Alex Ross News

HEARTBEAT OPERA extends its LADY M soirées on Zoom after selling out the first 18. 14 more have been added from May 27-June 6.

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??Library of Congress and Portland Ovations co-present a?oeAmerica's foremost new-music groupa?? (Alex Ross), the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), in an interactive digital concerta?"Aural Explorations: Farrin, Fure, and Messiaena?"on Thursday, May 28, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. EDT featuring the world premieres of Suzanne Farrin's Nacht (co-commissioned by the Carolyn Royall Just Fund in the Library of Congress and ICE) and Ashley Fure's interior listening protocol 1, paired with Olivier Messiaen's Louange à l'Eternité de Jésus for ondes Martenot. 

HEARTBEAT OPERAa?"the daring young indie opera company whose unconventional orchestrations and stagings of classic operas have been called 'a radical endeavor' by Alex Ross in The New Yorkera?"concludes its sixth season with its first adaptation of Verdi: LADY M, a reimagined and re-orchestrated work-in-progress, envisioning the story of Macbeth through the eyes of Lady Macbeth.

A groundbreaking initiative for sustainable classical music journalism that provides a a?oebenefit to our industry a?? most especially to our readershipa?? (The Boston Globe), the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism announces its fifth biennial symposium at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). Taking place October 15a?"19 at SFCM's new Ute and William K. Bowes, Jr. Center for Performing Arts, a comprehensive arts hub created through a transformative $46.4 million gift in 2018, the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism will welcome three distinguished faculty journalists to its roster of industry-leading professionals: Janice Page, The Washington Post arts editor; Steve Smith, National Sawdust director of publications; and Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times classical music editor.

PEAK Performances presents the world premiere production of Kate Soper's opera The Romance of the Rose, directed by Michael Rau.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has added another CD to its extensive and prestigious discography: world-premiere recordings made live at Symphony Hall of Thomas Adès' Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (performed in 2019) and Totentanz (2016), featuring pianist Kirill Gerstein, mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn, baritone Mark Stone, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the composer's direction. They are part of a new album from Deutsche Grammophon, set for international release on February 28, 2020.

The Utah Symphony joins in the year-long celebration of Beethoven's 250th birthday with four Masterworks programs led by Music Director Thierry Fischer featuring Beethoven's most iconic symphonies, and a gala performance of the composer's Violin Concerto by piano superstar Joshua Bell commemorating the orchestra's 80th anniversary. Tickets are priced from $10-$92 and can be purchased at utahsymphony.org or by calling (801) 533-6683.

Community Arts Music Association (CAMA) of Santa Barbara will celebrate its longstanding relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a Gala 100th Anniversary Concert featuring the acclaimed orchestra at the Granada Theatre on Friday, March 6 a?" 100 years to the day from the LA Phil's first performance in Santa Barbara on March 6, 1920. Conducted by Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, the performance will include Ives' Symphony No. 2 and Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, a?oeFrom the New World.a?? The concert will begin at 7 pm.

The works of Dai Fujikura are performed with regularity by conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel and by some of the most acclaimed orchestras and ensembles in the world.

The Wallis Presents Los Angeles artists VIJAY GUPTA and REENA ESMAIL as well as PETER MYERS  and SUZANA BARTAL in INDIA & THE WEST: COMPOSITIONS & CONVERSATIONS, an evening of chamber music and cross-culture dialogue centered on the great musical traditions of India and the West on Saturday, February 15, 2020, 7:30 pm, in The Wallis' Bram Goldsmith Theater. The concert features original works by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail performed by violinist Vijay Gupta, cellist Peter Myers and pianist Suzana Bartal, including DARSHAN for solo violin, movement 3; JHULA JHULE for violin and piano; SAANS for piano trio; VARSHA for solo cello and PIANO TRIO.

