Benjamin Britten News

Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir perform music of Arvo Part at Carnegie Hall to enthusiastic crowd.

The National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA)-a dynamic new orchestra created in 2013 by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute featuring some of the best young musicians from across the country-caps its eight-concert, coast-to-coast U.S. tour with a concert at The Music Center's Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on Monday, August 4 at 7:30 p.m.

The Arvo Part Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary presents a concert in Carnegie Hall devoted to the music of Estonian composer Arvo Part. The concert will take place tonight, May 31 at 8:00 p.m. in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, and will feature performers closely associated with Mr. Part's music.

Violinist Simone Lamsma makes her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), on June 5-8, with guest conductor Jaap van Zweden leading Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto. Also featured on the program is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47. Lamsma's appearance is endowed in part by the Nuveen Investments Emerging Artist Fund, which is committed to nurturing the next generation of great classical music artists.

The Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary presents four concerts from today, May 27 to June 2 devoted to the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The concerts take place in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Theater (today, May 27) and The Phillips Collection (May 29) and in New York City at Carnegie Hall (May 31) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (June 2), and will feature performers closely associated with Pärt's music. Traveling from Estonia for these events are the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra with their conductor Tõnu Kaljuste.

Geoff Nuttall, now in his fifth year as Spoleto Festival USA's Charles E. and Andrea L. Volpe Director for Chamber Music, today announced details of the Bank of America Chamber Music series comprising 11 programs, each performed three times at the Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina from today, May 23 through Sunday, June 8.

UNDERSTUDY BLUES, the debut production from Canned Rice Productions, will open at the Galloway Theatre in Cape Town for a nine-performance run this month.

Following the record-breaking attendance of Festival 2013, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival announces the full 2014 Festival free and ticketed event schedule. Jacob's Pillow is a National Historic Landmark, home to America's longest-running dance festival, and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Noted dance writer Jennifer Dunning has called the Pillow "the dance center of the nation, possibly the world."

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) presents its annual spring festival from May 19 to June 8, 2014, which this year is entitled Truth to Power. Inspired by the phrase "speaking truth to power"-part of a 1955 Quaker treatise that outlined alternatives to violence and served as a cornerstone for the pacifist movement-the Truth to Power Festival highlights the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev, three composers who believed in music's ability to connect people and thus harness the power of shared experience.

On Site Opera, which creates immersive, site-specific opera productions, has partnered with Figaro Systems, developer of groundbreaking libretto simultexting technology, to preview a future in which opera is further freed from the opera house. OnThursday, June 19 at Lifestyle-Trimco Showroom in Manhattan, the companies will give a special performance of On Site's new production of Rameau's one-act Pygmalion for users of Google Glass. As the performers move about the space during the performance, audience members will be able to read an English translation of Ballot de Sovot's libretto conveniently in their Glass field of vision.

From May 2014 - March 2015, Sadler's Wells presents its biggest ever programme of inclusive dance. =dance is a new series featuring some of the most exciting and innovative work created and performed by deaf and disabled artists.

Eminent English choirmaster and composer Philip Moore will make his Chicago-area conducting debut when he leads the St. Charles Singers in an all-British season-finale program at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 17, 2014, at Grace Lutheran Church, 7300 Division St., River Forest, Ill., and at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 18, at Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, 307 Cedar Ave., St. Charles.

James Conlon, Music Director of the Cincinnati May Festival since 1979, conducts the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra tonight, May 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium during the fourth and final installment of the Spring For Music festival.

From May 2014 - March 2015, Sadler's Wells presents its biggest ever programme of inclusive dance. =dance is a new series featuring some of the most exciting and innovative work created and performed by deaf and disabled artists.

On May 12, 2014, The Atlantic Arts Foundation, with the artistic collaboration of Harlem Opera Theater, presents Benjamin Britten's The Burning Fiery Furnace, with the generous support of MasterCard and Citi. One of Britten's famed "Parables for Church Performance," this one-hour opera in English will be performed by an all African-American cast in the gothic revival splendor of Harlem's Church of the Intercession (Broadway at 155th Street, NYC). The performance begins at 7:00pm.

On Site Opera, which has garnered acclaim for immersive, site-specific productions, will perform Rameau's one-act Pygmalion in two unusual-and unusually apt-venues this summer, just before the 250th anniversary of the composer's death: Madame Tussauds New York, on June 17, and Lifestyle-Trimco Showroom, on June 20 & 21.

To conclude the OSNY's 2013-14 Carnegie Hall season, Tritle will lead the Oratorio Society in their first performance together of Bach's choral masterpiece on Tuesday, May 20, 2014, at 8:00 PM. The vocal soloists joining the OSNY are tenor Nicholas Phan as the Evangelist, bass-baritone Kevin Deas as Jesus, and soprano Leslie Fagan, mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, tenor Matthew Plenk, and baritone Mischa Bouvier.

Carnegie Hall's Benjamin Britten centenary celebration comes to an end tonight, April 30 at 8:00 p.m., with Music Director Robert Spano leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a performance of Britten's masterful War Requiem in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. They are joined by a trio of eminent soloists-soprano Evelina Dobra?eva, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, and baritone Stephen Powell-as well as the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Written for the inauguration of Coventry's new cathedral in 1962, Britten's War Requiem is a deeply felt expression of the composer's pacifism. By juxtaposing Latin texts from the Mass for the Dead with shocking depictions of battle by British poet Wilfred Owen (who died in World War I), Britten created a gripping musical statement about man's inhumanity to man.

Carnegie Hall today announced that tenor Thomas Cooley has agreed to step in for Anthony Dean Griffey, performing Britten's War Requiem with Music Director Robert Spano leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus tomorrow evening, Wednesday, April 30 at 8:00 p.m. Mr. Griffey is unable to appear due to illness. Mr. Cooley is joined by soprano Evelina Dobraeva, baritone Stephen Powell, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

The New England Philharmonic (NEP), under the direction of Richard Pittman, has announced their 2014-15program, the 38th season of the volunteer orchestra. This season will include world premieres of two NEP commissions,David Rakowski's Dance Episodes Symphony no. 5 and Andy Vores' Violin Concerto No. 2; the world premiereof Bernard Hoffer's Ligeti Split; Boston premieres from John Harbison's Darkbloom: Overture for an ImaginedOpera and Michael Gandolfi's Night Train to Perugia and a performance of Benjamin Britten's rarely performedSpring Symphony featuring Chorus pro Musica and the Boston Children's Chorus.