When Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Steven Stucky's first opera - The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts) - premiered at the 2014 Ojai Music Festival, it was hailed as 'a dazzling display of inventiveness and broad comical delight' (San Francisco Chronicle) that, thanks to 'the bliss and beauty of the music' (San Jose Mercury News), 'proved unexpectedly moving' (Santa Barbara Independent). Composed to a libretto by MacArthur Fellow Jeremy Denk, Stucky's comic opera - a co-commission of Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Ojai and Aspen Music Festivals - is now set to receive its East Coast premiere. On December 4, The Classical Style comes to Carnegie's Zankel Hall, where Grammy Award-winning conductor Robert Spano leads a stellar octet of vocal soloists, five of whom have been nominated for the inaugural Warner Music Prize, and New York-based orchestral collective The Knights -dubbed 'the next generation of classical music' (Performance Today host Fred Child) - in a semi-staged production by Mary Birnbaum.
'Annual performances of Handel's Messiah have been a New York tradition from the time New York culture began to assert itself,' says Oratorio Society of New York Music Director Kent Tritle. English choral societies, inspired by grand performances of Messiah at Westminster Abbey at the turn of the 19th century, would perform the work periodically, but the Oratorio Society of New York made it an annual tradition in New York City - in 1874, the year after the Society was founded.
On Thursday, December 4 at 7:30 p.m. Carnegie Hall presents the New York premiere of Steven Stucky and Jeremy Denk's The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts), with Robert Spano conducting The Knights, together with soprano Jennifer Zetlan, mezzo-sopranos Rachel Calloway and Peabody Southwell, tenors Dominic Armstrong and Keith Jameson, baritone Kim Josephson, and bass-baritones Aubrey Allicock and Ashraf Sewailam. The work, a Carnegie Hall co-commission, is directed by Mary Birnbaum in Zankel Hall.
A performance of Verdi's Requiem that is a tripartite collaboration highlights the 2014-15 season of Kent Tritle, called 'New York's reigning choral conductor' by The New York Times. In an event emblematic of Kent's multiple roles in the city's choral life, he will conduct a performance of the massive work by the Oratorio Society of New York, of which he is Music Director, and the Symphony and Symphonic Chorus of the Manhattan School of Music, where he is Director of Choral Activities, in the grand space of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where he is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist -- with a new choral configuration that features the more-than-250 singers on risers in the cathedral's Great Choir space.
Gotham Chamber Opera announces the final production of the 2014/2015 season, The Tempest Songbook, comprised of incidental music for The Tempest composed in 1695 and attributed to Henry Purcell, and Kaija Saariaho's 2004 Tempest Songbook for soprano, baritone and period instrument ensemble, in its U.S. and World Stage Premieres.A co-production with The Martha Graham Dance Company, The Tempest Songbook will be performed in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with three performances from March 26 - 28, 2015 at 7pm. Tickets range from $30 to $175 and will be available at ?metmuseum.org/tickets.
Haydn's oratorio The Creation (Die Schopfung) depicts nothing less than the creation of the world, based on the Bible's Book of Genesis and Book of Psalms, and Milton's Paradise Lost. It is the work with which the Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY), New York's standard for grand choral performance, will open its 2014-15 season at Carnegie Hall on Monday, November 3, 2014, at 8:00 PM. OSNY Music Director Kent Tritle will conduct The Creation in its German language version, and the three soloists - representing the archangels Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael - are Susanna Phillips, soprano; Aaron Blake, tenor; and Sidney Outlaw, baritone.
A performance of Verdi's Requiem that is a tripartite collaboration highlights the 2014-15 season of Kent Tritle, called 'New York's reigning choral conductor' by The New York Times. In an event emblematic of Kent's multiple roles in the city's choral life, he will conduct a performance of the massive work by the Oratorio Society of New York, of which he is Music Director, and the Symphony and Symphonic Chorus of the Manhattan School of Music, where he is Director of Choral Activities, in the grand space of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where he is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist -- with a new choral configuration that features the more-than-250 singers on risers in the cathedral's Great Choir space.
