21C Media Group

WQXR presents Rufus Wainwright at The Greene Space (Feb 12)

2012-02-03

On Sunday, February 12 at 7pm, WQXR – the nation’s most listened-to classical radio station – welcomes Juno Award-winning, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright for an intimate evening of performance and conversation at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space.

Daniel Hope in NYC, Savannah in Feb/March

2012-02-03

Violinist Daniel Hope rejoins his friends at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to perform "A Celebration of Joseph Joachim" on February 12 at Alice Tully Hall. Mirroring his acclaimed Deutsche Grammophon album of the same name, the program will present both rare and familiar works associated with Joachim, the great 19th-century virtuoso violinist-composer who was friend and collaborator to Brahms, Schumann, Dvořák, and Bruch. In March and April, Hope returns for his eighth season as Associate Artistic Director of the Savannah Music Festival in Georgia. He will lead programs ranging from the complete Brahms sonatas – with frequent piano partner Sebastian Knauer – to Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi with the German period instrument ensemble l'arte del mondo, as well as a number of chamber music concerts with colleagues from around the world. This activity comes just as Hope has renewed his contract as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon recording artist.

Alan Gilbert and NY Phil tour Europe, Feb 2 - 18

2012-02-02

Now in his third season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert returns with the orchestra to the musical capitals of Europe for 14 concerts in seven cities beginning on February 2 in Cologne, Germany. Concerts follow in Luxembourg (Feb 3, 4), Paris (Feb 6 and 7), Frankfurt (Feb 8, 9), Düsseldorf (Feb 11), and Amsterdam (Feb 13, 14); the Düsseldorf and Amsterdam concerts mark Gilbert’s first performances with the orchestra in those cities. The last stop on the tour, London, inaugurates the New York Philharmonic’s International Associates residency at the Barbican, with four concerts on February 16–18; programs include a Young People’s Concert with Jamie Bernstein, as well as a series of educational and outreach activities. The soloists for the tour will be the Philharmonic’s 2011–12 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Frank Peter Zimmermann, pianist Lang Lang, and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Tour programs include works by Magnus Lindberg and the Philharmonic’s Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, Thomas Adès (the UK premiere of his Polaris), as well as music by Bartók, Beethoven, Mahler, Prokofiev, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky. Complete tour dates and programs follow below.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard returns to Cleveland, Chicago in Feb

2012-02-02

Returning to the U.S. to resume two of his closest partnerships with American orchestras, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performs Bartók with the Cleveland Orchestra (February 16-18) and Schoenberg with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (February 24-March 3). Both runs will feature Aimard with one of his most frequent collaborators: conductor Pierre Boulez. Aimard's extended stateside visit – which will also include a nationwide recital tour in March and April – comes as the French pianist has enjoyed a winter of international accolades for his latest Deutsche Grammophon album, The Liszt Project. Aimard marked last year's bicentennial of the great composer-pianist's birth with this double album that features more than two hours of music not only by Liszt but by composers who influenced him and were influenced by him, from Wagner to Messiaen. New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini declared that "Pierre-Laurent Aimard has an ingenious knack for juxtaposing old and new works to tease out fascinating resonances." The Liszt Project was honored as one of 2011's best recordings by the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and the UK's Independent, among others.

Vail Music Festival announces 25th anniversary season

2012-02-01

From the heart of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival announces its 25^thanniversary season, which runs for seven weeks from June 25 to August 4. Celebrated pianist Anne-Marie McDermott returns for a second term as artistic director, and once again the Vail Music Festival boasts not one but three world-class resident orchestras: the New York Philharmonic, returning under music director Alan Gilbert for its tenth summer; The Philadelphia Orchestra, whose new music director designate Yannick Nézet-Séguin makes his Vail Music Festival debut; and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Jaap van Zweden, Musical America’s Conductor of the Year 2012. Programming highlights for this landmark season include numerous Festival premieres; multi-event immersions in the art of Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Gershwin; a series juxtaposing time-honored classics with trailblazing new music; plus chamber music, jazz, and pops galore. New York’s Gabriel Kahane returns for an encore performance of his 2011 Festival commission, while the Cantus Vocal Ensemble and Jasper String Quartet serve as 2012’s Young-Professionals-in-Residence. An impressive guest-star roster presents more than 30 soloists, including pianists Yefim Bronfman, Kirill Gerstein, and Benjamin Grosvenor; violinists Joshua Bell, James Ehnes, and Jennifer Koh; cellist Alisa Weilerstein; vocalists Susanna Phillips, Curtis Stigers, and Tracy Dahl; and electric guitarist/composer Steven Mackey. Ensembles include the Calder Quartet, Tiempo Libre, and Opus One, and guest conductors number Andrey Boreyko, Stéphane Denève, Bramwell Tovey, and Jeff Tyzik among them. As before, chamber concerts will be held in the intimate Vail Mountain School and Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek, while large-scale concerts take place in Vail’s spectacular Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, which accommodates 1,260 guests in covered seating and an additional 1,300 on the expansive grassy hillside, with its breathtaking view of the Rocky Mountains.

