Richard Strauss News

 Carnegie Hall's 2018-2019 season is fast approaching, and we are looking forward to exciting new projects and outstanding concerts! Highlights below include Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala with the San Francisco Symphony led by Michael Tilson Thomas as he embarks on his season-long Perspectives series; the launch of pianist Yuja Wang's Perspectives series; concerts curated and performed by Chris Thile, holder of the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair; the debut of Decoda, featuring alumni of Ensemble Connect; concerts celebrating the 50th anniversary of the New York String Orchestra and the 90th birthday of pianist Leon Fleisher; and, coming in spring 2019: a citywide festival-Migrations: The Making of America.

On 8 September, La Monnaie/De Munt, the Belgian National Orchestra and BOZAR will join forces for the third iteration of United Music of Brussels. This year's theme is wonderment as a trigger for curiosity and creativity: the wonderment people will experience as they discover both new locations and enjoy unique musical experiences that challenge the boundaries of classical music. From 2 p.m. until 7 p.m., the public and passers-by can walk from Place de la Monnaie to the Centre for Fine Arts, with multiple different and unexpected stops along the way, in fifteen iconic locations in the city centre. These mini-concerts will combine classical music and dynamic DJ sets, or jazz beats and dance. They will turn a great opera into a light-hearted musical, and a historic concert hall into a film set. We like to present to you the complete festive program where performers and visitors can share their sense of wonderment, during this congenial musical end to the summer, which also kicks off another exciting musical season!

The Greenwich Village Orchestra (GVO) announces its 2018-2019 season concerts, led by Music Director Barbara Yahr. Now in its 32nd season, the GVO is committed to making music at the highest possible level and enriching the lives of both players and audience through emotionally charged, exhilarating performances. All concerts of the 2018-2019 season will take place at All Saints Church (230 East 60th Street, NYC) unless otherwise noted.

The Greenwich Village Orchestra (GVO) announces its 2018-2019 season concerts, led by Music Director Barbara Yahr. Now in its 32nd season, the GVO is committed to making music at the highest possible level and enriching the lives of both players and audience through emotionally charged, exhilarating performances. All concerts of the 2018-2019 season will take place at All Saints Church, 230 East 60th Street, Manhattan, unless otherwise noted.

Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) are pleased to announce that their groundbreaking joint program, Opera Fusion: New Works, will host two new operas in November and December of 2018.

On September 15th, Opera San Jose's 35th season opens with Mozart's comedy The Abduction from the Seraglio. The opera was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II, and as the myth goes when he first heard it, he complained to Mozart, 'That is too fine for my ears - there are too many notes.' Mozart replied, 'There are just as many notes as there should be.'

Schuster makes her Met role debut as Waltraute, a role she has sung previously at Bayerische Staatsoper and Gran Teatre del Liceu. She made her Met debut last season as Klytämnestra in Strauss' Elektra. She sings regularly for all the leading German opera houses and for international companies including Wiener Staatsoper, Paris Opéra, La Scala, the Salzburg Festival, and Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Her wide repertory includes many Wagner roles such as Fricka in Der Ring des Nibelungen, Ortrud in Lohengrin, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, and Kundry in Parsifal; 20th-century roles such as Marie in Berg's Wozzeck and Judith in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, and several roles in operas by Richard Strauss and in Italian repertory, including Amneris in Verdi's Aida, Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlo, and Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.

One of the nation's most adventurous opera companies, Odyssey Opera, begins its sixth season with the U.S. premiere of La reine de Saba by French composer Charles Gounod (1818-1893). This powerful love story of the famed Queen of Sheba will be presented as a concert performance in French with English subtitles marking the Boston debut of singers Kara Shay Thomson (Queen of Sheba) and Dominick Chenes (Adoniram), and the return of Kevin Thompson (King Solomon). This kick-starts the company's 2018-19 season: a two-part journey with the first in Fall 2018 memorializing the 200th anniversary of Gounod's birth (as well as the 125th death anniversary), and the second in Winter/Spring 2019 inspired by one of the most enigmatic figures in ancient history, Helen of Troy.

On the 20th anniversary of its historic relocation to Grand Avenue, a move made possible through the generosity and vision of founding benefactor Richard D Colburn, that helped set in motion the development of Los Angeles's Downtown cultural corridor, the Colburn School will present a 2018-2019 season that brings together some of today's greatest international artists with extraordinary faculty members and exceptional Colburn School students.

