Richard Strauss News

Carnegie Hall presents the esteemed pianist Richard Goode in four concerts this winter and spring, beginning with two programs of chamber music in Zankel Hall, featuring performances with young musicians mentored by Mr. Goode at the Marlboro Music Festival. On Sunday, February 22 at 3:00 p.m., Mr. Goode is joined by soprano Sarah Shafer, violinist Itamar Zorman, violist Kyle Armbrust, and cellist Brook Speltz for a program to include Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26 and Schumann's Piano Trio No. 2 in F Major, Op. 80. Pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute joins Mr. Goode, Mr. Zorman, Mr. Armbrust, and Ms. Speltz on Thursday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. for an all-French program with works by Debussy, Faure, and Ravel.

Phoenix -- Arizona Musicfest, the premier Winter Music Festival, kicks off today, January 29 and will run throughout the month of February, concluding March 5th.

Mark Bebbington has a knack for finding and bringing to the spotlight either lost or forgotten pieces by important musical personalities - having already premiered (and recorded) the Vaughan Williams Fantasy For Piano and Orchestra, a complete John Ireland CD cycle and the piano music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tadesco. Most recently he opened the American Symphony Orchestra's Carnegie Hall season with Richard Strauss's little-known left-had piano concerto, Parergon. That's in addition to all the expected Rach 2's and Griegs and Schumanns. But his latest discovery should hold particular fascination, especially for Londoners.

Opera star Deborah Voigt just stopped by the Today show, where she dished about her new memoir CALL ME DEBBIE. Check out the full appearance below!

In a fun video for People, opera star Deborah Voigt confronts the little black dress that lost her the role of 'Ariadne' at London's Royal Opera House eleven years ago. She was fired after not fitting into the costume, but the experience only served to inform her new memoir CALL ME DEBBIE. Watch below!

Additional casting has been announced for Beautiful Soup Theater's festival of plays by Steven Carl McCasland. Following critically acclaimed workshop presentations, McCasland's plays will return to NYC in a month-long festival celebrating the young playwright. Together with The Clarion Theatre, they'll present six plays beginning on May 6th, 2015, with a company of actors performing in repertory. All of the plays focus on historical figures, including Laurette Taylor, Billie Holiday, Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, Lillian Hellman and more.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Edo de Waart present Goode Plays Mozart this weekend, January 24-25, 2015 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. The performances feature pianist Richard Goode performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 18 along with Schubert's Symphony No. 8.

Nigel Redden, Director of Lincoln Center Festival, today announced the line-up for the 20th edition of the Festival, which runs from July 6 through August 2, 2015. The Festival will unfold in six venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus. There will be a total of 58 performances by artists and ensembles from Germany, China, England, Ireland, Russia, USA, and Japan.

Few exhibitions call more persuasively for complementary programming than the Frick's upcoming Coypel's Don Quixote Tapestries: Illustrating a Spanish Novel in Eighteenth-Century France.

The Utah Symphony welcomes violinist Baiba Skride for an evening of Wagner, Berg and Strauss' special works inspired by figures in the composers' lives on January 30-31 at 8 p.m. at Abravanel Hall. Tickets, priced from $18 to $69 ($10 for students), are available for purchase through www.utahsymphony.org or by calling (801) 355-2787.

Now enjoying near-record subscription numbers and unparalleled community appreciation during Music Director Carl St.Clair's 25th-anniversary season, Pacific Symphony today announces the 2015-16 Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation Classical Series—packed with familiar favorites, exciting world premieres and hidden gems. Bookended by popular Beethoven works and featuring superstar guest artists like violinist Midori, and pianists André Watts and Conrad Tao, Maestro St.Clair's season includes repertoire by popular composers including Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Gershwin, Vivaldi and more. The Symphony's opera and vocal initiative, “Symphonic Voices,” continues with Puccini's “Turandot,” while the critically acclaimed American Composers Festival enters its 15th year with a spotlight on the king of instruments: the organ.