The 18th annual Crested Butte Music Festival (CBMF) announces a superb lineup of performances and world-class artists for Opera In Paradise, running from today, July 12 - 27, 2014. Opera lovers will experience the power and passion of opera in intimate settings from Home Soirees in beautiful mountain residences to fully staged productions of Puccini's Suor Angelica and Verdi's Rigoletto at Center for the Arts Crested Butte.
The 18th annual Crested Butte Music Festival (CBMF) announces a superb lineup of performances and world-class artists for Opera In Paradise, running from July 12 - 27, 2014. Opera lovers will experience the power and passion of opera in intimate settings from Home Soirees in beautiful mountain residences to fully staged productions of Puccini's Suor Angelica and Verdi's Rigoletto at Center for the Arts Crested Butte.
Carnegie Hall today announced that soprano Jennifer Zetlan has agreed to step in for Kiera Duffy on Sunday, April 27 at 6:00 p.m., performing the U.S. premiere of composer Richard Ayres's No. 42 In the Alps with contemporary music group Alarm Will Sound at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. Ms. Duffy is unable to appear due to illness.
In the spring of 2014, Kent Tritle leads the forces of his various organizations in music ranging from that of Renaissance Spain, to the choral masterpieces of J.S. Bach, to Honegger's King David, to a program with the voice pioneer Meredith Monk and the New York premiere of a work by Jocelyn Hagen.
Musica Sacra, the longest continuously-performing professional chorus in New York City, will present a performance in honor of Women's History Month featuring works by acclaimed composers Meredith Monk and Jocelyn Hagen at New York's Alice Tully Hall on Monday, March 31, 2014 at 7:30 p.m.
With great regret, Pierre Boulez, the Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has informed the CSO that that he will not be able to come to Chicago to conduct in February 2014 due to health issues. With three young conductors hand-picked by Maestro Boulez to substitute for him, the CSO will proceed with the planned programs-during two subscription weeks, beginning on February 20 and ending on March 1, 2014-as a celebration of Boulez's innovative musicianship and mentorship.
Seattle Opera's 50th Anniversary season continues with one of opera's greatest masterpieces, Verdi's Rigoletto. Considered by many to be the “perfect opera,” this tuneful tragedy tells of a tormented funnyman whose quest for vengeance ends up destroying all he holds dear. Fifty years ago, Seattle Opera produced Rigoletto as part of its first full season; in the decades since, Rigoletto's “La donna è mobile” has penetrated American pop culture and has appeared in everything from a Doritos Super Bowl commercial to an episode of Star Trek: Voyager and Elmo's World on Sesame Street. Now, Seattle Opera revives its popular 2004 production set in Mussolini's Italy and featuring several leading Italian artists. The show opens on January 11, 2014, and runs for seven performances through January 25.
The Metropolitan Opera and The Juilliard School present an evening of opera featuring Act I of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail; Stravinsky's rarely-performed one-act comedy Mavra; Act I, scene 1 of Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini; and Act I, part 2 of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore in the fourth collaboration between the two institutions on Tuesday, February 11 and Friday, February 14, 2014 at 8 PM and Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 2 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Met Music Director James Levine conducts the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, as well as singers from the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at Juilliard. Director Edward Berkeley will stage the program in a semi-staged concert version.
The Oratorio Society of New York, the city's standard for grand choral performance, launches its 141st Carnegie Hall concert season with two pillars of choral grandeur: Mozart's Requiem, in the original Sussmayr edition, and Mendelssohn's rarely-performed secular cantataDie erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night), conducted by Kent Tritle, today, November 4, 2013, at 8:00 PM.
The Oratorio Society of New York will perform defining symphonic choral masterworks of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, both as part of its annual 2013-14 series at Carnegie Hall under the leadership of music director Kent Tritle, and in a guest appearance with Sir Roger Norrington and the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Tritle leads the 200-voice chorus, New York's standard for grand choral performance, in its 141st season and his ninth season as music director.
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'.
Musica Sacra previously announced programming for its 2013-2014 concert season. The programmed repertoire spans six centuries, and includes works by composers from William Byrd to Meredith Monk.
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