Interchanging Idioms

A new technology pilot program offering up to 500 lawn patrons exclusive digital media content while listening to an All-Dvořák program led by BSO Music Director Designate Andris Nelsons On July 11, during an all-Dvořák BSO concert under the direction of BSO Music Director Designate  Andris Nelsons , the Boston Symphony Orchestra will introduce the first-ever  Tanglewood Lawncast , a unique, technology-enhanced lawn experience, offering participating patrons access to exclusive digital media content—program notes, performer interviews, and additional camera feeds—via their smartphones and tablets. The Tanglewood Lawncast pilot program will take place on a specifically designated area of the lawn outside of the Koussevitzky Music Shed, with space to accommodate up to 500 patrons with lawn tickets. Patrons interested in participating in the program can register at  www.tanglewood.org/lawncast , with availability determined on a first-come, first-served basis. July ...

Today, St. Louis Public Radio | 90.7 KWMU and the St. Louis Symphony announced the renewal of their partnership to include live broadcasts of all 2012-13 Saturday night Wells Fargo Advisors Orchestral Series concerts. The performances will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio’s main channel, 90.7 KWMU and will be streamed live at www.stlpublicradio.org . This is the third year of the partnership. The series’ first live broadcast from Powell Hall will be Saturday, September 29 at 8 p.m. St. Louis Symphony Music Director David Robertson will be at the podium, conducting Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (featuring pianist Emanuel Ax) and Respighi’s iconic Pines of Rome. A complete list of all live broadcasts can be found on-line at http://www.stlpublicradio.org/programs/symphony.php#.UFii91F15nw St. Louis Public Radio’s Robert Peterson returns to host the live broadcasts. The St. Louis Symphony’s Adam Crane will again join Peterson as broad...

The five finalists for a prize valued at more than $100,000 from the American Pianists Association will be showcased in performance on New York’s classical station, WQXR (105.9 FM and online at wqxr.org) on Wednesday, May 19 at 9pm. There will be a simultaneous broadcast on WFYI in Indianapolis, home of the American Pianists Association. The program, hosted by Robert Sherman, is part of The McGraw Hill Companies Young Artists Showcase. It was recorded last month when the names of the finalists for the 2013 ProLiance Energy Classical Fellowship Awards of the American Pianists Association were revealed at Steinway Hall. The Program: Andrew Staupe, 27, will open the broadcast with Pierre Jalbert’s Toccata; followed by Sara Daneshpour, 25, in Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in B minor, K. 27 and Rachmaninov’s Etude-tableau in A minor, Op. 39/6. Claire Huangci, 22 – the youngest finalist – will play three etudes by Alexander Scriabin: Op. 42/3, Op. 8/10, and Op. 8/12. Sean Chen, 23, will pe...

Beethoven’s crowning achievement, the epic Symphony No. 9, “Choral,” featuring the soul-stirring “Ode to Joy,” brings Pacific Symphony ’s classical season to a memorable close in a variety of ways. First! The concert, led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, features a monumental fusion of orchestra and voices that includes Pacific Chorale and four world-class opera singers; plus, two timely works by Frank Ticheli: “Rest” (world premiere version for strings) and “Radiant Voices” provide a stunning prelude. Taking place Thursday-Saturday, May 31-June 2, at 8 p.m., in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Costa Mesa, this concert is also part of the Symphony’s Music Unwound series and includes a display of Beethoven-inspired artwork by local artists who responded to the call: “OC Can You Create?” A preview talk by composer Ticheli begins at 7 p.m. Second! The Symphony, in association with Segerstrom Center for the Arts, presents the very first “ Pacific Symphony PlazaCast ,” a live ...

A Primetime Special Featuring Virtuosos Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer PBS invites viewers to experience a groundbreaking collaboration when it airs The Goat Rodeo Sessions ' first live performance on Friday, May 25, 2012 at 9:00PM (check local listings). The Goat Rodeo Sessions combines the talents of four different solo artists, cello virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma, mandolin master Chris Thile, bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan, bassist Edgar Meyer, each a Grammy Award winning star in their own right, to create a unique, genre-breaking sound that's part composed, part improvised and uniquely American. Released in October 2011, The Goat Rodeo Sessions album debuted #1 on the Classical, Classical Crossover, and Bluegrass Billboard charts. Additionally at #18, it was Yo-Yo Ma's highest position on the Billboard Top 200 chart to date. With the combination of intricate arrangements, intense improvisation, and superior skill by all players, The Goat Rodeo Sessions ...

