Foundation, 15 East 65th Street in New York.

Anyone who has had the chance to see a musical at the Stratford Festival will know just how talented each and every company member is. Both of this season's musicals boast true triple threats in their casts-and it now appears that six of them are in fact quadruple threats. In addition to the singing, dancing and acting, a group of inspired young performers may have just have added 'Social Media Influencer' to their repertoires. Six performers who share a dressing room for THE MUSIC MAN at the Festival Theatre have started a backstage revolution that has taken Instagram and the Stratford Festival by storm. Colton Curtis, Eric Abel, Devon Michael Brown, Henry Firmston, Jason Sermonia, and Gabriel Antonacci (whom I have listed last because that seems to be a trend) can be seen each week during their TWO SHOW DAY Q & A that is posted on Curtis' Instagram story (@coltonccurtis). Using the 'Questions' sticker, these imaginative actors make hilarious videos to answer a variety of questions-and they do it all from backstage during one of their shows on...you guessed it...two show days.