In its first concert of 2015, the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra will celebrate the music of Richard Strauss. Tonight, January 17, Music Director LARRY RACHLEFF and the orchestra welcome pianist ILYA YAKUSHEV, who most recently played with the Philharmonic in the 2011 season-opening concert. The Philharmonic will perform Strauss's early Serenade for Winds and his towering tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life). Between the two Strauss pieces, Mr. Yakushev will play J.S. Bach's First Keyboard Concerto. Tickets (starting at $15) are available at tickets.riphil.org, and the RIPO box office at 401.248.7000. The January concert is sponsored by The Joseph and Rosalyn Sinclair Foundation. Guest Artist Sponsors for Ilya Yakushev are Dr. Herbert Rakatansky and Ms. Barbara Sokoloff. An Open Dress Rehearsal takes place Friday January 16 at 5:30pm.

Celebrated American pianist Simone Dinnerstein will join the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra to perform the Piano Concerto in G major by Maurice Ravel in concerts at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts on Friday, February 27 and Saturday, February 28, 2015 at 8pm.Music Director José-Luis Novo, will also conduct the orchestra in The Garden of Fand by Sir ArnoldBax and Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) by Richard Strauss.

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the release of the recording of one of the world's most famous classical music events: the 2015 New Year's Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic. One of the most distinguished conductors of our time, Zubin Mehta, returns to direct the 2015 concert, having already done so four times previously. On January 9, 2015, the live recording will be available exclusively at Amazon.com and ArkivMusic.com and as a download through all major digital service providers. The CD will be released nationwide on January 20. The DVD and Blu-ray will be available on February 3.

On Wednesday 14 January 2015, at HUSH in Mayfair, the finalists of the International Opera Awards 2015 were announced. These were selected by the jury chaired by John Allison, editor of Opera magazine and classical music critic with The Daily Telegraph.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra presents Tchaikovsky & Liszt on January 30-31, 2015 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. Led by guest conductor James Feddeck, the performances feature Sibelius's “Valse Triste” fromKuolema, Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto with Principal Clarinet Todd Levy, Tchaikovsky's Romeo & Juliet Overture, and Liszt's Les Préludes.

Soprano Angela Meade, the youngest singer ever featured on the cover of the “Diva Issue” of Opera News (November 2014), launches 2015 with a trio of high-profile events in January. She makes her eagerly awaited debut with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert in three performances of Verdi's Requiem at Avery Fisher Hall (Jan 15-17). Later in the month audiences have the opportunity to hear her star turn in the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala concert on aLive From Lincoln Center broadcast. “Richard Tucker Opera Gala: A New Century”, which was taped last October, airs on PBS on Friday, January 23, 2015. This weekend Meade is performing in a more intimate New York setting at the Morgan Library (Jan 11) where she shares the bill of a George London Recital with baritone Nicholas Pallesen, a fellow winner of the George London prize.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Edo de Waart present Goode Plays Mozart on January 24-25, 2015 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. The performances feature pianist Richard Goode performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 18 along with Schubert's Symphony No. 8.

92Y presents the New York City premiere of Voigt Lessons, starring internationally beloved opera starDeborah Voigt, on Thursday, February 26. In this one-woman show – co-created with Tony® Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally and acclaimed opera and theater director Francesca Zambello – Voigt performs arias, pop songs, standards and spirituals of deep personal significance, along with anecdotes and backstage stories describing her astonishing rise to operatic heights, despite her private challenges. Voigt Lessons, an evening imbued with Voigt's trademark warmth, candor and sense of humor, premiered at Glimmerglass in 2011 to rave reviews. The New York Times hailed it as “chatty, witty, and sometimes painfully poignant,” andToronto's Globe and Mail called it “an absolute gem.”

This special Bainbride Symphony Orchestra program is one of celebration, community, and the American spirit. Through the generous support of the Fletcher Bay Foundation the BSO showcases its brand new set of timpani in American composer Michael Daugherty's thrilling concerto, Raise the Roof! performed by Gunnar Folsom. Kevin Puts won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, and his work for orchestra, Millennium Canons, has its BSO debut in this winter concert, which also features the Introduction to Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, Down a Country Lane and Variations on a Shaker Melody by Aaron Copland, and Antonín Dvo?ák's American Suite, op. 98b. Closing the performance in grand fashion is Beethoven's Chorale Fantasy featuring the BSO, Mark Salman on piano, and the Amabile Choir with Director Anne Pell. Singing of strength, unity and joy this masterpiece is the perfect end to this unique program.