Virgil Thomson News

Bard SummerScape's 17th edition celebrates one of the most important female figures in classical music history, with seven weeks of music, opera, theater, dance, film and the SummerScape Spiegeltent, centered around the 31st Bard Music Festival, 'Nadia Boulanger and Her World.'

Quartet 131 will be featured on the Arion Chamber Music Series on Friday February 21, 2020, from 8:00 - 9:30 PM. The concert will take place at Christ & St. Stephen's Church located at 120 W. 69th St., NYC. Tickets are $30. Students under 25 with ID are $15 at the door. Tickets may be purchased at arionchambermusic.org.

With great success, Juilliard's Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, including a notable alumna, Felicia Moore, as Susan B. Anthony, along with members of the New York Philharmonic under Daniela Candillari performed Louisa Proske's production of the Gertrude Stein-Virgil Thomson opera THE MOTHER OF US ALL. It took place in the Engelhardt Court of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as part of the MetLiveArts series.

The Launch of the Douglas Moore Songbook and A Celebration of 20th Century Opera Composers a?" Dominick Argento, Jack Beeson, Douglas Moore and Virgil Thomson a?" will be showcased on Saturday, March 14. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's performance series, MetLiveArts, Announces the 2020 Winter/Spring Season.

The 50-member Dessoff Choirs continues its 95th season with a program dedicated to two of choral music's most influential composers, Britain's John Rutter and American Gregg Smith. Accompanied by pianist Steven Ryan, Dessoff performs two unforgettable choral gems: Rutter's The Sprig of Thyme, a collection of charming British folk songs for chorus, and Smith's The Continental Harmonist along with spirituals by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds sung by Dessoff's maestro, Malcolm J. Merriweather.

Nicholas Phan's January engagements showcase his passion for art song, his love of collaborative work, and his extraordinary gift for musical curation. On January 13-24, with the support of an outstanding roster of fellow singers and instrumentalists, the tenor co-curates and headlines 'Emerging Voices: Art Song & Social Connection' at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

Following a chorus of critical praise for creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs and composer Jorge Sosa's immigrant-themed opera, I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams, Jacobs's opera REV. 23, composed by Julian Wachner, will receive its New York premiere in new production by Los Angeles-based director James Darrah at the 2020 Prototype Festival (Jan 17-18).

Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic will mark the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted equal voting rights to women, by commissioning and premiering works by 19 women composers. The multi-season initiative a?" the single largest women-only commissioning initiative in history a?" will launch in February 2020 with the first six World Premieres. Two more World Premieres will follow in Maya?"June 2020. The eleven remaining commissions will be premiered in future seasons. The commissioned composers are Unsuk Chin, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Joan La Barbara, Tania León, Nicole Lizée, Caroline Mallonee, Jessie Montgomery, Angélica Negrón, Olga Neuwirth, Paola Prestini, Ellen Reid, Maria Schneider, Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Joan Tower, Melinda Wagner, Nina C. Young, and Du Yun.

The Cincinnati May Festival announced program details and artists for the 2020 Festival with nine performances taking place between May 21 and 31, 2020 at Cincinnati Music Hall as well as other locations, and an additional performance on April 5, 2020 at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky. Joining the Festival's artistic leadership team of Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena and Director of Choruses Robert Porco is 2020 Artistic Partner John Adams.

On Sunday, November 3rd at 2 pm, Opera at Florham presents 'La Bella Musica di Bel Canto' in the beautiful and historic Lenfell Hall at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Baritone Samuel McDonald, soprano Brenna Markey and tenor Ian Matthew Castro perform Bel Canto opera selections emphasizing the beauty of the human voice by composers such as Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. After a short intermission with light refreshments, the artists further explore 'beautiful singing' from the worlds of art song and Broadway. Artistic Director Mary Pinto provides piano accompaniment while narration by Mariana Karpatova provides insight into the history and meaning behind 'Bel Canto' and the relevant composers and operas of the period.

