Sasha Cooke News

Ying Fang will sing Susanna in the April performances of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro this season, replacing Aida Garifullina.

The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, America’s longest running festival of new orchestral music, celebrates its 60th Anniversary season with a return to a live, in-person concert season after two years of virtual orchestra and multi-disciplinary explorations. The Festival’s 60th anniversary season runs July 24 – August 7, 2022, with a program of timely, topical, and thought-provoking new works.

If Friday night’s performance of Handel’s RODELINDA sometimes seemed like it was never going to end--it was quickly approaching the witching hour by the time the curtain calls were over, having started at 7:30--it certainly wasn’t the fault of the cast but Handel himself and librettist Nicola Haym. With ornamentation galore and da capo arias that strung phrases along one time after another (and a plot to make your head spin), it set challenges for everyone on stage, both musically and dramatically. And they were certainly up to it.

On Friday, April 1, 2022, GRAMMY Award-winning classical guitarist Jason Vieaux will release Bach Volume 2: Works for Violin on Azica Records. A follow up to his critically acclaimed 2009 Azica album, Bach Volume 1: Works for Lute, Volume 2 completes Vieaux's Bach cycle with J. S. Bach's Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006.

Handel’s Baroque drama Rodelinda returns to the Met for the first time in more than a decade, with five performances March 11–27. Soprano Elza van den Heever makes her Met role debut singing the title character in one of Handel’s most successful operas, based on the life of a seventh-century queen in the northern Italian kingdom of Lombardy.

The Music Academy of the West looks boldly to the future in this milestone year. Programming has expanded year-round for community, fellows, and alumni. Classically trained musicians are provided opportunities to unleash their creativity and connect with audiences onstage and offstage.

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..

Houston Grand Opera has announced its 2022–23 season, featuring a new production of Dame Ethel Smyth's rarely-performed masterpiece The Wreckers, the triumphant return of HGO-commissioned mariachi opera El Milagro del Recuerdo, the U.S. premieres of Opéra National de Paris and Royal Opera House's production of Werther and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía of Valencia's production of Salome, and beloved HGO classics La traviata, The Marriage of Figaro, and Tosca.

Shriver Hall Concert Series (SHCS) - Baltimore's premier presenter of chamber music ensembles and solo recitalists - presents the East Coast premiere of Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke's new, recital-length project how do i find you with pianist Kirill Kuzmin on Sunday, March 6, 2022 at 5:30pm.

Sasha Cooke will sing Eduige in all performances of Handel's Rodelinda this season, replacing Jamie Barton, who is now singing Eboli in the Met's new production of Verdi's Don Carlos, as previously announced.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel and Chief Executive Officer and David C. Bohnett Chief Executive Officer Chair Chad Smith announced new details of the LA Phil’s winter-spring programs at Walt Disney Concert Hall, from January 7 through June 14, 2022.

The Metropolitan Opera will present Mozart’s classic comedy Le Nozze di Figaro for six performances, January 8–28, 2022. Maestro Daniele Rustioni, currently conducting the Met’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, takes the podium to lead the revival of Richard Eyre’s fast-paced production, which sets the action in 1930s Seville.

Adam Plachetka will sing Count Almaviva in the January performances of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, replacing Christian Gerhaher, who has withdrawn due to a non-Covid-related illness.

Conductors Daniele Rustioni and James Gaffigan will lead this season's Metropolitan Opera performances of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, replacing Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Named for the groundbreaking African American contralto, the Marian Anderson Vocal Award recognizes a young American singer in opera, oratorio, or recital repertoire with outstanding promise for a significant career. Earlier this year, Washington National Opera (WNO) named tenor Frederick Ballentine as the 2021 recipient and will present him in concert on Tuesday, December 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

Composer, conductor, and current Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to The Soraya’s podium for the third time on Saturday, November 13 at 8pm as he conducts the Colburn Orchestra, the flagship orchestra of the Colburn School’s Conservatory of Music, which has gained international acclaim for producing the next generation of world-class musicians.  

One of the crowning glories of the 2021 Bard SummerScape season, the festival's lauded production of Ernest Chausson's only opera, King Arthur (“Le roi Arthus”), will be available for on-demand viewing from October 25 to November 1 on the Fisher Center's streaming service, UPSTREAMING.

Shriver Hall Concert Series will open its 2021-22 season with a performance by the lauded Miró Quartet. The in-person concert features Mozart's String Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 458, 'Hunt;' Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132; and the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw's Microfictions [Vol. I].

Founder and Artistic Director Robert Simpson will conduct the Houston Chamber Choir, which will perform with string ensemble Kinetic and solo artists. Young American composer Daniel Knaggs created this masterpiece.

On Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 5:30pm, the Miró Quartet returns to Baltimore for the world premiere of a new work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, Microfictions [Vol. 1], co-commissioned by SHCS, along with Mozart's buoyant 'Hunt' Quartet in B-flat Major and Beethoven's tumultuous and radiant String Quartet in A minor Op. 132.