Yo-Yo Ma News

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, the Schubert Club and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra are pleased to present The Sphinx Virtuosi with Catalyst Quartet on Sunday, Oct. 30 in the Ordway Concert Hall. Tickets for the special performance start at $22 and can be purchased online at ordway.org, by phone at 651-224-4222 or in person at the Ordway ticket office.

Cristina Pato in Concert with her Quartet will take part in Jazz at Staller Center at Stony Brook University on November 12, 2016 at 8:00 pm.

Conducted by CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, this passionate and spectacular piece touches every emotion from stark terror to soothing beauty to an uplifting sense of spirituality. Although composed as a sacred work, its deep theatricality has led to it being frequently described as "Verdi's greatest opera." To adequately convey the breadth of his vision, Verdi called for the combined forces of a full orchestra, chorus, and four solo vocalists. As such, the Columbus Symphony will be joined by the Columbus Symphony Chorus, soprano Michelle Johnson, mezzo-soprano Margaret Mezzacappa, tenor Evan Johnson, and bass Burak Bilgili.

The Variation String Trio, comprising violinist Jennifer Koh, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and cellist Wilhelmina Smith, makes its New York City debut performing works by living composers including Kaija Saariaho's Cloud Trio, selections from Gyorgy Kurtag's Signs, Games and Messages, and Andrew Norman's The Companion Guide to Rome. The concert opens the 92nd Street Y's Soundspace series this season in Buttenwieser Hall on Wednesday, November 30 at 8:30 p.m. Tickets, priced at $25, are available at 92Y.org/concerts or by calling (212) 415-5500.

Composer/violinist Jessie Montgomery's latest orchestral score, Records from a Vanishing City, will be given its world premiere by Orpheus at the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, Today, October 27 (8 pm).

Richard Ortner, president of the Boston Conservatory, announces he will retire in June 2017. Boston Conservatory President Richard Ortner, who transformed the institution with new faculty appointments, new construction of state-of-the-art facilities, groundbreaking programs for individuals with special needs, and a merger with Berklee College of Music, announces his retirement in June 2017. Ortner, the Conservatory's eighth president, has served for 18 years. He will remain active as a senior advisor, focusing on international reputation, board building, and formulation of the institution's music, dance, and theater strategies.

On October 26th and 28th, Unison Media's performance series The Crypt Sessions will celebrate Halloween early with the world premiere of pianist/composer Gregg Kallor's dramatic canata based on Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, featuring mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Pojanowski, cellist Joshua Roman, and Kallor himself at the piano.

On Today, October 25 at 8:00PM at Alice Tully Hall, The American Classical Orchestra, comprised of some of the world's leading period violinists, will present Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Violinists Judson Griffin, Lisa Rautenberg, Cynthia Roberts and Jorg-Michael Schwarz will perform on 1610 and 1615 Giovanni Maginni and 1668 and 1671 Jacob Stainer masterpiece violins. Also featured on the program are Handel's Concerto Grosso Opus 3, No. 2, Geminiani's "La Follia' Concerto and Albicastro's Concerto a Quattro Opus 7 excerpts. This concert will be conducted by Thomas Crawford.  Maestro Thomas Crawford will present a Pre-Concert Lecture at 7:00PM on October 25.

New this season, LA Opera presents After Hours: A Musical Nocturne, a post-show, late-night concert series featuring classical and contemporary music, performed along with rock and jazz selections. The series will be hosted and curated by Artist in Residence Matthew Aucoin and will feature music ranging from Franz Schubert, Gustav Mahler and Francis Poulenc to Bruce Springsteen, Nick Drake and Radiohead. Taking place immediately following select opera performances, these events will feature an array of artists performing in the intimate setting of the Founders Room, located on the second floor of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, 90012).

Strengthening its role as a center for artist research and development, Jacob's Pillow Dance announces an active, year-round season with its expanded 2016-2017 Creative Development Residency program. This season brings new additions to the program including two technical residencies, cross-genre collaborations, and invited audiences of college students, as well as a diverse roster of 10 artist residencies, the Pillow's largest residency season yet.

In the first of four festivals in the CSO's 2016-17 season, Music Director Rossen Milanov will lead the CSO in the Last Notes Festival, showcasing the majestic, final works of Tchaikovsky and Mozart. Enhanced by educational and interactive offerings in the week prior to the concerts, the Last Notes Festival will include Tchaikovsky's haunting and turbulent Sixth Symphony, his final completed symphony that struggles between hope and despair, and the mercurial overture to Mozart's last opera, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). Additionally, the CSO, guest violinist Anthony Marwood, and renowned American composer and electric guitar maestro Steve Mackey will perform Four Iconoclastic Episodes, a captivating work composed by Mackey as a double concerto for violin and electric guitar.

