Anthony Tommasini News

Recently compared to pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and David Greilsammer by New York Times reviewers Anthony Tommasini and Vivien Schweitzer in reviews of her appearances at New York's Carnegie Hall and Le Poisson Rouge, pianist Jenny Q Chai (www.JennyChai.com) presents her lecture-recital "Dissecting Stroppa" - An Analysis of "Innige Cavatina" from Miniature Estrose by Marco Stroppa -- on Monday Dec. 3rd, 7:30 PM, at Miller Hall, Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Avenue, in New York City. Tel: 212 749 2802. Free Admission.

Boston Baroque, North America's first permanent Baroque orchestra, enters a dynamic new recording era with its debut release for European audiophile label Linn Records: Franz Joseph Haydn's oratorio, The Creation (Die Schopfung).

The Dallas Opera has announced that single tickets for Giacomo Puccini's final masterpiece, TURANDOT, as well as a new production of the company's first world premiere commemorating the 25th anniversary of Dominick Argento's THE ASPERN PAPERS will go on sale Wednesday, November 14, 2012 beginning at 10:00 a.m.

Pianist Inon Barnatan will perform works inspired by stories and poems that explore the interconnection of darkness and light in a solo recital at the 92nd Streety Y's Kauffman Concert Hall on Thursday, December 6, 2012 at 7:30 pm. Part of the four-concert series, Masters of the Keyboard, the program includes a selection of musically diverse pieces including Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, Stevenson's Fantasy on Britten's Peter Grimes, Thomas Ades's Darknesse Visible, Ravel's La valse, and Schubert's Sonata in A major, D. 959.

Boston Baroque, America's first period-instrument orchestra, has announced its 2012-2013 concert season, running from tonight, October 19, 2012 to April 20, 2013. Music Director Martin Pearlman will conduct five programs of two performances each, taking place at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in Boston or at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in Cambridge. Highlights of the season will include a rarely-performed Handel comic opera, Partenope; Haydn's "Lord Nelson" Mass, which is slated to be recorded for later release on CD; Handel's Messiah at the holidays; and concerts that feature members of the orchestra and chorus in small ensemble and solo roles.

Following her recent, critically acclaimed New York Carnegie Hall debut, pianist Jenny Q Chai (www.JennyChai.com) has been selected to appear at New York's Le Poisson Rouge. The concert will take place on Sunday, November 4 at 7:30pm (doors at 6:30pm). Ms. Chai will perform works by Satie, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Scarlatti, Stroppa, and more. Le Poisson Rouge is located at 158 Bleecker Street in New York City. For more information or tickets ($15/$20), visit www.LePoissonRouge.com.

To enrich its immersion in the music of Belle Époque France, Bard SummerScape 2012 presents the first staged revival in the United States of The King in Spite of Himself (Le roi malgré lui) by Emmanuel Chabrier in its original 1887 version.

Boston Baroque, America's first period-instrument orchestra, has announced its 2012-2013 concert season, running from October 19, 2012 to April 20, 2013. Music Director Martin Pearlman will conduct five programs of two performances each, taking place at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in Boston or at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in Cambridge. Highlights of the season will include a rarely-performed Handel comic opera, Partenope; Haydn's "Lord Nelson" Mass, which is slated to be recorded for later release on CD; Handel's Messiah at the holidays; and concerts that feature members of the orchestra and chorus in small ensemble and solo roles.

Gotham Chamber Opera continues its 10th-anniversary celebration with a revival of Mozart's Il sogno di Scipione, which announced the company's arrival on the New York cultural scene ten years ago.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) Music Director Jeffrey Kahane will premiere Old Keys, a new concerto by young composer and piano virtuoso Timothy Andres, winner of the prestigious 2011 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer award, on Saturday, March 24, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, March 25, 2012, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. Old Keys, an abstract piano concerto about form and gesture, was composed as part of LACO's innovative "Sound Investment" commissioning program, now in its second decade.

In the first of three collaborations together this spring, Ailyn Perez and Stephen Costello reprise headline the Los Angeles Opera's signature production of Puccini's masterpiece. Marking Costello's house debut, the revival opens for six performances on May 12.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) Music Director Jeffrey Kahane will premiere Old Keys, a new concerto by young composer and piano virtuoso Timothy Andres, winner of the prestigious 2011 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer award, on Saturday, March 24, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, March 25, 2012, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. Old Keys, an abstract piano concerto about form and gesture, was composed as part of LACO's innovative "Sound Investment" commissioning program, now in its second decade.

American soprano Deborah Voigt once again brings Wagner's warrior-goddess Brünnhilde alive at the Metropolitan Opera when she stars in Götterdämmerung, the climactic chapter of the composer's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen tetralogy.

The young American theater director Arin Arbus will direct an opera for the first time when she leads a new production of Benjamin Britten's intimate but intensely gripping chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia at Houston Grand Opera, on February 3-11, 2012.

American soprano Deborah Voigt once again brings Wagner's warrior-goddess Brünnhilde alive at the Metropolitan Opera when she stars in Götterdämmerung, the climactic chapter of the composer's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen tetralogy.

Few singers bring Méphistophélès to life like bass René Pape, who reprises his portrayal of the charming devil at the Metropolitan Opera in a November 29-January 19 run of Gounod's Faust, staged by Des McAnuff.

Dominant as ever in the concert hall this winter, Christine Brewer - styled "the ideal modern Wagnerian soprano" by the Los Angeles Times - joins the San Francisco Symphony and guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen for three concert performances of excerpts from Gotterdammerung, the closing chapter of Wagner's monumental Ring cycle (Dec 8-10). Following her recent account of the German composer's Wesendonck Lieder with Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony, "a performance that was a model of vocal allure and musical intelligence" (South Florida Classical Review), Brewer reprises the work - coupled with Beethoven's "Ah! perfido" - with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Ward Stare (Jan 20 & 21). She returns to Beethoven for four performances of the Missa solemnis with the Boston Symphony led by Kurt Masur, first at the orchestra's Boston home (Feb 23-25) and then at New York's Carnegie Hall (March 6). Early in the new year, the "superlative Strauss singer" (New York Times) assays the great late Romantic's Four Last Songs with the St. Louis Symphony under David Robertson (Jan 13 & 14).

American soprano Deborah Voigt once again brings Wagner's warrior-goddess Brünnhilde alive at the Metropolitan Opera when she stars in Götterdämmerung, the climactic chapter of the composer's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen tetralogy.

Following a highly successful run of performances in the Metropolitan Opera's season-opening production of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, Stephen Costello returns to the Vienna State Opera for a second consecutive season, singing the role of Nemorino in another (and far more light-hearted) Donizetti opera, L'elisir d'amore.

The young American theater director Arin Arbus will direct an opera for the first time when she leads a new production of Benjamin Britten's intimate but intensely gripping chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia at Houston Grand Opera, on February 3-11, 2012.