Benjamin Britten News

The striking new 400 seat theatre at Nevill Holt Opera, hidden inside a historic courtyard, has won three RIBA East Midlands Awards 2019 including the RIBA award for Conservation, and the coveted Building of the Year award. Designed by Stirling Prize winning architects Witherford Watson Mann and theatre designers Sound Space Vision, built by Messenger BCR and supported by the David Ross Foundation, this incredible award underpins Nevill Holt Opera's commitment to delivering world class opera in a truly exceptional setting.

On June 7 at 8pm, June 8 at 6pm, and June 9 at 3pm, Utopia Opera presents the New York Premiere of SOME LIGHT EMERGES, a chamber opera by Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell, & Kimberly Reed, in a fully-staged production performed with its original orchestration at the Ida K. Lang Recital Hall at Hunter College (695 Park Avenue). Drama Desk Award-nominee David Schweizer directs and Utopia founder and artistic director William Remmers conducts. Q&A sessions with Laura Kaminsky, Kimberly Reed, and members of the cast and crew follow each performance.

Túumben Paax, sexteto vocal femenino que se ha destacado por su propuesta en música mexicana contemporánea, presentará un nuevo material discográfico para celebrar el décimo aniversario, el sábado 11 de mayo, a las 11:30, en el Salón de Recepciones del Museo Nacional de Arte (Munal). Entrada libre, cupo limitado.

The Little Mermaid. Thumbalina. The Ugly Duckling. The Princess and the Pea. The Little Match Girl. It's hard to overestimate just how much the prolific writer Hans Christian Anderson contributed to our childhoods and to our current pop culture. The Ensemble for the Romantic Century's HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON: TALES REAL & IMAGINED takes a close look into the author of many of our most beloved tales and how his tragic life inspired his stories.

Billy Budd is having a renaissance. To celebrate the Colorado premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd and the 200th anniversary of the original novella author Herman Melville's birth, Central City Opera will offer a series of free events designed to explore Billy Budd's musical, literary and legal implications.

In a minimalist setting, Benjamin Britten's 20th-century reflections on Herman Melville's novel are deftly captured musically and visually.

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that Broadway veteran Elizabeth Josephine 'Jo' Sullivan Loesser passed away yesterday, April 28, from heart failure in her New York City Home. She was 91 years old.

Berklee College of Music has named Philip Lima as assistant chair of the Voice Department. Lima is a baritone vocalist who has garnered critical acclaim for his performances on both concert and operatic stages. He is currently serving as interim chair of the department while chair Anne Peckham is on sabbatical.

Berklee College of Music has named Philip Lima as assistant chair of the Voice Department. Lima is a baritone vocalist who has garnered critical acclaim for his performances on both concert and operatic stages. He is currently serving as interim chair of the department while chair Anne Peckham is on sabbatical.

Ensemble for the Romantic Century continues the 2018-19 season, ERC's 18th, with its final offering of the season, Hans Christian Andersen: Tales Real & Imagined by Eve Wolf.  Performances began April 13th for a limited run through May 25th, with opening night scheduled for May 5th

Students of Adelphi University's Department of Music will present a spring concert by the Adelphi Chorale and Adelphi Vocal Ensemble under the direction of Karen Faust Baer at Adelphi's Performing Arts Center (PAC) on Sunday, May 5. The program, I Hear America Singing, is a celebration of the bicentennial of Walt Whitman's birth in song.

Colleen Smith, Artistic Director of Ballet Palm Beach today announced that the highly acclaimed professional ballet company is inviting fans of both classical dance and children's literature to celebrate Mother's Day Weekend by seeing WONDERLAND at The King's Academy in West Palm Beach.

The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation presents Cellist LEV SIVKOV, winner of the 2015 Naumburg cello competition, on Tuesday, April 23, 2019, at 7:30pm in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.  Sivkov, a native of Russia currently lives in Switzerland where he is principal cellist of the Zurich Opera Orchestra. Sivkov will be joined by fellow Russian, pianist/composer Nikita Mndoyants, who in 2016 was named winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition.  A program highlight includes the world premiere of a Naumburg commission, Alter Ego, by the award-winning composer

Colleen Smith, Artistic Director of Ballet Palm Beach today announced that the highly acclaimed professional ballet company is inviting fans of both classical dance and children's literature to celebrate Mother's Day Weekend by seeing WONDERLAND at The King's Academy in West Palm Beach. 

The Schwabacher Recital Series, presented by San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program, continues in April with the final two recitals of its 36th season. Showcasing the exemplary young artists who have participated in the prestigious training programs of San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program, the series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.

Puccini's Madame Butterfly will launch Nashville Opera's 2019-20 season, which is described as "a compelling mix of beloved favorites and important 20th century works."

Ensemble for the Romantic Century (Eve Wolf, Executive Artistic Director) continues the 2018 - '19 season, ERC's 18th, with its final offering of the season, Hans Christian Andersen: Tales Real & Imagined by Eve Wolf. 

Sam & Dave's 1967 hit single “Soul Man'; the classic radio western “Gunsmoke”; Ritchie Valens' groundbreaking 1958 sensation “La Bamba”; the revolutionary 1968 Broadway musical “Hair”; and Neil Diamond's 1969 “Sweet Caroline,” which became a popular sports anthem, are the newest recordings inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today named these and 20 other recordings as aural treasures worthy of preservation because of their cultural, historic and aesthetic importance to the nation's recorded sound heritage.

El sexteto vocal femenino Túumben Paax, destacado por ser una agrupación pionera en el fomento de la composición de música nueva en México, formará parte del ciclo Los colores de la voz, organizado por la Coordinación Nacional de Música y Ópera (CNMO) del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).

Sono Luminus announces the April 26, 2019 worldwide release of Edge of Youth, the first album on the label from violinist Janet Sung, hailed by The Washington Post for her “riveting” playing and “exquisite tone.” Edge of Youth, with pianist William Wolfram, includes music for solo violin and violin and piano by Georges Enescu, Missy Mazzoli, Benjamin Britten, Dan Visconti, and Gabriel Prokofiev. The album was produced by Dan Merceruio and recorded, mixed and mastered by Daniel Shores, at Sono Luminus' world-class studio, located in a former church in Boyce, Virginia.