Sarah Caldwell News

Join us at the Morris Museum as we celebrate the legacy of Gilbert & Sullivan in American musical theater. The Morris Museum is pleased to present a production of New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players' I've Got a Little Twist on Sunday, March 6 at 2:00PM in the Bickford Theatre.

Noted concert pianist and raconteur Evans Haile, who has been called 'the fire and flame of music,' brings his unique program of music, stories, and humor to Palm Beach Dramaworks on February 23, in A Musical Soiree. In addition to performing compositions by the likes of Frederic Chopin, Claude Debussy, Franz Liszt, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and Ernesto Lecuona, Haile will augment the music with fascinating stories and observations. The 7:30 concert at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre will be preceded by a cocktail hour in the lobby. Proceeds from the event will go toward refurbishing the theatre's marquee.

Guerilla Opera enthusiastically welcomes Susan Larson to their Board of Directors. In her retirement, Larson worked as music writer for The Boston Globe and is now a published author, but many know her best from Peter Sellars' innovative productions of the late 1980s. She is one of the groundbreaking artists of her generation that changed the opera director's and opera audience's perception of what an opera singer is capable of. Subsequent generations of opera singers evolved because of dynamic singing actors like her.

New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) announces casting for its perennial favorite The Pirates of Penzance at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place) Dec. 26 - Jan. 2.

This December and January, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW presents an exciting lineup of the brightest talent from Broadway and beyond. Located just below the legendary Studio 54 at 254 West 54th Street. For a detailed schedule of upcoming performances at Feinstein's/54 Below and to purchase tickets, visitwww.54Below.com/Feinsteins. 

Mark your calendar for the One-Night Only event: I've Got A Little TWIST!: Gilbert & Sullivan Meets Broadway tonight, December 1 (9:30PM) at Broadway's Favorite Supper Club, Feinstein's / 54 Below (254 West 54th Street ~ btw. 7th & 8th Avenues)!

This week FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visitwww.54Below.com/Feinsteins or call (646) 476-3551.

Mark your calendar for the One-Night Only event: I've Got A Little TWIST!: Gilbert & Sullivan Meets Broadway on Tuesday, December 1 (9:30PM) at Broadway's Favorite Supper Club, Feinstein's / 54 Below (254 West 54th Street ~ btw. 7th & 8th Avenues)!

Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) premieres its Opera Annex production of Philip Glass'sdark, thought-provoking In the Penal Colony at the Cyclorama at Boston Center for the Arts, directed by BLO Emerging Artist alumnus R. B. Schlather and running tonight, November 11-15, 2015.

Boston, MA — Two of Boston's leading musical ensembles—the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Odyssey Opera—unite onstage for a special concert honoring the great Pulitzer­winning composer Gunther Schuller (1925-­ 2015). Between them, these two organizations have a repertoire spanning a wide array of genres, and this program will offer the distinctive sound of Schuller's fusion of jazz vernacular with the symphonic and operatic world. Gil Rose will lead BMOP in two enjoyable narratives for all ages, Schuller's Journey Into Jazz and The Fisherman and His Wife, joined by Gunther's sons Ed Schuller (bass) and George Schuller (drums) as special guest artists, and Odyssey Opera, featuring Met Opera regular, mezzo-­soprano Sondra Kelly. Rounding out the program will be Schuller's sinfonietta work Games.

The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, America's preeminent professional Gilbert & Sullivan repertory company, kicks off its 41st season with the political fairytale IOLANTHE (this weekend, November 7 & 8) at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place). The seventh collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan, IOLANTHE is certainly not politics as usual! The affairs of state in fairyland take center stage and the tasty tunes take wing along with the non-stop hilarity.

