Robert Spano News

From the very first note, Brooklyn-based composer Christopher Cerrone draws listeners into his vibrant sonic imagination—a sublime world of ethereal colors and deep emotional resonance. Riding high following the extraordinary success of his groundbreaking futuristic opera, Invisible Cities, Cerrone teams up with Grammy-award winning Third Coast Percussion ensemble and mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway to perform recent chamber works, including the world premiere of a work commissioned for this Portrait.

Impresario Peter Tiboris announced today that he has commissioned acclaimed composer Christopher Theofanidis and poet and librettist J. D. McClatchy, a 2003 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, to create an opera-oratorio based on the international bestseller 'Eleni,' about a woman's sacrifice to save her children during the Greek Civil War.

The GRAMMY Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus presents Silent Voices: If You Listen, the second installment of its multimedia, multi-composer, and multi-year Silent Voices series of concert works with spoken word, conceived, produced and performed by Brooklyn Youth Chorus (April 27-28, at National Sawdust). Silent Voices: If You Listen builds on the success of Silent Voices' 2017 premiere at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House. Here, eight composers, all women, collaborate with the choristers in amplifying the voices of the marginalized and confronting the challenges of division and categorization, racism, sexism, social and economic disparity, immigration, our environment, and threats to our understanding of truth. Commissioned composers for Silent Voices: If You Listen include Julia Adolphe, Olga Bell, Anna Clyne, Paola Prestini, Toshi Reagon, Shelley Washington, Bora Yoon, and Pulitzer winner Du Yun; the concert will also feature a work with guest artist Shaina Taub. Unifying this work is the distinctively versatile and beautiful sound of the rigorously-trained singers - a chorus of culturally and socioeconomically diverse New York City young people, ages 12-18 - joined by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). These are young voices set on resisting the socio-politically retrograde elements of the present in a move towards a more inclusive and compassionate vision of the future.

The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live high-definition cinema simulcasts, will begin its 13th season on October 6, with the Met's grand production of Verdi's Aida, starring one of the world's most acclaimed sopranos, Anna Netrebko.

Accelerating his arrival as Music Director by two seasons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin will take up the post in time for the start of the Metropolitan Opera's 2018–19 season, it was announced today. By freeing up some guest conducting weeks in his busy calendar in both the 2018–19 and 2019–20 seasons, Nézet-Séguin will now be able to conduct three operas and two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall in each of those seasons, instead of the two operas per season originally scheduled. With the assumption of the Music Director title in the fall of 2018, Nézet-Séguin will also be taking on the full artistic responsibilities for the orchestra, chorus, and music staff. His full-time collaboration with Met General Manager Peter Gelb on all other artistic matters will also begin at that time. As previously announced, Nézet-Séguin will begin conducting a minimum of five operas per season starting with the 2020–21 season.

Accelerating his arrival as Music Director by two seasons, Yannick Nezet-Seguin will take up the post in time for the start of the Metropolitan Opera's 2018-19 season, it was announced today.

Entering the sixth decade of a noted global career, pianist Misha Dichter will be presented by the Key Pianists concert series on Wednesday evening, February 21st, 2018 at 7:30 pm at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Dichter's program will feature solo piano works by Schubert and Scriabin; he will be joined by his wife-pianist Cipa Dichter-in piano duets by Schubert and Copland.

The New York Philharmonic will return to Bravo! Vail in Colorado for the Orchestra's 16th annual summer residency there, performing six orchestral concerts July 20-27, 2018.

National Chorale, New York's premier professional choral company under the Artistic Direction of Everett McCorvey, continues its 2017-2018 Season at Lincoln Center with the New York Premiere of Angela Rice's Thy Will Be Done on Friday, March 16, 2018 at 8pm at the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, NYC. Tickets are $30-100 and are available at www.nationalchorale.com or by calling (212) 333-5333.

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although long regarded as one of the world's leading exponents of the music of Frederic Chopin, Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature. On Friday, February 23 at The Broad Stage, he will play a program of Beethoven, Scriabin and Schubert.

The closing concert of Orchestra of St. Luke's 2017-2018 Carnegie Hall Series will take place on Thursday, February 15 at 8 PM at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. Robert Spano leads the Ensemble in a program highlighted by two works considered signal achievements of their respective forms: Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, 'Emperor,' with guest artist Jeremy Denk. The world premiere of Bryce Dessner's Voy a dormir features mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor making her Orchestra of St. Luke's debut, in a work Dessner created for her.

Assistant Conductor Joshua Gersen will conduct the New York Philharmonic in a program of 20th-century American works: Barber's Adagio for Strings, Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Copland's Symphony No. 3, Thursday, February 22, 2018, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, February 23 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, February 24 at 8:00 p.m.

The New York Choral Society (NYCHORAL), under the baton of music director David Hayes, will appear at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium (881 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019) with Where Even the Sea Sings, Sunday afternoon, February 11, 2018, at 3 pm. This program juxtaposes three composers of very different backgrounds and styles, inspired by a shared commonality in theme: the grandeur of the 'sea.'

Lyric Unlimited, a division of Lyric Opera of Chicago, is excited to present Cycles of My Being, a song cycle exploring the realities of life as a black man in America. Composed by Tyshawn Sorey with lyrics by Terrance Hayes, the Chicago-premiere event will star celebrated tenor Lawrence Brownlee in a solo recital with pianist Myra Huang on Thursday, February 22 at 7pm at the DuSable Museum of African American History.Cycles of My Being is a co-commission with Opera Philadelphia, and Carnegie Hall.

See the full schedule of January and February events at Carnegie Hall below!

Baritone Tyler Duncan will replace Andrew Foster-Williams, who has withdrawn due to illness, in the remaining performances of Handel's Messiah.

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) 43rd season continues in 2018 with 43 performances in 10 venues throughout New York City. The winter spring calendar offers wide-ranging programs from intimate chamber music concerts devoted to Baroque, Classical, and Romantic repertoire to a world premiere at Carnegie Hall by one of today's most lauded composers. Additionally, the Orchestra will play music for a legendary dance institution's Lincoln Center season and collaborate with a renowned choral group on a program that juxtaposes an established work with a new, dramatic oratorio based on the Orpheus myth.

Jeannette Sorrell, recognized as one of today's most creative early music conductors, will make her subscription debut conducting the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) with four performances of Handel's Messiah, December 14 through December 17. Joined by four gifted soloists and the University of Maryland Concert Choir under the direction of Edward Maclary, Sorrell will lead the NSO in her fresh perspective that highlights the theatrical, spiritual, and musical storytelling of Handel's classic oratorio.

On Monday, December 11 at 7:30PM, The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture presents two-time Tony Award-winner Michael Cerveris (Fun Home, Assassins, The Who's Tommy) and Loose Cattle in 'Seasonal Affective Disorder,' a live concert celebrating the release of their holiday LP of the same name.

The New York Choral Society (NYCHORAL), under the baton of music director David Hayes, will begin its season with Roads Less Traveled a performance of works by Schubert and Randall Thompson today evening, November 18, 2017 8 p.m. at St. Francis Xavier Church, 46 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011.