Aaron Copland News

From dawn over the mighty Volga river, to dawn over a simple frontier homestead in Appalachia, the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra fall concert has something for everyone! Conducted by USM professor Robert Lehmann, the orchestra will present their fall concert at Gorham Middle School and will feature the USM School of Music's new head of our vocal studies program, voice professor, Mariana Mihai-Zoeter.

New World Symphony, America's Orchestral Academy (NWS), commemorates 100 years of the Pulitzer Prize with Taking the Prize: A Pulitzer Centennial Celebration, featuring performances of Prize-winning works by Aaron Copland, Paul Moravec, and Steve Reich on Sunday, November 20 at 2:00 p.m. at the New World Center.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College opens its 2016-17 season today, October 29, 2016 at 8pm with the return of three-time Amateur Night at the Apollo winners Black Violin.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College opens its 2016-17 season today, October 29, 2016 at 8pm with the return of three-time Amateur Night at the Apollo winners Black Violin.

The Old Globe today announced the remaining productions in its 2017 Summer Season, including a brand-new comedy, Ken Ludwig's Robin Hood!, and a Summer Shakespeare Festival lineup featuring Robert Sean Leonard in the title role of the towering history play Richard II, directed by Erica Schmidt. Shakespeare's exhilarating tragedy Hamlet follows, directed by Old Globe Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, one of the leading American authorities on the works of Shakespeare.

Birdland Jazz Club has announced its lineup for November 7-13, featuring Tierney Sutton Band, Randy Rainbow's "Election Eve Party!'", Emmet Cohen Trio and more. Scroll down for details!

Under the artistic leadership of Donald Byrd, Spectrum Dance Theater has become the preeminent modern dance company of the Pacific Northwest. Byrd's body of work is varied and impressive, spanning more than four decades pushing the boundaries of movement and message.

The Variation String Trio, comprising violinist Jennifer Koh, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and cellist Wilhelmina Smith, makes its New York City debut performing works by living composers including Kaija Saariaho's Cloud Trio, selections from Gyorgy Kurtag's Signs, Games and Messages, and Andrew Norman's The Companion Guide to Rome. The concert opens the 92nd Street Y's Soundspace series this season in Buttenwieser Hall on Wednesday, November 30 at 8:30 p.m. Tickets, priced at $25, are available at 92Y.org/concerts or by calling (212) 415-5500.

Richard Ortner, president of the Boston Conservatory, announces he will retire in June 2017. Boston Conservatory President Richard Ortner, who transformed the institution with new faculty appointments, new construction of state-of-the-art facilities, groundbreaking programs for individuals with special needs, and a merger with Berklee College of Music, announces his retirement in June 2017. Ortner, the Conservatory's eighth president, has served for 18 years. He will remain active as a senior advisor, focusing on international reputation, board building, and formulation of the institution's music, dance, and theater strategies.

At 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 6, the Oakland Symphony Orchestra (OSO), Oakland University's orchestra-in-residence, will give the second of its two fall 2016 concerts.

One of the most legendary musical organizations in the nation, The Apollo Chorus, celebrates 145 years of making music with its 2016-2017 milestone season featuring an exhilarating lineup of classical and contemporary concerts.

The Kitchen will present the next installment of Synth Nights, its series devoted to the live performance of electronic music, on December 3 with composer, Lesley Flanigan and LA-based Lucky Dragons. A vocalist and instrument builder whose work reflects an elemental approach to her medium, Lesley Flanigan performs new work with handmade speaker feedback instruments alongside amplified voice, creating an intimate connection between gesture and sound-a kind of physical electronic music. Her work has been presented at venues and festivals internationally, including Sonar (Barcelona), The Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park (Chicago), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), ISSUE Project Room (Brooklyn), The Stone (New York), TransitioMX (Mexico City), CMKY Festival (Boulder), the Roskilde Museum of Contemporary Art (Denmark) and KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin.

The Michigan Philharmonic performed its annual Phright Night concert last Saturday at the PARC in Plymouth; as always, it was a huge success. The symphony harvested some scary tunes at its beloved Halloween POPS concert.  Maestro Nan Washburn entered the building on her motorized scooter, drawing thunderous applause from patrons. She opened the concert using a large wooden spoon as her conductor's baton, then quickly switched it out with a professional one.  The selections were wonderful, and very much a treat for the ears.

Birdland Jazz Club has announced its lineup for October 24-30, featuring Kurt Elling, ShowBiz After Hours with Frank DiLella with Special Guests Ben Vereen and Charl Brown, David Ostwald's Louis Armstrong Eternity Band, and more!

On October 18th, Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance (ALJA) Founder and multiple Grammy Award winner Arturo O'Farrill visited the New York City Mission Society's flagship community center, Minisink, in Harlem to coach students in an innovative music program, Global Rhythms In Our Tribe (GRIOT).

Maestro LUKE FRAZIER and THE AMERICAN POPS ORCHESTRA - Washington, DC's innovative hometown orchestra - will launch the 12:15 PM lunchtime concert series "THIRD THURSDAYS" to highlight the unique musical personalities and special talents of the members of their acclaimed ensemble at Live! at 10th and G (First Congregational, UCC Washington - 945 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20001). Admission to the 30 minute events are free, but a free-will offering will benefit the DC Youth Orchestra Program, where Mr. Frazier is an Artist-in-Residence. 

American Lyric Theater (ALT) and Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center, in partnership with MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale), presents The Halloween Tree on October 30, 2016 at 3pm in the Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 W 67th Street, New York City.  Based on Ray Bradbury's classic novel that explores the origins of Halloween, composer Theo Popov and librettist Tony Asaro take us on an epic journey as a group of children search for their friend Pipkin, who has mysteriously disappeared on Halloween night. Conductor: Adam Turner. Featuring Mark S. Doss as Moundshroud; with Emma Grimsley, Shirin Eskandani, Spencer Viator, Brian Wallin, Michael Kelly, and Jarrett Porter with members of MasterVoices.  

The Kitchen will present M. Lamar: The Demon Rising, on November 5. M. Lamar's new composition - for male soprano, piano, and projections - is in part inspired by the grand jury testimony of Darren Wilson (the white police officer who murdered unarmed black teenager Michael Brown and is quoted as saying "he looked up at me and had the most intense, aggressive face... it looks like a demon"). The Demon Rising embraces and incarnates white fantasies of blackness as oversized, superhuman, a supernatural menace.

As a student, Lei Liang attended class mere blocks from the Tiananmen Square protests; ever since, he has viewed art as a way to counteract violence and find freedom. His compositions pay homage to his Chinese culture while drawing on Western counterpoints. This Portrait, featuring several of Liang's West Coast colleagues, explores opposing forces, bringing together light and dark, paradise and inferno.

The faculty of Hoff-Barthelson Music School will come together in a performance paying tribute to Joan Behrens Bergman's seventeen incredible years as the School's Executive Director on Sunday, November 13, 2016, at 4:30 pm at the Westchester Reform Temple, 255 Mamaroneck Road, Scarsdale, New York. Bergman retired as Executive Director at the end of the 2015-2016 school year.