Yo-Yo Ma News

Oakland, CA, December 10, 2015—Music Director Michael Morgan and the Oakland Symphony continue their annual exploration of world orchestral music traditions this season with Notes from Vietnam, Friday, February 12, 2016, at 8 pm at the Paramount Theatre. Featured will be Emmy Award-winning composer performer Vân-Ánh Võ, who will give the world premiere of her Lullaby for a Country, performing on the ?àn tranh (Vietnamese zither), ?àn B?u (monochord), and vocals. In addition, TV and Broadway star and filmmaker Michael Urie (Ugly Betty, Modern Family) will narrate Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. Completing the program will be Dvo?ák's Carnival Overture. The Symphony's Notes from . . . series has become a popular mainstay of the Bay Area music scene and annually explores symphonic music both new and traditional from cultures that may be less well known to audiences. Past Notes from . . . programs have focused on music from Mexico, Persia, the Philippines, China and the Middle East, among others. Free lobby entertainment, no-host drinks and pre-concert talk begin at 7 pm. And the concert is sponsored in part by California Waste Solutions. Tickets are priced $20-$75 and may be purchased at www.OaklandSymphony.org.

St. Ann's Warehouse will continue the inaugural season in its new waterfront theater with the American Premiere of Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy and writer-director Enda Walsh's thrilling new opera The Last Hotel, in a Landmark Productions / Wide Open Opera production. Singers Claudia Boyle, Robin Adams and Katherine Manley, actor Mikel Murfi, and an ensemble of New York's finest contemporary players, conducted alternately by André de Ridder and Alan Pierson, will deliver this “searingly powerful new chamber work” (The Guardian). Presented by St. Ann's Warehouse and co-presented withPROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now andIrish Arts Center, The Last Hotel comes to New York after tremendously acclaimed engagements at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Dublin Theatre Festival and the Royal Opera House in London.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced Stephen Colbert will return to host the 38th annual Kennedy Center Honors tonight, December 6, 2015.

Talented and accomplished young musicians perform, a tribute to the people of Paris along with Dragon Kim's Karate's performance to Beethoven's 5th and The New American Ballet's performance to the Nutcracker.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced Stephen Colbert will return to host the 38th annual Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday, December 6, 2015.

With the renewed interest and popularity of vinyl records and the desire to spotlight its in-store musical offerings, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the nation's largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, announced that it will present a special "Vinyl Day" today, November 21.

JCC Manhattan presents PREformances with Allison Charney on Monday, November 23rd at 7:30 p.m.

CHICAGO—The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and Music Director Riccardo Muti take their first trip to Asia together in January 2016, marking the Orchestra's eighth trip to the Far East in its distinguished history.

On January 6, 2016, the Harris Theater for Music and Dance will present Grammy and Emmy award-winner Itzhak Perlman conducting the Juilliard Orchestra in their first Chicago appearance in 10 years. Treasured by audiences throughout the world for his remarkable artistry, Mr. Perlman, who contracted polio at age four, is also one of the most important and committed advocates for accessibility, and a source of inspiration for young musicians with and without disabilities.

Sony Music Entertainment Canada today announces the latest release of Daniel Taylor. Known for his breathtaking passion and dedication to excellence, world-renowned countertenor Daniel Taylor returns with FOUR THOUSAND WINTER, a new release featuring 14 stunning seasonal pieces of winter and seasonal music.

Carnegie Hall celebrates the holiday season with a variety of special programs this December. On Friday, December 18 at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, December 19 at 8:00 p.m., Tony Award nominees Stephanie J. Block (Wicked) and Brian d'Arcy James (Shrek The Musical and Something Rotten!) help to make the season bright with a program of holiday favorites performed by The New York Pops and Music Director Steven Reineke with Essential Voices USA.

ANNAPOLIS, MD – ASO Concertmaster, Netanel Draiblate will perform Antonín Dvo?ák's Concerto for Violin in the next set of Lexus Classic Series concerts with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts on Today, November 13 and Saturday, November 14, 2015 at 8pm.  Music Director José-Luis Novo will also conduct the orchestra in the Petite Suite originally composed by Claude Debussy and orchestrated by Henri Büsser, and Symphony No. 3 by Johannes Brahms.

They were the brand name on every woman's lips. Goodman Theatre announces it will produce the world premiere of War Paint, a new musical that charts the ascent and arch-rivalry of cosmetics entrepreneurs Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. Patti LuPone, who 'generates more raw excitement than any other performer on Broadway' (The New York Times), and Christine Ebersole, a 'first-class, revitalizing master of period style' (The New York Times), respectively star as Rubinstein and Arden, the brilliant innovators with humble roots who shrewdly navigated the 1930s male-dominated business world to forever change the business of beauty. Directed by Michael Greif (Rent, Next to Normal, If/Then, Grey Gardens), War Paint reunites Scott Frankel and Michael Korie-the acclaimed composer and lyricist team of Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven-with Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright (Grey Gardens, I Am My Own Wife, The Little Mermaid). The musical is inspired by the book, War Paint, by Lindy Woodhead and the documentary film, The Powder & the Glory, by Ann Carol Grossman and Arnie Reisman.  

With the renewed interest and popularity of vinyl records and the desire to spotlight its in-store musical offerings, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the nation's largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that it will present a special “Vinyl Day” on Saturday, November 21

Orange County, Calif.—Nov. 11, 2015—Pacific Symphony has been ahead of the multicultural curve for years. Through many different vehicles—The American Composers Festivals, Music Unwound, guest performers, commissioned works—the Symphony is at the center of a seismic shift regarding what people listen to and who is listening. Like orchestras throughout the country, the Symphony sees cross-cultural dialog as a critical, essential part of how it serves its various communities. These bridge-building efforts have been in place at least since 2004's “Tradewinds from China” American Composers Festival. Now, however, these efforts have intensified. As a recipient of a $1.6 million New California Arts Fund grant from The James Irvine Foundation, specifically for expanding and diversifying its core listenership, the Symphony has been working behind the scenes to build stronger links with Orange County's Chinese and Chinese-American communities. Some (but not all) of these efforts have been directed at the guest artists and repertoire being brought to the stage.

FirstWorks kicks off the 2015-2016 season with a week-long residency by the vibrant Los Angeles-based, multimedia performance art troupe Cloud Eye Control.

Seven Rice University students have been selected to participate in the New York Philharmonic Global Academy Fellowship Program, part of the New York Philharmonic Global Academy partnership between Rice's Shepherd School of Music and the New York Philharmonic.

LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER - the award-winning performing arts series that for more than 40 years has showcased the best of the wide-ranging programming from the world's leading performing arts center - today announced the national broadcast presentation of SINATRA: VOICE FOR A CENTURY, airing Friday, December 18, 2015 on PBS*.

On Monday, December 14 at 7:00 p.m., Carnegie Hall presents Sting in his highly acclaimed concert Symphonicities in a one-night-only gala benefit concert with Orchestra of St. Luke's conducted by Rob Mathes.

World-renowned artists Mika (marimba) and Richard Stoltzman (clarinet) return to Carnegie Hall tonight, November 5, 2015, to showcase their amazing versatility and crossover ability in a one-night only concert event.