Samuel Barber News

If it's summer on the Jersey Shore and it's classical music, then it can only be heard at the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA). And this year, returning by popular demand and to help OGCMA celebrate its 150th anniversary, is SOLISTI ENSEMBLE, a unique 11-piece string ensemble that has been a seasonal mainstay in The Great Auditorium for years.

Musco Center for the Arts and Pacific Symphony are teaming up to bring a free evening concert to the City of Orange on Saturday, Aug. 3. The performance on Chapman University's Bette and Wylie Aitken Arts Plaza adds a fourth city and venue to the 15-year-old 'Symphony in the Cities' program.

Live from Here with Chris Thile's latest episode debuted on Saturday, May 25 at Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis. The show featured guest performances from Anaïs Mitchell,Rachael Price, Gabriel Kahane and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Arcola Theatre today announces the 16 productions that make up the 2019 Grimeborn Opera Festival.

An eclectic series of music concerts continues its second season at the Hatbox Theatre, featuring acts from many genres, including jazz, classical, pop, soul, world music and country. Ticket prices are, Adults: $17, Students, Seniors, Members: $14, Senior Members: $12. Tickets can be purchased at www.hatboxnh.com or reserved by calling the box office at 603-715-2315.

Portland Opera is pleased to announce programming for the company's 56th season, which will open on October 25, 2019. The season will launch with one of the most powerful operas of all time, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, starring internationally acclaimed soprano Hiromi Omura in the title role. In February, the company will present An American Quartet: Four One-Act Operas in an intimate evening in the Hampton Opera Center's black box theatre. These one-acts feature Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone, Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge, Douglas Moore's Gallantry, and Lee Hoiby's Bon Appetit! The season will continue with a rare presentation of Vivaldi's opera Bajazet in March, which will be a special collaboration with the Portland Baroque Orchestra. In the spring, Portland Opera will present its annual Big Night concert and Leoncavallo's verismo masterpiece, Pagliacci. The 2019/20 season will close with the Portland Opera premiere of Jake Heggie's familial drama, Three Decembers.  

Boston Landmarks Orchestra (LO) under the direction of Music Director Christopher Wilkins, and Executive Director Jo Frances Meyer, announces its 2019 season of free concerts at the DCR's Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade. The free, public concerts will be held every Wednesday evening at 7pm from July 17 to August 21, 2019.

In this solo concert, RESONANCE III, Miki Orihara will be dancing Martha Graham's 'Lamentation (1930)', Doris Humphrey's 'Two Ecstatic Themes (1931)', Seiko Takata's work 'Mother (1938)' Konami Ishii's 'Moon Desert (early 1930's)' and Yuriko's 'Cry (1963)'.

Berklee College of Music has named Philip Lima as assistant chair of the Voice Department. Lima is a baritone vocalist who has garnered critical acclaim for his performances on both concert and operatic stages. He is currently serving as interim chair of the department while chair Anne Peckham is on sabbatical.

Berklee College of Music has named Philip Lima as assistant chair of the Voice Department. Lima is a baritone vocalist who has garnered critical acclaim for his performances on both concert and operatic stages. He is currently serving as interim chair of the department while chair Anne Peckham is on sabbatical.

In a fitting conclusion to an historic season, on Sunday, May 12 at 3 PM, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit returns to Orchestra Hall, its home for more than 20 of its 75 years. Four of America's most exciting young string quartets the Attacca, Catalyst, Dover and Harlem Quartets are joined by master pianist Leon Fleisher, who will perform Mozart's K. 414 Piano Concerto plus music of Bach. The program also includes a world premiere by Jessie Montgomery, plus the Mendelssohn Octet performed by members of all four quartets switching off for different movements in a game of musical chairs.

Soprano Patricia Westley will replace Mary Evelyn Hangley in the final recital of the 2019 Schwabacher Recital Series, presented by the Merola Opera Program and San Francisco Opera Center. Soprano and first-year Adler Fellow Mary Evelyn Hangley has withdrawn from the April 24 recital for personal reasons.

Their May 8 concert, From Song Came Symphony, will explore the symphonic influence of composer Harry T. Burleigh, whose legacy is often tied to the concertization of the American spiritual. He is also increasingly credited as influencing some of the spiritual-inspired thematic material for the 'New World Symphony' and 'American String Quartet' of Antonin Dvorak. The Burleigh Society, which advances studies of black art music through scholarship and performance, hopes to broaden audiences' understanding of Burleigh's foundational contributions to American classical music.

The Choral Arts Society of Washington's Chamber Singers and Youth Choir, together with the New Orchestra of Washington (NOW) and the Aeolus Quartet, will immerse their audience with soundscapes and projections in a subterranean musical experience for Into the Light.

The Schwabacher Recital Series, presented by San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program, continues in April with the final two recitals of its 36th season. Showcasing the exemplary young artists who have participated in the prestigious training programs of San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program, the series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.

The Czech National Symphony Orchestra (CNSO) announced today that Steven Mercuriowill become its new Music Director as of the upcoming 2019/20 season.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) will present a programme featuring internationally-acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin and the renowned Eton College Chapel Choir. On 5 & 6 April in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, Slatkin, who is recognised for his intuitive interpretations of iconic American works, will be joined by the choristers of Eton College Chapel Choir in a performance of Leonard Bernstein's colourful Chichester Psalms.

Principal Guest Conductor David Charles Abell returns to his hometown of Philadelphia for Cole Porter's Broadway: Too Darn Hot, the explosive penultimate performance of The Philly POPS 40th Anniversary Season, April 12-14 at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. 

Edo de Waart began his official tenure as The San Diego Symphony Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor with a program of three 20th Century works of, to receptive listeners, quiet reassuring beauty. The concert opened with 'The Walk to the Paradise Garden,' a between-scenes interlude from British composer Frederick Delius's opera A Village Romeo and Juliet. The interlude's gentle soothing melodies and pace are the exact opposite of those of the boisterous overtures that more typically open a concert. Just about any of Delius's music will sooth the savage breast. Extreme examples could be used to sedate patients before surgery. With that, I fear my bias shows, though I admit de Waart elicited beautiful playing and affectionate warmth in Thomas Beecham's arrangement. Lush and molasses-like as it is, it's hard to believe the arrangement was written so that the piece could be performed by a smaller orchestra than the oversized one Delius originally wrote it for, but it's true.

Every child knows his melodies. You will normally only hear this about rock stars. However, Danny Elfman is a composer of film music. Yet, who does not know how to whistle the theme from The Simpsons? Or the driving sound of Beetlejuice devised by Elfman in 1988, which became a hallmark for the comedy-fantasy film genre and for video games. Elfman provided the film score for nearly all movies directed by Tim Burton, invented the cinematic sound for Spider Man and Men in Black and came up with the main theme for Desperate Housewives. Hailing from Los Angeles and already a member of an avant-garde ensemble by the age of 19, Elfman has established himself as a fixture among the greatest film composers alongside Hans Zimmer or John Williams. However, among the soundtrack masters Elfman stands out for the distinctive character he lends his scores. With him, tubas and trombones play at a breakneck speed and violins are put through Paganini-like paces. And every soundtrack has its own unique idea which captivates the imagination of moviegoers over and over again.