90 stories by "David Rohde"
Imagine if great music by diverse composers were presented not as special but rather as totally normal.
Can an hour-long album of something technically labeled "classical music" actually be the closest thing to musical theater's tradition of an original cast recording? It can in the case of la…
Every musical theater actor in town is familiar with the sight of some of the pit musicians lugging multiple instruments into the theater. Especially if the "pit" isn't really a pit but a co…
Four composers who died in Nazi concentration camps are known to have written entire compositions while imprisoned there, and the Washington"Baltimore region deserves its share of credit in …
Taking music from a performer's own culture and pulling it together with more familiar-sounding music into a coherent program for an American audience is often tricky business. If it comes a…
The easiest thing for many highly qualified, especially classically trained, musicians to try to do is to cross genres in an effort to be relevant to the cultural world of 2020. Demonstrably…
When an elite chamber music trio has Beethoven in its bones, the ensemble apparently doesn't need to spend most of their time together or even come up with a coherent name for the group. All…
It is often hard to determine what fills the seats in many performing arts genres, with counterintuitive surprises on both the negative and positive side. Count this one as a positive: While…
Concerts in private salons rather than formal concert halls dot the history of music-making. But they can give the impression of being secondary events where no real music history took place…
For decades, the Sunday afternoon concert series at the Phillips Collection has maintained primacy of place in Washington's classical musical firmament. But like leaders in all fields who wa…
Correctly predicting what kind of serious art music would and would not be presented on American concert stages in 2019 would have fooled " even baffled " the most prescient of musical obser…
Opening night in any form of theater is a big deal, but this Saturday's opening of Eugene Onegin at Washington National Opera carries extra meaning at several levels. It's the first appearan…
Amtrak's Northeast Corridor has long been a feeder line for pilgrimages by aspiring performing artists to Juilliard and other New York institutions. Not everyone realizes, though, that the p…
The orchestra that makes its home in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall has only had one American music director in the last two generations. So it's easy to forget that the 100-strong band is,…
The words "Chicago" and "Philadelphia" conjure up immediate images across all the human senses. In theater and movies, the musical Chicago and the movie The Philadelphia Story (or maybe Rock…
Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe are both world-class pianists and they love to play together. And that's all you can say about them that fits any model. Their artistry is not patterned a…
Nothing is quite as draining as endless discussions in the classical music world about how concerts "should" work to recapture their prominence in the cultural fabric. So nothing is quite as…
There's an addictive quality to the events of the Russian Chamber Art Society, sort of like discovering a pastime or sport that you just have to follow once you learn about it. Maybe that's …
Don't just call Tessa Lark a crossover artist. The fast-rising classical violinist may also be known for playing at jazz clubs in New York and elsewhere, and for her country fiddling at blue…
When Washington National Opera presents one of opera's top examples of musical comedy next spring, it's only fitting that the production will star a singer whose background sounds as ready-m…
Amit Peled is a story-teller. He happens to do it with a cello. But that doesn't mean you have to be a genius audience member to find the entire story for yourself in the music. The charisma…
Is "star viola player" an oxymoron? Not if the viola player " a "violist" as opposed to a violinist " casts her net as wide as Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt. Milena, who last appeared in Washin…
Complex 20th century "classical music," or more properly serious art music as opposed to various forms of popular music, seems to be a gamble. It's never just as interesting to an audience a…
The French and the Russians evoke very different images in the American mind, but they have one thing in common: an affinity for each other's culture. Many Russian writers and composers live…
From Tevye the Milkman's Anatevka of 1905 to the St. Nicholas Lutheran Church in Leipzig in 1724, Broadway conductor Ted Sperling is making quite a transition in settings this week. But it's…
