Since 2010, Experiments in Opera, founded by composers Aaron Siegel, Matthew Welch and Jason Cady, has presented all sorts of new works that simultaneously affirm and challenge the very idea…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:10PMThe whole evening was an experience of two interconnected worlds. The first was the historical world of Dadaism, exhibited in music, words and visual images. The second was Livingston’s de…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:26PMEach song – some traditional folk ballads and some national calls to history and identity – became, in Aynur’s hands, an individual work of art, intricately structured and elegantly pa…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:45PMNally’s extensive program notes provided insights on the program, whose title comes from the opening line of Virgil’s "Aeneid," “Arma virumque cano” … “I sing of arms and the man…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:55PMThe Festival’s sole lecture-presentation proved useful in revealing how one composer viewed the intersections of science and art in his own composing: trumpeter Skye van Duuren, now a trum…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:22PMIn the very first concert, one of the finest – and also longest – pieces of the Festival was Marie-Helene Bernard’s BOA Sr (1.5, i.e. Concert 1, piece 5). In 2010, Bernard read the obi…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:04PMThis year, the Festival site was the Abrons Arts Center; the three performance venues in the facility – the Experimental Theater, the Playhouse and the Underground Theater – were all u…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:37PMAfter intermission, German-born and now San Francisco based conductor Christian Reif led the International Contemporary Ensemble together with Quince Vocal Ensemble (Amanda DeBoer Bartlett/s…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:28PMOne special feature of this concert was also a mark of C4’s maturity and clout as a musical organization with a well-deserved reputation for excellence: they sponsor the IGNITE commissioni…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 02:04PMOpdam’s de Raaff playing, in contrast, was marvelous. The composer took his inspiration from Willem de Kooning’s 1977 painting, "North Atlantic Light." De Raaff and Opdam both captured t…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:01PMThe nine pieces on this program differed tremendously from each other in style, tone and effect. However, two important qualities unified all the performances. First, the composers all cause…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:51AMTagaq makes music with her whole body: it is an act as fundamental as consuming, excreting, orgasm and birthing. She can make any sound – whisper and howl, caress, growl and grunt – and …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:53PMThe program opened and closed with pieces for all five musicians together. Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (1620/23-1680) both made the quartet of string…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 02:38PMHowever, it’s not what we normally think of as an opera. And the performance, characterized by both moving strengths and disconcerting weaknesses, unfolded, awkwardly and interestingly ……
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:18PMBrown called his concert, "If Not Now …?" implying, for himself and us, then, when? Removed by more than a decade from the kinds of composing in which he’s now typically engaged, the pie…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:02PMAs a composer, Rzewski is no doubt best known for his astonishing 1975 piano work, "The People United Will Never Be Defeated." It will take another century of listening and assessment to kno…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:38AMThe Da Capo Chamber Players’ recent concert at Merkin Concert Hall, billed as a celebration for composer Charles Wuorinen’s eightieth year, was an intimate, unexpectedly informal event. …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:20PM"Thy Will Be Done" retains many of the core features of an oratorio, especially in its use of alternating solo arias and choruses to develop the basic story and in its development of choral …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:13PMThe evening’s works were loosely organized around the theme of devotion, a big conceptual basket into which works about reverence, affection, awe and loves of all sorts could deftly and ef…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:31AMBefore the concert, audience members were invited to a special showing of the Zurbarán exhibit at the Frick; the museum and the site of the concert – Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church �…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:39PMAfter the four musicians connected by eye contact to exactly synchronize their ‘phones, the piece began; sound emanated entirely slowly – it seemed like almost a minute before a steady s…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:08PMOf the twelve soloists, several were outstanding. Tenor Scott Mello’s "Nigra Sum" was a virtuosic, romantically charged reveling in sensuality. The soprano duet, "Pulchra Es," with Molly Q…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:50PMEqually exciting is Lorelei’s celebration of each of the ensemble’s individual voices. Peter Gilbert’s "Tsukimi (Moon Viewing)," commissioned by Lorelei and premiered in 2013, offers e…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:30PMPresiding over the entire piece and working in close artistic collaboration with Keene was actor F. Murray Abraham; he read the King James Bible based narrative from Ascension’s commanding…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:29PMThe set for the opera was itself a living, organic phenomenon; it functioned as an additional character in the opera. IONE sat near the moveable stage-flats; her back was to the audience, ye…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 02:51PMChen Yi’s music is, in the best possible sense, powerful: it affirms. Musicians and audience alike, at the end of each piece, are strengthened in the continuing determination to do one’s…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:50AMThe Tallis Scholars’ most recent turn in the Columbia University Miller Theatre Early Music Series was billed as “Heinrich Isaac at 500.” This concert title wasn’t quite accurate: th…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:06PMCohen then spoke; he presented the four-movement structure of the piece about to be performed. Although various passages in "Voyagers" evoked the diversity of music offerings on the Golden R…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:44PMPlaying both traditional and modern instruments, usually amplified, all four musicians supplement and expand Ukrainian folk melodies and songs with rhythmic and stylistic adaptations as well…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:22PMLike most C4 concerts, this one had a theme: it was an evening of “songs about love – both for and against.” Songs’ ideas and purposes mirrored, echoed, anticipated and challenged ea…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:40PMThe two soprano soloists were marvelous. Hélène Brunet combines supple lyricism with technical elegance. Clara Rottsolk’s voice is at once silvery and earthy, delicate and powerful. In t…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:48PM