Powerhouse international conductor Valery Gergiev will conduct the Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra on Wednesday, October 24 at 8 p.m., at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall. The rare concert will feature the Mariinsky Orchestra performing Glinka's Russlan and Ludmilla; the San Diego Symphony performing Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia; and Maestro Gergiev will conduct the combined orchestras performing together Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 Leningrad.

On August 4, 2018, conductor Kahchun Wong will lead the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra in the final concert of the 2018 Klassik Open Air series in Nuremberg, Germany. The concert, which also marks Wong's Klassik Open Air debut, comes in advance of his first season as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, beginning the following month. Kahchun Wong makes his New York conducting debut and his New York Philharmonic debut leading that orchestra's annual Lunar New Year concert in February 2019.

The Orion Ensemble, winner of the prestigious Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, opens its 26th season with 'Vienna, City of My Dreams,' welcoming guest violist Stephen Boe. Performances take place September 23 at the Music Institute of Chicago's Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston; September 26 at the PianoForte Studios in downtown Chicago; and September 30 at Chapelstreet Church in Geneva. The program Orion's first concert program of the season features Mozart's Clarinet Quartet in B-flat Major, after KV317d. Mozart's love for the violin and viola was second in his heart only to his beloved fortepiano. The expansion of string techniques and their innovative applications fascinated him. In 1779, Mozart composed the Violin Sonata K. 378 in Salzburg. Arranger Johann Anton Andre (1775-1842) eventually acquired the score and became one of the first true researchers of Mozart's music. Fully understanding the composer's love of the newly developing clarinet, Andre arranged this sonata into a quartet for clarinet, violin, viola and cello in 1799. In addition to the masterworks Mozart composed for clarinet--the Clarinet Quintet and the Clarinet Concerto--this arrangement offers another odyssey into the sonic spectrums of Mozart and the clarinet.

San Francisco Opera announces updated casting for its 96th Season, which opens Friday, September 7, with the double bill of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, and two galas, Opera Ball 2018: ¡Viva La Noche! and the BRAVO! CLUB Opening Night Gala. The 2018-19 Season features eight productions that are new to the War Memorial Opera House stage, including a new staging of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca and the West Coast premiere of Jake Heggie's It's a Wonderful Life. Highlights also include Placido Domingo in Concert on October 21 and a roster of returning artists, debuting soloists and conductors.

ARIADNE is an opera that shows the beauty of great voices and this cast had plenty to offer. Amanda Echalaz, whose voice has significant heft to it, sang Ariadne with beautiful rose velvet tones. She was a bit of a witch in the prologue, but in the opera, her voice rolled out over the audience like waves in the ocean. Offering pathos at the beginning, Echalaz's use of a tapestry of vocal color made her transition to Bacchus's lover credible

This week medici.tv will offer two major events live-streamed from the Verbier Festival and the Salzburg Festival.

America's longest running summer chamber music festival, Music Mountain, continues its exceptional 89th season! The impressive Amernet String Quartet performs Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Tchaikovsky on Sunday, August 12 (3pm). The weekend gets off to a dancing start on Saturday, August 11 (6:30pm) with The Galvanized Jazz Band playing the best of Dixieland, New Orleans jazz, and swing! Concerts are scheduled through September 23.

German composer Richard Strauss' manuscript for the final scene of his 1935 opera Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) will be auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions on July 26, 2018.

'This is a period in history where art is rejuvenating the people. From a musical standpoint, An American in Paris depicts an interesting time in the European-American cultural exchange. The many colors of French, German, British music were being influenced by American sounds to create a new, singular musical aesthetic, and this, in turn, influenced American musicians who emulated these aspects. It became a snowball of invention.' Music Director David Lamoureux is talking about the exciting period of cultural cross contexts and artistic innovation that was Post War Paris. He is joined by two of his collaborators on the production, directed and choreographed by Jeffry Denman, which opened at the Ogunquit Playhouse on July 13: Assistant Music Director Patrick Fanning and Assistant Choreographer Ashley Marinelli. The trio waxes eloquent about the fertile, innovative artistic world of the play and its time period and the opportunity to bring this milieu and story to life at the famed playhouse which celebrates its 86th season.

Cincinnati Opera, today announced the repertoire and casting for Cincinnati Opera's 2019 Summer Festival, which will run from June 13 to July 28. The company's 99th season begins with a charming production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in Music Hall's Springer Auditorium.