Samuel Barber News

The Virginia Arts Festival has announced the complete cast for The Sound of Music, co-produced by the Festival and the Virginia Opera May 13-15 at the Harrison Opera House.

When he was four-years old Joshua Bell's parents found him making music by plucking rubber bands stretched to different lengths on dresser drawers. Clearly, he needed a real instrument. Fortunately, they bought a violin rather than a guitar. Ten years later he was the youngest ever to solo with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and went on to become one of the most successful violinists in the world. The 'Gibson' Stradivarius has replaced dresser and rubber bands. In his most recent San Diego appearance Bell stood as soloist while conducting the acclaimed Academy of St. Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra in concertos by Bach and Samuel Barber. After intermission he conducted Beethoven's third symphony, the 'Eroica,' from the first violin chair.

Be sure to mark it in your diary: Nicky Spence is returning to La Monnaie! In the past, the Scottish tenor has captured hearts in Brussels with his performances as Števa Buryja in Jenůfa and Nikita in From the House of the Dead.

The Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Edward T. Cone Music Director Rossen Milanov are proud to announce a 2022-2023 Season filled with top guest artists and varied programming including lesser known important works and a range of genres from thrilling dances to enthralling arias.

The Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and Edward T. Cone Music Director Rossen Milanov have announced a 2022-2023 Season filled with top guest artists and varied programming including lesser known important works and a range of genres from thrilling dances to enthralling arias.

La Orquesta de Cámara de Bellas Artes (OCBA) estrenará a nivel mundial la pieza Diafonías III, de Francisco García Ledesma, en el sexto programa de su primera temporada 2022, el jueves 17 de marzo a las 20:00 horas en la Sala Manuel M. Ponce del Palacio de Bellas Artes, en el marco de la estrategia #VolverAVerte de la Secretaría de Cultura federal. 

Ruth Slenczynska will return to the label nearly 60 years later to release a brand new solo piano album, recorded in 2021, entitled My Life in Music.

The Metropolitan Opera announced today A Concert for Ukraine on Monday, March 14, at 6:00pm ET, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Met Orchestra and Chorus, featuring a roster of star soloists.

The concert features mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford, soprano Kearstin Piper Brown, and baritone Jorell Williams, together with pianists Nathaniel LaNasa and Steven Blier, in works by Black composers that include H. Leslie Adams, Margaret Bonds, Harry Burleigh, Adolphus C. Hailstork, Robert Owens, Hale Smith, and William Grant Still..

Led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, New Amsterdam Singers continues its return to live performances with “American Voices: Classic and New.”

A lost 1952 dance creation by Martha Graham herself—a primal artistic force of the 20th century—is reborn with the Martha Graham Dance Company's World Premiere of The New Canticle for Innocent Comedians at The Soraya on Saturday, March 19 at 8pm. 

A lost 1952 dance creation by Martha Graham herself—a primal artistic force of the 20th century—is reborn with the Martha Graham Dance Company's World Premiere of The New Canticle for Innocent Comedians at The Soraya on Saturday, March 19 at 8pm. 

The Emelin Theatre and Copland House announce an exhilarating collaboration showcasing more than one-hundred years of American musical creativity and innovation. This spring, the internationally-acclaimed Music from Copland House ensemble comes to the Emelin stage, and to audiences in Westchester and surrounding areas for a vibrant three-concert residency. 

The Curtis Symphony Orchestra makes a dynamic return to the stage for the first time since February 2020 with Strings, Symphonies, and Strauss, led by Peter Oundjian, conductor emeritus of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, for in-person audiences on Sunday, February 20 at 8 p.m. at Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

The 2021-2022 Hoff-Barthelson Music School HB Artist Faculty Performance Series continues Friday, February 18, 2022, at 7:30 pm in the School’s Joan Behrens Bergman Auditorium, 25 School Lane, Scarsdale, New York. 

Less than a month after the launch of the Cape Chamber Music Collective in and around Cape Town, the collective has assembled a star-studded ensemble to premiere another new South African composition at five concerts in Cape Town and the Boland.

On January 22nd, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra begins the second half of its 76th Classic Concert season with American Voices, an evening of musical stories by American composers.

Due to close contact tracing requiring the quarantining of some musicians, the SLSO has made the decision to cancel this weekend’s concerts, January 15-16. 

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is proud to celebrate the 44th Honorees for lifetime artistic achievements: operatic bass-baritone Justino Díaz, Motown founder, songwriter, producer, and director Berry Gordy, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, legendary stage and screen icon Bette Midler, and singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.

Programmed by long-standing Artistic & Music Director, Brett Weymark OAM, this richly diverse season traverses choral classics by Mozart, Bach, Haydn and Handel; the glorious colours of Puccini; living repertoire by Pēteris Vasks and Eric Whitacre; and six newly commissioned short works from local Sydney composers Jessica Wells, Aija Draguns, Tomas Parrish-Cheynoweth, Aiden Rosa, Maria Lopes, and Melbourne’s Stuart Greenbaum.