In what has become an annual holiday tradition, Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents ten performances of Sergei Prokofiev's charming children's classic, Peter & the Wolf. Reviving the sold-out 2015 production, for the tenth year, renowned fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi will narrate the production. Brad Lubman will conduct Ensemble Signal.

The CSO's Happy Hour concerts offer free, informal, after-work concerts performed preceded by complimentary appetizers, a DJ in the theatre lobby, and a cash bar. Led by CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, Eclectic Mix, the first Happy Hour concert of the 2016-17 season, will feature violinist Anthony Marwood and electric guitarist Steve Mackey who will be guest performers in the CSO's Last Notes Festival the following weekend. The Happy Hour program will include Copland's “Hoe Down” from Rodeo, the third movement from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, and Mackey's Double Concerto for Violin and Electric Guitar from his own composition, Four Iconoclastic Episodes. 

World renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who has introduced new generations to the vitality and timelessness of classical music, joins Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) on Haydn's Cello Concerto in C, a tour de force showcasing the instrument's full range of color, to celebrate Music Director Jeffrey Kahane's final season with the Orchestra on Sunday, October 16, 2016, 7:30 pm, at USC's Bovard Auditorium.

The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia (UBC) announces the hotly anticipated return of Diego El Cigala, charming vocalist and three-time Latin GRAMMY winner, Sunday, November 20, 2016 at7pm in the Chan Shun Concert Hall. Known for his uncanny ability to meld sounds of his Spanish Gitano heritage with other treasured genres, El Cigala will showcase the intoxicating rhythms and melodies of salsa with works from Indestructible, his upcoming album slated for release on Oct. 28, 2016.

Sahba Motallebi, born in Iran, is recognized internationally as a virtuoso of the tar and setar, lute-like stringed instruments central to one of the world's great musical traditions. In this concert, she performs a repertoire of traditional Persian music and original pieces accompanied by Naghmeh Farahmand on tonbak (goblet drum) and daf (frame drum).

Experience the exquisite Renee Fleming -- in recital, in the acoustic splendor of Prudential Hall, accompanied by pianist Gerald Martin Moore. One of the most beloved and celebrated musical ambassadors of our time, soprano Renee Fleming captivates audiences with her sumptuous voice, consummate artistry, and compelling stage presence. At a White House ceremony in 2013, the President awarded her the National Medal of Arts, America's highest honor for an individual artist. Known as 'the people's diva' and winner of the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo, she continues to grace the world's greatest opera stages and concert halls, now extending her reach to include other musical forms and media. In recent years, Renee has hosted a wide variety of television and radio broadcasts, including the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series for movie theaters and television, and Live From Lincoln Center on PBS. She brought her voice to a vast new audience in 2014, as the first classical artist to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl.

LA Opera will celebrate Halloween with two screenings of the 1922 silent classic Nosferatu, featuring a new score created by Matthew Aucoin, the company's new Artist in Residence. One of the greatest horror films ever made, the supremely creepy vampire thriller will be accompanied live by Mr. Aucoin conducting a chamber ensemble of musicians from the LA Opera Orchestra and soprano soloist Liv Redpath, a member of the company's Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program. Presented as part of the company's Off Grand initiative, the screenings will take place on October 29 and 31 at the Theatre at Ace Hotel.

The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia (UBC) presents Brain, a hilarious and heartbreaking monologue about the mind, mental illness, and friendship on November 17 at 7:30pm in the Telus Studio Theatre as part of the Beyond Words series. Written and performed by novelist and slam poet Brendan McLeod, this 2015 Vancouver Fringe Festival Pick of the Fringe has been hailed as "soulful, heartfelt theatre that is moving and challenging, skillfully crafted and entertaining." (Plank Magazine)

The American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by music director Leon Botstein, will open its 55th season at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, October 19, 2016.  The four-concert Vanguard series begins with a program titled Troubled Days of Peacein which Botstein will lead the Orchestra and the Bard Festival Chorale in concert versions of two one-act operas that examine the turbulent period between the First and Second World Wars: Ernst Krenek's Der Diktator ('The Dictator') and Richard Strauss' Friedenstag ('Days of Peace').