The New York Choral Society (NYCS) announced today that award-winning stage and screen star Kathleen Turner will introduce Ralph Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony at Carnegie Hall on April 25 with a reading of the moving and evocative text written by the American poet Walt Whitman.
The third release in Silva Screen's TV theme compilation series offering a comprehensive snapshot of the very best music on television is now available.
Participants will consider multiple views of the future of orchestras at the League of American Orchestras' 68th National Conference, June 18-20, 2013 in St. Louis. The Conference, under the theme Imagining 2023, will include a keynote and breakout sessions with futurist thinkers and industry leaders, live participatory performances and traditional concerts, and a master class with conductor David Robertson, music director of the St. Louis Symphony, which is co-hosting the Conference. Nearly 1000 professionals and volunteers from across the orchestra field are expected to attend the three-day event. The closing general session will be video streamed live.
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's 44th season concludes with a flourish as Alisa Weilerstein, lauded by The New York Times as a 'brilliant young American cellist,' performs Shostakovich's thrilling Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107, originally composed for legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, on Saturday, May 18, 2013, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, May 19, 2013, 7 pm, at Royce Hall, UCLA. Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, who conducts the program and has long been committed to championing artists early in their careers, also presents the US premiere of up-and-coming French composer Hugo Gonzalez-Pioli's The Love of Zero, an intriguing bassoon concerto, featuring LACO Principal Bassoon Kenneth Munday and played with Robert Florey's avant-garde 1927 short silent film of the same title. Gonzalez-Pioli, whose work adds a touch of Hollywood to the program, is a 2012 graduate of USC's prestigious Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program.
The highly anticipated world premiere of Music in Circles III, a new piece by Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) Composer-in-Residence Andrew Norman, is the centerpiece of LACO's 'Concertos: Handel & Mozart' orchestral concert tonight, April 20, 2013, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, April 21, 2013, 7 pm, at Royce Hall, UCLA.
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) announced that the contract for Music Director Peter Oundjian has been extended through the end of the orchestra's 95th concert season in 2016-17. Toronto-born Peter Oundjian is the 10th Music Director in the history of the TSO. With the contract extension, Mr. Oundjian will be the longest serving Music Director since Sir Andrew Davis (1975-1987), who now serves as Conductor Laureate.
Internationally recognized for its adventurous opera and classical music programming, Spoleto Festival USA offers an eclectic program of music and opera for its 37th season. In addition to the American premiere of Matsukaze-the first of Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa's operas to be produced in the United States-the program includes American premiere performances of P?teris Vasks' Credo and Pierre Boulez's arrangement of Ravel's Frontispice. Also to be performed are a double-bill of rarely performed Italian operas, Puccini's Le Villi and Giordano's Mese Mariano, and Verdi's Messa da Requiem conducted by Joseph Flummerfelt in his farewell appearance as Spoleto's Artistic Director for Choral Activities.
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) Music Director Marin Alsop leads the BSO and the string ensemble Time for Three in Jennifer Higdon's Concerto 4-3 on Thursday, May 2nd at 8 p.m. at the Music Center at Strathmore and Saturday, May 4th at 8 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The performance also features John Adam's Shaker Loops and the 1947 version of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4. Please see below for complete program details.
The 2013 New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, will return for the 48th season with five free outdoor concerts, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, in Prospect Park, Brooklyn (July 10); Cunningham Park, Queens (July 11); the Great Lawn in Central Park, Manhattan (July 13 and 15); and Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx (July 16). In addition, the New York Philharmonic Brass will give a Free Indoor Concert at the Center for the Arts, College of Staten Island, CUNY (July 14).
ACME, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble performs tonight, April 18 at 7:30pm. presented by The Morgan Library and Museum (225 Madison Avenue) and the Polish Cultural Institute New York. ACME pays homage to the late, largely unsung Polish composer Mieczys?aw Weinberg with an elegiac chamber music program that includes his exquisite Piano Quintet Op. 18, plus Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 and selections from Henryk Gorecki's String Quartet No. 3.
Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts continues the 2012-13 season of its Composer Portraits series with Oliver Knussen, tonight, April 18, 2013.
The Dallas Opera presents Dominick Argento's riveting 1988 opera, THE ASPERN PAPERS, in a brand-new production to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of its TDO world premiere. THE ASPERN PAPERS will open tonight, April 12, 2013 at 7:30 p.m. in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House.
The New York Philharmonic will present A Dancer's Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky, a multidisciplinary, theatrical reimagining of the ballets The Fairy's Kiss and Petrushka, created by Giants Are Small. Sara Mearns, New York City Ballet principal dancer, will star in the production, which will be conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, directed and designed by Doug Fitch, choreographed by Karole Armitage, and produced by Edouard Getaz - Thursday, June 27, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, June 28 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, June 29 at 8:00 p.m.
Michael McKean (Best in Show, Laverne & Shirley) will join Beau Bridges (The Descendants, The Fabulous Baker Boys), Jean Smart (Garden State, Designing Women), and Cecily Strong (Saturday Night Live) for a one-night only reading of The Glint, a new play by Matt Hoverman, to benefit Opening Act, an innovative nonprofit that provides free after-school theater programming to New York City's most under-served public high schools.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic and Classical KUSC continue their annual radio broadcast partnership, reaching over half a million listeners in Southern and Central California. The 13 concerts, recorded during the LA Phil's 2012/13 season, feature the orchestra with an impressive roster of guest artists and conductors. The first broadcast features Gustavo Dudamel leading the LA Phil in Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess, the world premiere of Steven Stucky's Symphony and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and airs locally on KUSC-FM 91.5 Los Angeles, tonight, April 7, 2013, at 7 PM.
Tonight, April 6 at 9:00 p.m. in Zankel Hall, the innovative contemporary chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound gives the world premiere of Fly By Wire by former Battles singer and guitarist, composer Tyondai Braxton, a work commissioned by Carnegie Hall. Artistic Director Alan Pierson conducts the program of music written expressly for Alarm Will Sound, which also includes New York premieres by Charles Wuorinen and John Orfe-the ensemble's pianist- as well as Dublin-based composer Donnacha Dennehy, whose scenes from The Hunger will be performed with mezzo-soprano soloist Rachel Calloway. David Lang's 2002 work, increase, completes the program.
The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art collaborate in the presentation of California Masterworks, two intimate Cleveland Orchestra concerts at the museum featuring works by groundbreaking composers inextricably associated with California. James Feddeck, Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor, will conduct performances Wednesday, May 1 and Friday, May 3 in the museum's Gartner Auditorium. The programs include works by John Adams, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, James Tenney, and, in a posthumous world premiere, Dane Rudhyar. The concerts are part of the museum's VIVA! & Gala Performing Arts series, which explores extraordinary performing arts from around the world.
Shortly after many children all over Houston had hunted lawns for eggs and other treats that the mythical Easter Bunny delivered this past Sunday, I had a delightful conversation with composer Marty Regan and librettist Kenny Fries for Houston Grand Opera (HGO)'s 50th World Premiere, THE MEMORY STONE. We discussed the new opera, looking into its creation, meaning, and cultural significance. As we talked about THE MEMORY STONE, it became abundantly clear that this particular opera is most deserving of being HGO's magical 50th World Premiere and that it will be one that audiences should not miss.
On Monday, April 15, Sharon Washington (The Scottsboro Boys, Wild With Happy), Reg E. Cathey ("The Wire", Love's Labor's Lost), and Crystal Dickinson (Clybourne Park, The Call) will converge at Joe's Pub for a reading of the new play CONVERGENCE.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic and Classical KUSC, in partnership with WFMT Radio Network in Chicago, have confirmed 202 markets nationwide will carry the LA Phil's annual radio broadcast concert series (a number that will grow throughout the coming year). The 2012 series was broadcast in 238 markets and reached over 2.8 million listeners.