Benjamin Britten News

The eighth and final concert in the Evenings at Elder Hall concert series, Concerto for Orchestra, was a chance for the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the anniversaries of three great classical composers, Benjamin Britten, Witold Lutos?awski, and Richard Wagner.

The New Amsterdam Singers, led by music director Clara Longstreth, will open its 46th season with a celebration of the 100th birthday of Benjamin Britten.

Conductor James Conlon, Music Director of LA Opera, will lead a series of Britten performances across the Southland as part of the Britten 100/LA celebration, in commemoration of the 2013 Benjamin Britten centenary.

It's not everyday that you watch the interconnectivity of two separate people communicating via Internet chat room. Let alone, how about five people's conversations over several weeks with an entire chorus of “chaters” behind them. It adds up to quite the stack of transcripts. The idea, while seeming passé, remains a relevant topic to discuss and bring forward on the Met's stage. The usually very formal performance space was filled with internet lingo such as PWOS, A/S/L, LOL, WTF, and any abbreviationyou could think of. Nico Muhly's “Two Boys” is a new and innovative work that has extremely dark overtones both in the production as well as the musical aspects of the piece. “Two Boys,” with a libretto by Craig Lucas tells the story of a 16-year-old boy who is convinced by unknown people he has met through Internet chat rooms to attempt murder on his 13-year-old 'friend'.

Wagner's bi-centenary is remembered in the moving and evocative Prelude to Tristan and Isolde. Of which Wagner wrote: 'henceforth no end to the yearning, longing, rapture, and misery of love: world, power, fame, honor, chivalry, loyalty, and friendship, scattered like an insubstantial dream; one thing alone left living: longing, longing unquenchable, desire forever renewing itself, craving and languishing; one sole redemption: death, surcease of being, the sleep that knows no waking!'

Carnegie Hall Presents it's calendar of events for December of 2013, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and The New York Pops.

SCU•PRESENTS will feature the Faculty, Staff and Students at Santa Clara University in the Fall 2013 Music Season, which includes FOLKSONGS, RITUALS AND RITES OF PASSAGE, featuring SCU faculty member, Teresa McCollough on the piano with special guest artist, Michael Boyd. SCU•PRESENTS is also proud to announce three new Music Directors and Conductors joining the Department of Music; John Kennedy, Music Director & Conductor, of the Santa Clara University Orchestra, Dr. Douglas Harris, Director of Bands, Santa Clara University Wind Symphony and Jazz Band and Scot Hanna-Weir, Music Director and Conductor, Santa Clara University Concert Choir and Chamber Singers.

Orange County, Calif.—Oct. 24, 2013—Commanding center stage for Pacific Symphony's upcoming concert is one of the most daring innovations in concerto form--“Beethoven's Triple Concerto”—performed by one of the most successful all-women chamber ensembles in the world, the Eroica Trio. Receiving multiple Grammy nominations for their eight CDs and winning the prestigious Naumburg Award, the Eroica Trio “plays with technical flair, raw driven energy and high spirits,” said The Wall Street Journal. “There is an edge of the seat intensity to every note they produce,” wrote The New York Times. The orchestra is led by one of Canada's brightest young conductors, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, recipient of the Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year, who opens the evening with Beethoven's Overture to “The Creatures of Prometheus.” The Symphony is then joined by the women of Pacific Chorale to perform Debussy's “Nocturnes,” three movements inspired by impressionist paintings, and the evening concludes with Britten's famous “Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra,” in honor of the composer's 100th “Beethoven's Triple Concerto” takes place Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 14-16, at 8 p.m., in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. A preview talk with Alan Chapman begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$109; for more information or to purchase tickets, call (714) 755-5799 or visit www.PacificSymphony.org.

Joseph V. Melillo, executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), today announced programming for the 2014 BAM Winter/Spring Season, which runs fromJanuary 7 through June 29 and features nine theater, opera, film, and dance productions.

Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Jane Moss today announced the roster for Lincoln Center's fourth multidisciplinary White Light Festival, today October 24 through November 23, 2013.

The grand finale of the Elder Hall's Evenings at Elder Hall for this year is a brimful of extraordinary music performed by the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra with acclaimed Tenor, Patrick Power in a presentation acknowledging masterpieces by musical legends: Wagner, Britten and Lutoslawski.Concerto for Orchestra takes place 6.30pm Saturday 26 October 2013.

Music Director Alan Gilbert will conduct the New York Philharmonic in a program of Mozart's three final symphonies - Nos. 39, 40, and 41, Jupiter - Friday, November 29, 2013, at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, November 30 at 8:00 p.m. Classical 105.9 FM WQXR in New York will broadcast the November 30 concert live at 8:00 p.m. as part of a month-long festival on the music and life of Mozart.

Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys has its North American premiere at the Met tiday, October 21, in a production conducted by David Robertson and directed by Bartlett Sher. The two-act opera, which features a libretto by award-winning playwright Craig Lucas, is loosely based on true events and follows a lonely detective whose investigation of a seemingly simple crime draws her into a complex web of online intrigue. Alice Coote sings the role of Detective Inspector Anne Strawson and Paul Appleby sings Brian, the 16-year-old boy at the center of her investigations. Sher's staging, a co-production with English National Opera, premiered in London in 2011.

With Music Director Peter Oundjian's tenth season in full swing, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra kicks off November on Halloween with Carl Orff's incredibly popular Carmina Burana! The month continues with pianist Emanuel Ax performing Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 and the return of Sir Andrew Davis conducting a programme of Beethoven and Richard Strauss.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, led by Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, presents the highly anticipated U.S. premiere of the orchestral version of Bruce Adolphe's Do You Dream in Color?, a powerful work set to a poem about living without sight written by rising mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin. Born blind, Rubin, a 1997 Music Center Spotlight Awards winner, joins LACO for the premiere, marking her LACO debut, tonight, October 19, 8 pm, at Pasadena's Ambassador Auditorium, and Sunday, October 20, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall.

Thanks to the Live in HD series, the best of British theatre and The New York Metropolitan opera are coming to The Ridgefield Playhouse. The Met's inventive production of Shostakovich's The Nose will fill the Playhouse on Monday, October 28. Appropriately for Halloween, Frankenstein stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller on Thursday, October 31. Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art is center stage on Wednesday, November 20. These performances start at 6:30 p.m. and include behind-the-scenes tours and commentary by some of the genres' most revered stars. For dinner-and-a-show, Bernard's (22 West Lane, Ridgefield) is offering a special $45 prix-fixe menu, or a free glass of wine with dinner when tickets for Frankenstein and The Habit of Art are presented; reservations suggested beginning at 5 p.m.These events are underwritten by Jeanne Cook, Anita and Nicholas Donofrio, Liz and Steven Goldstone, Marilyn and Joe Kreitz, Joanne and John Patrick, Sabina and Walter Slavin, Taylor Zemo Foundation and The Ridgefield Press with support from Starbucks and Whistle Stop Bakery (products available in the lobby) and media sponsor WSHU.

Symphony Space's In the Salon series gets underway tonight, October 18 (7:30 pm) in the Leonard Nimoy Thalia with a program devoted to Benjamin Britten's music, in celebration of the composer's centenary year.

Carnegie Hall has announced its February 2014 calendar. Details below!

Events coming up in the next few weeks for the LA Opera include special celebrations on November 22, Britten's 100th birthday.

The Metropolitan Opera and Le Poisson Rouge announced details for 'An Evening of Britten and Muhly,' two concerts at Le Poisson Rouge tonight, October 17 at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Metropolitan Opera stars Patricia Racette, Kathleen Kim, and Iestyn Davies will perform at the event. Composer Nico Muhly will host and perform on piano.