90 stories by "David Rohde"
Somebody must have rung a bell and instructed judges at all international music competitions to start awarding prizes to young classical musicians who already demonstrate daring and panache,…
What better place to celebrate the life and work of Marvin Hamlisch than right here in Washington? But the reasons for An Evening with the Music of Marvin Hamlisch on Monday, October 1…
Hearing the rising Ukrainian violinist Aleksey Semenenko perform is like a visit to a musical laboratory. At age 25, the monstrously talented Mr. Semenenko is still exploring various approac…
Mainstream classical music commentary in Washington often complains about an over-reliance on the symphonies and concertos of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff for the programming at the area's m…
Artistic risk-taking in Washington extends across many genres to numerous performing groups. The region's vocal music scene certainly got a flavor of that on Saturday night in a one-time con…
Russian pianist Olga Kern is something of a cult figure because of her landmark victory in the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, captured in one of the greatest…
Summer music festivals in both the pop and classical music worlds can come with a lot of flash and dash. But not to be overlooked in our region is a more modest gem tacked onto the end of fe…
It must be time for dessert! Two new recordings by prominent local classical artists coincidentally use the metaphor of desserts-after-a-meal in their concepts. They both provide delightful …
The musical inventiveness and dramatic craziness of one of LL's most challenging pieces of all, his 1956 musical Candide, must flow right through Marin Alsop's veins. The music director of t…
If you want to call Richard Glazier a throwback, go right ahead. He loves it. For Glazier, there's nothing better than sitting at a piano telling stories about George and Ira Gershwin and th…
Franz Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 19 in C minor is a sprawling, at times even rambling composition that takes a full half hour to spin out. Not even one of the world's greatest living pianis…
Czech pianist Martin Kasik has an important historic connection with Washington despite relatively infrequent visits here. He was a 1999 winner of the Young Concert Artists series, which lau…
Johann Sebastian Bach wasn't just fulfilling a professional responsibility when he wrote religious music. A devout Lutheran, Bach meant what he wrote and sought musical texts and texture tha…
Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wór pretty much creates an unforgettable impression everywhere she performs. Her strikingly rich voice " it's been called "plush," "chocolatey" and other adjective…
Subtext abounded as the Philadelphia Orchestra arrived at The Kennedy Center Tuesday night. In Washington, rising politicians are "mentioned for president." In classical music, rising conduc…
You can't get a much pithier title of a composition than Maurice Ravel's La Valse. You also can't get a much more misleading one, either, even if the composer fully meant the irony of the ti…
If you choose to let it, Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 9 can scare you to death. Or you can let its vast scope and its ethereal beginning and ending that sandwiches raucous and even sarcastic…
One of the most charming moments I've seen at a concert in years occurred yesterday at The Music Center at Strathmore. András Schiff, one of the world's leading pianists, brought a progra…
If I told you that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra may be the most dynamic classical music organization in our region, you'd probably expect me to prove it with a report on a daring program…
Not just any conservatory or university school of music can mount a concert featuring Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5. It may not have familiar tunes, but Mahler's Fifth is a landmark composi…
Jason Robert Brown's Parade is a gut-punch of a musical about the 1913 murder trial of an Atlanta Jewish man, his unjust conviction, his subsequent semi-exoneration to "only" life in prison,…
Picture this: A leading classical performer finds a program from a century ago played by a legend on his instrument, sets the date to recreate the concert for the exact 100th anniversary of …
Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 may be based on the poem "Ode to Joy," but that doesn't mean the epic symphony holds a monopoly on joyous music. If anything, the pieces accompanying Beethoven's N…
World orchestras are at their most interesting when they bring a blend of their native musical language with the European tradition that defines "classical music." With the help of two soloi…
It's almost a cliché to sit smugly in a 21st century theater or concert hall enjoying a work that some original critic destroyed to his everlasting infamy. And audiences at this week's N…