At a board meeting on June 4th, 2019 Gordon Ostrowski, Manhattan School of Music, was elected Chair; Joan Desens, Director of Institutional Advancement, Glimmerglass Festival was elected Vice Chair; Jim Schaeffer, Center for Contemporary Opera, Director Emeritus was elected Treasurer.

Martin Bernheimer has died at age 83. He died at his Manhattan home on September 29, 2019. His wife reported that the cause of death was sarcoma.

This concert is a co-presentation with Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center From NYFOS artistic director/co-founder/pianist/host Steven Blier: 'Lyrics by Shakespeare has a double significance for me: it was the first concert we ever did at NYFOS in 1988, and it also marked our debut at Mostly Mozart last summer (with the present cast, in a magical evening). Naomi O'Connell and Matt Boehler are eloquent singing actors, and they formed a deep bond with Kathleen Chalfant, a gentle giant of the American theater. The enduring power of Shakespeare's poetry has taken us all to the heights—singers, pianist, actress, as well as our international roster of composers. We knew we had to get the team back together to share it with our Merkin Hall audience, and are reconvening with great joy (and a few new songs too).'

Hailed as a?oeone of the great amateur choruses of our timea?? (New York Today) for its a?oefull-bodied sound and supplenessa?? (The New York Times), the 50-member Dessoff Choirs begins its 2019-20 season highlighting choral works by esteemed composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Featuring full orchestra, and soloists Laquita Mitchell (soprano) and Donovan Singletary (baritone), the program is centered around the original 1893 version of Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, the composer's masterpiece. Complementing the Requiem is Ich lasse dich nicht, a motet attributed to J.S. Bach, William Schuman's evocative Prelude for Voices, and the a?oeKyriea?? from Louis Vierne's Messe solennelle.

Juilliard's Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, under the leadership of artistic director Brian Zeger, announces its 2019-20 season of opera and vocal arts performances. Highlights of the upcoming season include three mainstage operas: Mozart's Così fan tutte, conducted by alumnus Nimrod David Pfeffer and directed by faculty member David Paul, on November 13, 15, and 17, 2019, in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater; Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's MetLiveArts and the New York Philharmonic with Juilliard singers, conducted by Daniela Candillari and directed by Louisa Proske, on February 8, 11, 12, and 14, 2020, in the Charles Engelhard Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Puccini's La bohème, conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson and directed by Stephen Wadsworth, on April 22, 24, and 26, 2020, in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

The New York Philharmonic has announced updates to its 2019-20 season. Highlights include:

Hailed as "one of the great amateur choruses of our time (New York Today) for its "full-bodied sound and suppleness (The New York Times)," The Dessoff Choirs today announced its 2019-20 season. The Dessoff Choirs celebrates its 95th season with performances of choral masterworks by both 20th century luminaries and today's most innovative composers. In addition to Dessoff's popular holiday concerts, the season features the New York premiere of Craig Hella Johnson's Considering Matthew Shepard, a reprise performance and CD release of Margaret Bond's The Ballad of the Brown King, and the Faure Requiem in the original 1893 version. (The complete season schedule is below.)

Known as the nation's foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to 20th and 21st century music, BMOP/sound today announced the debut of BMOP Radio, its own commercial-free, 24/7 online streaming radio station broadcasting the label's entire catalog of 75+ recordings. 

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) will perform the final concert in its Carnegie Hall season on Thursday, May 2 at 7 pm. The performance will showcase the New York City premieres of Joachim Raff's Psalm 130: De Profundis and Lera Auerbach's De Profundis (Violin Concerto No. 3) with internationally acclaimed violinist Vadim Repin, as well as EMI recording artist, soprano Elizabeth de Trejo. The U.S. premieres of these works will be performed by TŌN at Bard College's Fisher Center on April 27, and the program will be repeated on April 28.