Samuel Barber News

On the anniversary of Beethoven's death, March 26, pianist Jonathan Biss gives a solo recital of the composer's last three piano sonatasa?"Op. 109 in E major, Op. 110 in A-flat major, and Op. 111 in C minora?"at 92nd Street Y's Kaufmann Concert Hall. The performance, which takes place at 7:30 p.m. that evening, continues Mr. Biss's decade-long immersion in the music of Beethovena?"including recording and lecture cycles of all 32 piano sonatasa?"leading up to the worldwide celebrations of the composer's 250th birthday this year. Tickets from $35 are available at 92Y.org or by calling (212) 415-5500.

Two American warhorses, Samuel Barber's 'Adagio' and Aaron Copland's APPALACHIAN SPRING, topped the marquee, but William Brittelle's 'Si Otsedoha' stole the show at Charlotte Symphony's all-American concert at Belk Theater.

Portland Opera continues the 2019/20 season with the premiere of a new production entitled An American Quartet: Four One-Act Operas. Each of these pieces, written by American composers, will be presented in the intimate black box theatre at Portland Opera's Hampton Opera Center.

Martha Graham Dance Company's Studio Series continues with CunningGraham, a Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham technique comparison and discussion featuring Graham 2 and Cunningham Workshop participants, on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 4–5, at 7pm, at the Martha Graham Studio Theater.

As part of the culminating season of his decade-long focus on the music of Beethoven, pianist Jonathan Biss performs the composer's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major (“Emperor”) with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, led by Osmo Vänskä, on its first U.S. tour, from January 30 to February 8.

In addition to highlighting Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas in performance cycles and a recently completed, nine-volume recording collection, pianist Jonathan Biss has engaged more than 150,000 students worldwide with these works via his free online course Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, which was launched via online learning platform Coursera in 2013 and finishes its survey of this repertoire on Monday, January 6, when registration opens for the sixth and final installment of lectures. He devotes one lecture to four of Beethoven's shorter sonatas-Nos. 9 and 10 in E and G major, Op. 14, and Nos. 19 and 20 in G minor and major, Op. 49-while the remaining three lectures focus on No. 18 in E-flat major, Op. 31, No. 3 ('The Hunt'); No. 22 in F major, Op. 54; and Beethoven's final piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, respectively.

One Found Sound, a conductorless chamber orchestra founded by graduates of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, is pleased to announce the final events of its 2019 a?" 2020 Season. The group's opening concert of the new year will take place at Heron Arts in San Francisco, Friday, February 21 at 8 p.m. with guest soprano Julie Adams. Tickets are now on sale at onefoundsound.org/concerts.

A new release on the midprice Cedille FOUNDation imprint offers world-premiere recordings of solo and duo piano music spanning nearly the entire career of Prix de Rome and Pulitzer Prize winning American composer Leo Sowerby (1895-1968).

San Diego Opera's 2019-2020 season continues with a special one-night-only event on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 7:30 PM when soprano Ailyn Pérez and tenor Joshua Guerrero perform in concert at the Balboa Theatre. They will be accompanied by pianist Abdiel Vázquez. Ailyn Pérez is no stranger to San Diego Opera, having made her Company debut as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 2010, returning to sing Marguerite in Faust in 2011, and in recital in 2014. In demand at all the major opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, and Opéra National de Paris, Ms. Pérez is the winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award, the 15th annual Plácido Domingo Award, and the 14th annual Opera News Award. 

In what is sure to be a highlight of this concert season, superstar soprano Renée Fleming will return to the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) stage for the first time in 12 years, performing alongside Maestro Jaap van Zweden in a programme full of joyfulness and melody, on 8 and 9 November at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall.

San Francisco Opera showcases the vocal might of the San Francisco Opera Chorus in concert on Friday, November 22, at 7:30 p.m.

