Caroline Shaw News

The world-renowned Martha Graham Dance Company announces the second season of The EVE Project, a two-year initiative celebrating female empowerment and the upcoming 100th anniversary of women's right to vote. Commissioned works from some of today's top choreographers will be presented, and the classic repertory features Martha Graham's heroines and anti-heroines-all with an underlying statement about female power.

Something old, something new…there's still plenty going on for fans of opera and classical vocal music in the Northeast now that summer is upon us. Here's a taste of what to look for.

Peak Performances announces its 2019-2020 season, considering the vocabularies of the body, genre and form, artistic practices and legacies, cultures, and language itself-how they persevere, disappear, or shift over time with new influences and perspectives. This season, Peak Performances offers its state-of-the-art platform to artists who work with-and sometimes against-these established vocabularies in the creation of exhilarating new performance works and the reinvigoration of preexisting texts, compositions, and choreographies. All performances take place at the Alexander Kasser Theater (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ 07043).

To mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, artists across the world are celebrating his music with wide-ranging performances and projects—from Jonathan Biss's immersion in the composer's piano sonatas, to Stephen Hough's recording of the five piano concertos, to the Miró Quartet's surveys of the complete string quartets in concert and on recording. Even beyond cycles and series, the number of individual Beethoven performances expands next season in celebration of the anniversary. Highlighted below are select Beethoven projects, as well as a complete schedule of Beethoven performances, recordings, and additional highlights by Shuman Associates artists during the 2019–20 season.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts today announced its 2019 White Light Festival, which will run October 19 through November 24. For its tenth anniversary season, the multidisciplinary festival will feature events presented in eight venues across the city, including U.S. and New York premieres and the return of festival favorites.

Opera America has awarded the fifth cycle of Commissioning Grants from its Opera Grants for Female Composers program to six professional opera companies across the United States.

NYC's Kaufman Music Center, a nonprofit dedicated to transforming lives through music education and performance, raised over $863,728 at its annual Gala on Monday, June 3, 2019. Held at Guastavino's, the event honored Kaufman Board President Cathy White O'Rourke, a distinguished business leader, classically trained pianist, and devoted advocate for music education; and The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund, a generous champion of education and the performing arts. The evening was hosted by WQXR Radio Personality Terrance McKnight and included performances by Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Winner Caroline Shaw with the Attacca Quartet and students from Kaufman Music Center.

The Miami City Ballet began its Friday Ballet across America evening with George Balanchine's Walpurgisnacht Ballet (1980), 'definitely the world according to Balanchine,' wrote Suzanne Farrell in her autobiography. The Miami ensemble got off to a ragged start, literally not up to speed, but once Principal Katia Carranza took the stage, in the role originated by Farrell, the ladies got with the program. Carranza combined necessary speed and technique with glorious attention to musical detail; every beat has been choreographed, and Carranza never missed one even if all she had to move was just a portion of an arm. Her cavalier, Rainer Krenstetter, added to his substantial elevation significant skill in landing--not only softly, but often exceptionally still. And by the time the Gounod score reached its feverish finish, the Corps de Ballet were at last working with the precision required for the final wedge formation; Balanchine's final image requires absolute solidity from the Corps as backdrop so that the sensational to the shoulder lift of Carranza by Krenstetter contains the power it's meant to.

Singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and artist Eliza Bagg recently launched her new solo project Lisel with its first single, the stunning 'Ciphers.' Today Lisel announces her remarkable self-produced debut album, Angels on the Slope, an exciting introduction to a solo artist who taps into her experience in classical, avant-garde, experimental and indie pop spheres on this incredible first effort.

On Friday, June 28, 2019, Navona Records releases EVOLUTIONARY SPIRITS, a new recording from Grammy-winning new-music choir, The Crossing, featuring works by six contemporary composers: Edie Hill, Gregory W. Brown, James Shrader, Bruce Babcock, Jonathan Sheffer, and Christopher J. Hoh. Exploring humanity in all its facets, EVOLUTIONARY SPIRITS grapples with aspects of life, both mortal and eternal, drawing texts from a variety of sources including songs of praise from the Biblical era, a reimagining of a Shakespearean sonnet, and contemporary poetry.

The Signature Theatre production of Octet, a world premiere chamber choir musical by three-time Tony Award nominee Dave Malloy (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812)and directed by Annie Tippe (Ghost Quartet), opened last night, May 19, in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues). Octet will now play through June 23, 2019.

Kaufman Music Center's 2019 Gala will honor Kaufman Board President Cathy White O'Rourke, a distinguished business leader, classically trained pianist, and devoted advocate for music education. Kaufman Music Center is also proud to honor The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund, a generous champion of education and the performing arts.

Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (CAIC) announces the programming for its 2019-2020 season. CAIC's 19/20 season will open with the organization's 8th annual vocal chamber music festival, the Collaborative Works Festival (September 5-8, 2019), which will focus on the songs of living composers. The organization also continues its popular Lieder Lounge series of vocal recitals: Tenor Jonathan Johnson and pianist Craig Terry headline the Winter Lieder Lounge, and Grammy Award winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor and Chicago-based pianist Brian Locke are featured in the Spring installment. Expanded educational offerings next season include three events: two master classes led by singing expert Lynn Eustis and Ryan Opera Center Music Director Craig Terry, and a three-day workshop on the art of Polish song, led by pianist Michael Pecak.

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) announced details of its 2019–2020 season—the Orchestra's 45th—including a season-wide celebration of Beethoven's 250th birthday in programs on its signature Chamber Music Series, orchestra concerts presented by Carnegie Hall, and free school concerts.

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas today announced complete details for Festival 2019, which opens on June 8 and continues for two weeks through June 22 in New Haven, Connecticut.

The innovative new-music ensemble The International Street Cannibals (ISC) presents Schoenberg DNA a concert of vocal and chamber works featuring the brilliant duo of pianist Conor Hanick and soprano Ariadne Greif, with award-winning violinist Anna Tsukervanik. Centered around Schoenberg's radical musical ideas, the program will trace an evolutionary trajectory starting from Beethoven and Schumann, to Alma Maria Schindler-Mahler, to the Second Viennese School with Alban Berg and Anton Webern, all the way to the music of the great Hungarian composer Gy rgy Kurtag. Hanick and Greif will traverse a repertoire of art songs spanning from 1825 to 1908, and Tsukervanik will join Hanick to perform works for violin and piano by Webern and Kurt g. The concert is presented by The International Street Cannibals (ISC) and is a creation of Ariadne Greif, Conor Hanick, and ISC's founder/director Dan Barrett.

Boston Court Pasadena continues its mission of fostering new musical talent with the 3rd Annual Emerging Artists Series, May 30 June 9, 2019. The series will feature up-and-coming pianists, as well as vocalists who have been through a rigorous mentoring curriculum with some of Los Angeles' most prominent musicians and coaches including Mark Robson, Gloria Cheng, Lisa Sylvester, Vicki Ray, Brent McMunn and Paul Floyd.

Juilliard presents its Spring Gala on Wednesday, May 1, 2019. The evening celebrates a year of creativity, process, and innovation and will feature highlights from the 2018-19 school year at Juilliard-the first under Damian Woetzel, who in July 2018 became Juilliard's seventh president.

The Celebrity Series of Boston announced its 2019-2020 season today, marking 81 years of bringing the world's greatest performing artists to Boston.

Caramoor continues its longstanding tradition of presenting the best in classical vocal music this summer, with a world premiere, two festival debuts, the return of some familiar faces, and an ongoing engagement with Baroque opera.