Iestyn Davies debuts at Lyric Feb 29, sings with Baroque Band in March

2012-02-01

On the heels of his critically acclaimed debuts last fall at the Met (in Rodelinda) and at Carnegie Hall, British countertenor Iestyn Davies – named 2010’s Royal Philharmonic Young Artist of the Year – makes his Lyric Opera debut in Chicago on February 29 in a new production of Handel’s Rinaldo. The Baroque master’s depiction of the First Crusade will be conducted by Harry Bicket and directed by Francisco Negrin. Davies, a rising star on the international music scene, and “One of the most glorious countertenor voices in the world today” (Independent, UK), sings the role of Eustazio.

Bard SummerScape 2012 season announcement

2012-01-31

Culture at the crossroads in Belle Époque France will be explored at the ninth annual Bard SummerScape festival, which once again features a sumptuous tapestry of music, opera, theater, dance, film, andcabaret, keyed to the theme of the 23^rd annual Bard Music Festival. Presented in the striking Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and other venues on Bard College’s bucolic Hudson River campus, the seven-week festival opens on July 6 with the first of three performances by France’s Compagnie Fêtes galantes, and closes on August 19 with a party in Bard’s beloved Spiegeltent, which returns for the full seven weeks. This year’s Bard Music Festival explores “Saint-Saëns and His World,” and some of the great French composer’s most innovative compatriots provide other SummerScape highlights, including Emmanuel Chabrier’s opéra-comique The King In Spite of Himself in a first staged revival of the original 1887 version; Molière’s final comedy of manners, The Imaginary Invalid (1673); and a film festival, “France and the Colonial Imagination.” Together, Bard’s offerings present a vivid portrait of a dazzlingly creative and colorful era in European history: a Golden Age of promise and possibility that came to end with the tragedy of World War I.

NYC Opera presents Jonathan Miller's production of "La traviata" at BAM in February

2012-01-30

New York City Opera – in the company's first performances in its Brooklyn Academy of Musicresidency – presents a production by acclaimed director Jonathan Miller of Verdi's always-popular La traviata,February 12-18 at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House. Miller's take on Verdi's tragic masterpiece has already been lauded at Glimmerglass Opera and Vancouver Opera, with Opera News judging his work “a sublimely memorable experience…inviting both singer and audience to experience the power of words and music more directly.” The cast includes soprano Laquita Mitchell – a Brooklyn native hailed for her "powerful" voice by the New York Times – as Verdi's fascinating titular heroine.

Soprano Angela Meade receives seventh annual Beverly Sills Artist Award

2012-01-30

American soprano Angela Meade is having a momentous season. In October she caused a sensation in the title role of the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere production of Anna Bolena, delivering what the New Yorker’s Alex Ross called “as pure a display of vocal power as I’ve heard at the Met in the past few years.” A month later she was honored with the prestigious 2011 Richard Tucker Award, and now – still less than four years since her professional debut – the soprano has been named recipient of the seventh annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera. Muffy Greenough, Beverly Sills’s daughter, presented the award to Meade at a ceremony at the Met this afternoon.

Houston Grand Opera announces its 2012-13 season

2012-01-26

Houston Grand Opera, with Music Director Patrick Summers and Managing Director Perryn Leech, announces its 2012-13 season, headlined by four new productions. The first of these is Puccini’s La bohème, which launches the new season with a new staging by award-winning British director John Caird. To honor 2013’s joint bicentennials of Wagner and Verdi, the coming season juxtaposes Tristan und Isolde – starring Ben Heppner and Nina Stemme in a new contemporary staging by Christof Loy – with a revival of Steven Lawless’s unforgettable take on Il trovatore. British conductor Trevor Pinnock leads a strong international cast in Mozart’s ensemble masterpiece Don Giovanni, while Francesca Zambello’s new production of Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat brings together stars of Broadway and the opera house in a celebration of America’s own contribution to the art. For a more intimate experience, Daniela Barcellona and Lawrence Brownlee star in Rossini’s dramma giocoso, The Italian Girl in Algiers.