Friday, 5/11 10:45 am Saint-Saëns' "Organ" Symphony Leonard Slatkin, conductor Craig Rifel, organ There is no other symphony quite like it, a towering work built around the awe-inspiring sounds of the pipe organ. More than a century after its premiere, the "Organ Symphony" remains unrivaled in its scope and majesty. Leonard Slatkin leads the Detroit Symphony Orchestra while the DSO's multi-talented Craig Rifel, normally seen and heard in the double bass section, performs as organ soloist. This concert also features the premiere of a new work by Du Yun, winner of the DSO's 4th Elaine Lebenbom Annual Memorial Award for composers. Join our backstage pre-concert and intermission shows, featuring interviews with composer Du Yun, arranger/composer Rob Mathes, Whole Foods Detroit Community Liaison Amanda Musilli, and more! Program Information Leonard Slatkin, conductor Craig Rifel, organ DU YUN ...

STARTS TODAY Wagner’s Dream A documentary by Susan Froemke U.S./Canada Screenings: Monday, May 7 at 6:30 p.m. local time Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes Premiere The stakes could not be higher as visionary director Robert Lepage and the Metropolitan Opera tackle Wagner's Ring cycle. A backstage look at the enormous theatrical and musical challenges of staging opera’s most monumental work, the film chronicles the five-year journey to create the most ambitious staging in Met history, featuring a 90,000-pound set nicknamed "The Machine.” Soprano Deborah Voigt is torn between excitement and fear as she prepares to take on the role of Brünnhilde for the first time, while unexpected drama arises as a new tenor, Jay Hunter Morris, steps in as the Ring’s hero, Siegfried – days before the production's world premiere. Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold) U.S./Canada Screenings: Wednesday, May 9 at 6:30 p.m. local time Running time: 168 minutes; no intermission Original liv...

On Sunday, April 29, Germany’s Heidelberger Frühling festival presents its first live video stream, offering a program of opera highlights from two world-class singers: baritone Thomas Hampson and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. Accompanied by the WDR Rundfunkorchester under Massimo Zanetti, they will perform to a sold-out audience; the concert marks the last night of the 16th Heidelberger Frühling, which has – since its opening on March 23 – been showcasing internationally renowned artists in the picturesque setting of the city known as “the cradle of German Romanticism.” The April 29 live stream, sponsored by the German consulting firm MLP, will be available free of charge on www.thomashampson.com , www.lucapisaroni.com , and www.mlp-heidelberger-fruehling.de at 12 noon EDT (6 pm CET). The stream will also be available on demand until May 6. Meanwhile, New Yorkers can watch Hampson in an interview with Paula Zahn when he is profiled on THIRTEEN’s NYC-ARTS show, to be broadcast tonight...

Festival Runs from Monday, May 7- Saturday, May 12 at 7:30pm WQXR 105.9 FM and WQXR.org are proud to once again live broadcast the annual SPRING FOR MUSIC festival from Carnegie Hall. The festival’s full concert series will air on 105.9 FM in New York and audio webstream on www.wqxr.org . SPRING FOR MUSIC is an innovative festival of North American symphony and chamber orchestras, representing the best in distinctive musical programming and creativity. The 2012 season will include unique performances that demonstrate the vitality of classical music today, from rarely heard works by Varèse and Busoni to New York premieres by Paul Lansky and Avner Dorman, paired with Beethoven. The live broadcasts will be hosted by WQXR’s Elliott Forrest and will include intermission features and interviews. Each night of the festival, Forrest will be joined by a different co-host from WQXR; Q2 Music, WQXR’s online contemporary classical station; or WQXR’s sister station, WNYC. “ Spring For ...

Last fall, Thomas Hampson was invited by CNN International to travel to a foreign locale of his choice to participate in the inaugural installment of a new series titled “Fusion Journeys”. This voyage of cultural discovery led Hampson to Durban, South Africa, where he met Joseph Shabalala and his male vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The result of their remarkable encounter will air on the daily CNN news program Connect the World , beginning the week of April 16. The show airs on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8:00pm GMT (check local listings for local airtimes). Hampson’s interaction with the group, set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Valley of a Thousand Hills outside Durban, features the singers and their founder teaching Hampson a popular Zulu song, “Homeless” – perhaps the group’s biggest hit – while Hampson shares with them Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times,” one of the many American folks songs that Hampson has championed throughout his ongoing “Song of America”...

“The hits keep coming at medici.tv.” — Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise April offers a grand tour of great European orchestras as medici.tv presents concerts by top ensembles from Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Barcelona, and Lyon. Available now is a concert with the Vienna Symphony from the famed Musikverein, in a colorful springtime program of music by Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Gershwin and more, led by Bertrand de Billy. April 14 showcases the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya led by prize-winning young conductor Vasily Petrenko, in a program of Montsalvatge, Elgar, and the Brahms Violin Concerto with world-class soloist Midori. From April 15 to 25, viewers can enjoy four concerts with the ever-exciting Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev performing signature repertoire: the complete Prokofiev symphonies and four of his five piano concertos. In the concerto performances the Mariinsky is joined by pianists Daniil Trifonov, winner of the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competi...