Boston, MA — Two of Boston's leading musical ensembles—the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Odyssey Opera—unite onstage for a special concert honoring the great Pulitzer­winning composer Gunther Schuller (1925-­ 2015). Between them, these two organizations have a repertoire spanning a wide array of genres, and this program will offer the distinctive sound of Schuller's fusion of jazz vernacular with the symphonic and operatic world. Gil Rose will lead BMOP in two enjoyable narratives for all ages, Schuller's Journey Into Jazz and The Fisherman and His Wife, joined by Gunther's sons Ed Schuller (bass) and George Schuller (drums) as special guest artists, and Odyssey Opera, featuring Met Opera regular, mezzo-­soprano Sondra Kelly. Rounding out the program will be Schuller's sinfonietta work Games. Continuing its 20th anniversary season, BMOP is thrilled and humbled to be presenting works by Schuller, the orchestra's longtime collaborator and friend. “There was no more prodigious and passionate master of the musical 20th century in America than Gunther Schuller,” says Gil Rose, Artistic Director, Founder, and Conductor of BMOP and Odyssey Opera. “He was American music making at its best.” Ranking among the most eclectic of his generation or any other, Schuller combined jazz and classical music in new ways. In the 1950s, Schuller's revolutionary, hybrid style became know as “Third Stream,” and entered the classical music mainstream. Schuller served as President of the New England Conservatory, where he established a successful degree-­granting jazz program, from 1967-­1977. He made his home in Newton, MA, and passed away on June 21, 2015 in Boston at the age of 89. Opening the program is Schuller's Games (2013)—written at age 90—for wind quintet and strings, offering a lighthearted, rapid-­??fire amalgam of ideas, rhythms, and tongue-­in-­cheek quotations that is a classic display of the composer's trademark nimbleness and wit. The organic fusion of contemporary classical music and modern jazz that characterizes the Third Stream is front and center in Journey Into Jazz (1962), a strong aesthetic statement about the porous nature of musical boundaries and the shared fundamentals of good musicianship. In the manner of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, Journey Into Jazz features a narration by famed jazz critic and author Nat Hentoff that tells the story of a young classically-­trained trumpeter who evolves into a jazz improviser and, ultimately, an artist with his own, individual sound. BMOP is thrilled to welcome Gunther's sons Ed Schuller (bass) and George Schuller (drums) as guest artists for this special tribute performance. Audiences can listen to BMOP perform Journey Into Jazz on BMOP/sound's eponymous recording of 2008. Of that disc, Gramophone wrote “Under Gil Rose's caring direction, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and stellar instrumental soloists give performances that are not likely to be surpassed for some time.” Also on the program is another work of Schuller's that centers on narrative, the one-­act opera The Fisherman and His Wife (1970), which received its first performance by the Boston Opera Company under the direction of Sarah Caldwell. With a libretto by John Updike, the work is derived from the German fairy tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm and is appealing for all ages. A simple fisherman (performed here by tenor Steven Goldstein) is convinced by his wife (performed here by mezzo-­soprano Sondra Kelly) to ask for more and more favors from a great fish he has captured and thrown back into the sea. When the wife asks to play God, she and her husband are reduced to their original poor state, having learned some lessons along the way. About BMOP The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is the premier orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries. A unique institution of crucial artistic importance to today's musical world, BMOP exists to disseminate exceptional orchestral music of the present and recent past via performances and recordings of the highest caliber. Founded by Artistic Director Gil Rose in 1996, BMOP has championed composers whose careers span nine decades. Each season, Rose brings BMOP's award-­??winning orchestra, renowned soloists, and influential composers to the stage of New England Conservatory's historic Jordan Hall in a series that offers orchestral programming of unmatched diversity. The musicians of BMOP are consistently lauded for the energy, imagination, and passion with which they infuse the music of the present era. For more information, please visit BMOP.org. About Odyssey Opera Founded in 2013 by Artistic Director/Conductor Gil Rose, Odyssey Opera presents adventurous and eclectic works that affirm opera as a powerful expression of the human experience. Its world-­??class artists perform the operatic repertoire from its historic beginnings throughlesser-­??known masterpieces to contemporary new works and commissions in a variety of formats and venues. Odyssey Opera sets standards of high musical and theatrical excellence and innovative programming to advance the operatic genre beyond the familiar and into undiscovered territory. Odyssey Opera takes its audience on a journey to places they've never been before. For more information, please visit odysseyopera.org.

Boston, MA — October 15, 2015 – Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) premieres its Opera Annex production of Philip Glass'sdark, thought-provoking In the Penal Colony at the Cyclorama at Boston Center for the Arts, directed by BLO Emerging Artist alumnus R. B. Schlather and running November 11-15, 2015.  The one-act, three-character chamber opera (which Glass dubbed a “pocket opera” for its small cast and musical ensemble, and its 90-minute running time), is based on the 1914 Franz Kafka short story: a pitch-black fable about crime and a very unusual punishment.

Boston, MA — October 15, 2015 – Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) premieres its Opera Annex production of Philip Glass's dark, thought-provoking In the Penal Colony at the Cyclorama at Boston Center for the Arts, directed by BLO Emerging Artist alumnus R. B. Schlather and running November 11-15, 2015.  The one-act, three-character chamber opera (which Glass dubbed a “pocket opera” for its small cast and musical ensemble, and its 90-minute running time), is based on the 1914 Franz Kafka short story: a pitch-black fable about crime and a very unusual punishment.

The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, America's preeminent professional Gilbert & Sullivan repertory company, kicks off its 41st season with the political fairytale IOLANTHE (November 7 & 8) at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place). The seventh collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan, IOLANTHE is certainly not politics as usual! The affairs of state in fairyland take center stage and the tasty tunes take wing along with the non-stop hilarity.

Pop-opera-soul diva N'Kenge (Motown: The Musical, Sondheim on Sondheim) will be starring along with Seph Stanek and Tony LePage in the Broadway-bound musical production AKHENATEN: THE MUSICAL, set for a concert at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur, 1000 5th Avenue, New York NY, tonight, October 13, 2015 at 6 p.m.

Pop-opera-soul diva N'Kenge (Motown: The Musical, Sondheim on Sondheim) will be starring along with Seph Stanek and Tony LePage in the Broadway-bound musical production AKHENATEN: THE MUSICAL, set for a concert at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur, 1000 5th Avenue, New York NY, on Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 6 p.m.

She was hand-picked by Leonard Bernstein to sing Mimi in his Grammy nominated La boheme

The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan's classic romp of an opera is pleasure enough; but the lovely open air setting of Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center on a pleasant summer's eve makes the frolics of tender-hearted pirates, not-so-naive maidens and a constabulary force who seem to have misplaced their resolve, all the more of a treat.