The New Jersey Youth Symphony (NJYS) presents a concert focused on women composers featuring five of its ensembles on Sunday, January 26 at 4:00pm at Princeton University's Richardson Auditorium (68 Nassau Street, Princeton). The NJYS Youth Symphony led by Helen H. Cha-Pyo, Youth Orchestra led by Simon Lipskar, Fortissimo Flutes led by Diana Charos-Reilly, and CL4tet and Clarinet Ensemble led by Bryan Rudderow will perform works by Yvonne Desportes and Ann Holler as well as Julia Perry's Short Piece for Large Orchestra and Florence Price's Symphony No. 3 in C minor. The concert will also include classical masterworks by Beethoven, Haydn, and Verdi. Tickets are $20/Adults and $15/Seniors & Students available online at www.NJYS.org or by calling 908-771-5544.

Calling all musical adventurists! The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's new CSO Proof series offers a novel way to experience performances at Music Hall. Imagine artists and audience members sharing the stage in casual, intermission-less concerts with elements of music, theater, lighting and dance. During the 2019/2020 season, three CSO Proof performances will help celebrate the Orchestra's 125th anniversary by presenting artists collaborating with different curators who craft themes connecting orchestral music to listeners in adventurous ways.

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts continues its 20th season of Composer Portraits with Bright Sheng featuring Curtis 20/21 Ensemble, Thursday, December 5, 2019, 8:00 P.M. at Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street)

In Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of Appalachian Spring, Martha Graham Dance Company Returns to its Founder's Iconic Dance, with its Pulitzer Prize-Winning Score by Aaron Copland, and Debuts The Auditions, a New Work by Schumacher and Thomasa?"Commissioned by Peak Performancesa?"Devised to Resonate with Graham's Classic

The 2019-20 Luna Composition Lab Fellows range in age from 13 to 17 and hail from all over the U.S., including Springfield, MO; Louisville, KY; Pasadena, CA; Los Altos, CA; and Fayetteville, NY. They are: Olivia Bennett (age 17), KiMani Bridges (age 17), Madeline Clara Cheng (age 15), Ebunoluwa Oguntola (age 14) and Sage Shurman (age 13). Honorable Mentions were awarded to Nicole Balsirow, Emily DeNucci, Helen Feng, Jordan Millar, and Emily Singleton.

Grammy-award winning American organist Paul Jacobs will return to San Francisco Symphony's Davies Symphony Hall (201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94102) to open the organization's Organ Recital Series, Sunday afternoon, October 20, 2019, at 3 pm. His program will include an array of organ showpieces, from the intricate beauty of J.S. Bach's Passacaglia, Mozart's delightful Fantasia for clockwork organ, to Vierne's grandly scaled Organ Symphony.

Peak Performances presents Lena Herzog's Last Whispers, an immersive AV experience dedicated to vanishing languages, accompanied by panel discussions on select days, October 16-20 at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University. Trained in linguistics and philosophy, Herzog, also as an acclaimed photographer, has taken an ongoing interest in indigenous languages, which are disappearing at an astonishing rate. By 2050, half of roughly 7,000 languages spoken around the world will fall silent. Herzog's a?oehaunting and singulara?? (The New Yorker critic Alex Ross) immersive oratorioa?"situated at the intersection of installation art, music, and filma?"features spoken and sung recordings of more than 40 endangered or lost languages. www.lastwhispers.org

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??OneBeat, a cultural exchange initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs produced by Bang on a Can's Found Sound Nation, is among the world's leading music diplomacy programs.  From September 16 - October 12, 2019, twenty-five innovative and socially engaged musicians from seventeen countries, ranging from Algeria to Cuba to Madagascar to the United States, will participate in an intense month of musical collaboration, public performances, installations, pop-up events and workshops. 

Peak Performances announces its 2019-2020 season, considering the vocabularies of the body, genre and form, artistic practices and legacies, cultures, and language itself-how they persevere, disappear, or shift over time with new influences and perspectives. This season, Peak Performances offers its state-of-the-art platform to artists who work with-and sometimes against-these established vocabularies in the creation of exhilarating new performance works and the reinvigoration of preexisting texts, compositions, and choreographies. All performances take place at the Alexander Kasser Theater (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ 07043).

The Lakewood Playhouse presents The Producers.