Audience to sit amongst the orchestra for Park Avenue Chamber Symphony's 'Sounds Of America' concerts, November 23rd - launching anniversary season American classics played in the popular, experiential InsideOut Concerts format Jon Manasse, one of the world's leading clarinettists, returns to PACS for Aaron Copland's engaging and rarely-heard Clarinet Concerto WQXR's Elliott Forrest creates stunning original visuals to accompany Copland's famous Appalachian Spring suite

The Louisville Orchestra will hold its first performance a?" titled a?oeTeddy's Soundchecka?? a?" at the city's newest state-of-the-art performance venue, Old Forester's Paristown Hall, on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 8 p.m. The concert will feature Louisville Orchestra conductor and music director Teddy Abrams and musicians performing music of traditional and contemporary American composers and the opening and closing sections of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The concert features music of exciting young American composers Ellen Reid (2019 Pulitzer Prize winner) and Mason Bates (Grammy Award winner), including some a?oeorchestral electronica.a??

A key thread in pianist Jonathan Biss's decade-long, multi-project Beethoven immersion has been his journey to record all 32 of the composer's piano sonatas, which he began in 2011 and completes with the release of the cycle's ninth and final volume by Orchid Classics on Friday, November 1. Comprising Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10/3; Sonata No. 18 in E-flat major, Op. 31/3 (“The Hunt”); and Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, the new album is one of many highlights of Mr. Biss's season—coinciding with worldwide celebrations of Beethoven's 250th birthday—devoted not only to the composer, but the sonatas themselves.

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced a new five-year extension of Franz Welser-Möst's contract as Music Director, continuing a partnership that began in 2002 to 2027. The announcement was made at Severance Hall in Cleveland at the Gala Concert opening the Orchestra's 2019-20 season.

San Diego Opera's 2019-2020 season continues with a special one-night-only event on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 7:30 PM when soprano Ailyn Pérez and tenor Joshua Guerrero perform in concert at the Balboa Theatre.

Dallas Chamber Symphony, led by Artistic Director and Conductor Richard McKay, will launch its eighth season with a dynamic concert, 'Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto 2,' featuring works by three French composers. Celebrating its centenary this year, Maurice Ravel's (1875-1937) neo-baroque orchestral suite (1919), Le Tombeau de Couperin, will start the program. Renowned pianist Christopher Goodpasture will then solo with orchestra on Camille Saint-Saëns' (1835-1921) dramatic Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor (1868). Francis Poulenc's innovative and lively Sinfonietta (1947) concludes the program. Presented together, the works are demonstrative of the transformation of turn-of-the-twentieth century Parisian tastes from the conservativism of late-romantic Saint-Saëns, through the flexible, diplomatic and more modern Ravel, to the more free-spirited and avant-garde Poulenc.

Having attracted more than 150,000 students from nearly every country in the world since its launch in 2013, pianist Jonathan Biss's free online course Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas continues its six-part survey of these 32 landmark works via online learning platform Coursera, with the next set of lectures—Part 5—scheduled to appear on Monday, September 30. Two lectures are devoted to the monumental “Hammerklavier” Sonata—No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106—while another two focus on Piano Sonatas No. 13 in E-flat major, Op. 27, No. 1 (“Quasi una fantasia”) and No. 16 in G major, Op. 31, No. 1, respectively. With the sixth and final course module to be released on January 6, Mr. Biss will have completed his journey through the complete Beethoven piano sonatas.

In its nearly 90 year history, the Grand Rapids Symphony has welcomed such guest artists as violinist Itzhak Perlman and Midori, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Janos Starker, and pianists Van Cliburn, Emanuel Ax and Leon Fleisher to its stages. Many have played here more than once. 

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??The Chelsea Symphony's (TCS) 2019/2020 season, RISE UP, focuses on compositions that are meant to inspire and uplift the audience. The season includes beloved works such as Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Gershwin's An American in Paris, the indomitable Fifth Symphony by Gustav Mahler, and Mozart's Symphony No. 41 'Jupiter.' Alongside these warhorses of the classical canon, we present nine works by female composers or composers of color, two NYC Premieres, and six World Premieres.