Benjamin Britten News

For over 45 years, Musica Sacra has delighted audiences with its annual performances of Handel's Messiah. On Tuesday, December 20, and Wednesday, December 21, both at 8 pm at Carnegie Hall, Musica Sacra performs Handel's masterpiece once again with music director Kent Tritle conducting the luminous Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra and vocal soloists Leslie Fagan, soprano, Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano, Kevin Deas, bass, and Cullen Gandy, tenor, in his Carnegie Hall debut.

The BSO presents A Christmas Carol in Concert, a new twist on Dickens' classic tale performed as a concert with a full symphony orchestra on Friday, December 16th at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, December 17th at 7:30 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

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.

The Music Institute of Chicago, one of the U.S.'s largest and most respected community music schools, offers a variety of events to entertain music lovers this December.

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).

Cinnabar Theater pays tribute to Tom Lehrer in 'Tomfoolery,' a cabaret style, musical revue featuring the witty, wicked, offbeat and thoroughly twisted world of the famed satirical songwriter who delighted millions of fans during the 1950's and 60's with his cynical but good-humored attacks on everything from the A-bomb to pollution.

Andreas Mitisek, Artistic and General Director of Long Beach Opera (LBO), will become the General Director of Chicago Opera Theater (COT) on September 1, 2012.

The BSO presents A Christmas Carol in Concert, a new twist on Dickens' classic tale performed as a concert with a full symphony orchestra on Friday, December 16th at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, December 17th at 7:30 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

Musical America, now in its third century as the indispensable resource for the performing arts, today announced the winners of the annual Musical America Awards, recognizing artistic excellence and achievement in the arts.

Opera Columbus' 2011-12 season opens with the Columbus premiere of Opera Atelier in Mozart's Don Giovanni.

The Music Institute of Chicago, one of the U.S.'s largest and most respected community music schools, offers a variety of events to entertain music lovers this December.

For over 45 years, Musica Sacra has delighted audiences with its annual performances of Handel's Messiah. On Tuesday, December 20, and Wednesday, December 21, both at 8 pm at Carnegie Hall, Musica Sacra performs Handel's masterpiece once again with music director Kent Tritle conducting the luminous Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra and vocal soloists Leslie Fagan, soprano, Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano, Kevin Deas, bass, and Cullen Gandy, tenor, in his Carnegie Hall debut.

Houston Grand Opera's new production of Benjamin Britten's intimate but intensely gripping chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia takes place on February 3-11, 2012 and features the young American theatre director Arin Arbus in her operatic debut.

This November, in Juilliard School's Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Anne Manson will conduct the U.S. premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Kommilitonen! (Young Blood!) - an opera co-commissioned by Juilliard and the Royal Academy of Music - which received its world premiere in London this past March to remarkable critical acclaim. The production opens Juilliard's 2011-12 Vocal Arts season on Wednesday, November 16 at 8 PM, with additional performances on Friday, November 18 at 8 PM and Sunday, November 20 at 2 PM. David Pountney, librettist of the opera, provides stage direction, sets and costumes are by Robert Innes Hopkins, and choreography is by Carolum Choa.

This November, in Juilliard School's Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Anne Manson will conduct the U.S. premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Kommilitonen! (Young Blood!) - an opera co-commissioned by Juilliard and the Royal Academy of Music - which received its world premiere in London this past March to remarkable critical acclaim. The production opens Juilliard's 2011-12 Vocal Arts season on Wednesday, November 16 at 8 PM, with additional performances on Friday, November 18 at 8 PM and Sunday, November 20 at 2 PM. David Pountney, librettist of the opera, provides stage direction, sets and costumes are by Robert Innes Hopkins, and choreography is by Carolum Choa.

Two weeks of concerts in November will feature Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians as soloists. Guest Conductor Oliver Knussen will return to Atlanta Symphony Hall to lead Concertmaster David Coucheron, Principal Cello Christopher Rex, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Brahms?fs Double Concerto in A minor on November 10 and 12 at 8:00 p.m., and November 13, 2011, at 3:00 p.m. in Atlanta Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center. Mr. Knussen will also lead the Orchestra in the Atlanta Symphony premiere of his own composition, Symphony in One Movement. The concert will also include the Atlanta Symphony premiere of the Overture to Britten?fs The Building of the House and The Young Person?fs Guide to the Orchestra.

On Sunday, December 11, 2011, at 5:30pm and 7:30pm, the Yale School of Music continues its 2011-12 YALE IN NEW YORK concert series with the COMPLETE PROKOFIEV PIANO SONATAS performed in one evening in the intimate surroundings of Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall.

NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG (NYFOS) creates intimate concerts that breathe new life into an art form that is rich and emotionally resonant, yet is too often treated as genteel, intellectual, and predictable.

London 2012 today launched the programme for the London 2012 Festival, a spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK, opening on Midsummer's Day 21 June and running until 9 September 2012.

Los Angeles Opera Music Director James Conlon returns to Walt Disney Concert Hall to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in three performances of music by Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev and Antonín Dvorák, Friday, November 4, at 11 a.m., Saturday, November 5, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, November 6, at 2 p.m. Brilliant 24-year-old pianist Yuja Wang, whose performance of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this summer mesmerized the audience, plays Prokofiev's popular Third Piano Concerto in the program.