SATURDAY, APRIL 14 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT THE MET: LIVE IN HD LA TRAVIATA Running time: Approximately 160 minutes, including one intermission Host: Deborah Voigt For more information: metopera.org/liveinhd Acclaimed French soprano Natalie Dessay makes her Met role debut as Violetta, the fallen woman who sacrifices her last chance for love. Matthew Polenzani co-stars as Alfredo Germont, a young man from a good family who is willing to risk everything for Violetta. Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father, who disapproves of Violetta’s lifestyle but is moved by her plight. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads Verdi’s romantic tragedy, one of the most-loved operas of all time, in Willy Decker’s highly theatrical production, a hit when it premiered at the Met in 2010. Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts the transmission.

Screenings of all four operas in Wagner’s epic begin May 9 in the U.S. and Canada The Metropolitan Opera will present worldwide movie theater screenings of Robert Lepage’s new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen , as well as Wagner’s Dream , a new documentary chronicling the creation of this ambitious new staging. In the United States and Canada , the series will begin May 7 with a screening of the documentary, directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke, and continue on May 9 with Das Rheingold , the first opera in the cycle. The entire four-part Ring cycle and documentary will be screened in many countries this spring and summer, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. More details on the screenings are below. Please note that showtimes in some markets may vary. Tickets go...

An interview with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas by Terry Gross will air today on Fresh Air, produced by WHYY-FM and broadcast nationally on NPR stations. Please check here for your local broadcast schedule. This interview precedes the broadcast of two programs featuring Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) on PBS's Great Performances this week. The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater, a musical celebration of Yiddish theater pioneers Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky who were MTT's grandparents, will air nationally on Thursday, March 29 at 8PM (check local listings). Recorded in April 2011 at the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center in Miami Beach, this performance of The Thomashefskys is hosted and conducted by MTT and stars Judy Blazer as Bessie Thomashefsky and Shuler Hensley as Boris Thomashefsky. It also features Ronit Widmann-Levy and Eugene Brancoveanu and the New World Symphony. In the Fresh Air interview, MTT talks about this production and ...

“Formidable technique and a fine combination of intellectual rigor and emotional depth.” — The Chicago Tribune As part of the final leg of the San Francisco Symphony’s American Mavericks U.S. tour , pianist Jeremy Denk returns to his home turf as part of this innovative festival celebrating our nation’s musical pioneers. Denk’s first New York performance takes place live and online, as part of An Evening of Music and Conversation with Michael Tilson Thomas on March 26, Q2 Music’s live video webcast exploring some of the groundbreaking American composers that have inspired American Mavericks. At the end of the week, on March 30, Denk will join members of the symphony during the tour’s final concert at Zankel Hall, performing Lukas Foss’s Echoi as part of an extraordinary evening of revolutionary chamber music. Additionally, Denk will fill out the week at WQXR’s Q2 Music, where he’ll offer his unique take on cutting-edge piano repertoire on the piano-centric show Hammered! (March 26–3...

Includes Found Sound Contest, Launched Today and Culminating in The Knights’ Performance of John Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity After successfully presenting The Knights as its inaugural ensemble-in-residence last fall, WQXR – the nation’s most-listened-to classical music station – is inviting them back for a second residency on April 3 and 4. This time, the heart of the residency is an exciting interactive experience with listeners. On Wednesday, April 4, The Knights will perform a concert that will include John Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity, using sounds submitted by listeners. Christian Zeal and Activity, the hymn-like central movement of Adams’s longer work American Standard (1973), instructs its conductor to incorporate within it “sonic found objects.” Fittingly, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer’s own recording of the work featured a segment of a call-in radio show. Beginning today, WQXR and The Knights invite listeners – whether educated composers, young ga...

Festival to Run Concurrent with American Mavericks Tour Thursday, March 8 – Friday, March 30 WQXR’s online contemporary music station – celebrates America’s great iconoclastic composers this March, as San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas brings his “American Mavericks” tour to New York and beyond. From March 8-30, as the San Francisco Symphony presents Mavericks concerts around the country, Q2 Music will present a wide range of special programming – from live concerts to composer profiles to treasures from the WQXR and WNYC archives – to further illuminate the concerts happening around the country. The festival’s highpoint will be a live event on March 26, “American Mavericks: Music and Conversation with Michael Tilson Thomas,” taking place at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR, the station’s intimate, acoustically superior event venue. The festival will also include Tilson Thomas hosting a weekday show on Q2 Music, innovators such as David Byr...

Critically acclaimed Steinway Concert Artist Lara Downes is redefining the solo recital format with visionary, cutting-edge performances at prestigious concert venues worldwide. Lauded by NPR as "a delightful artist with a unique blend of musicianship and showmanship" and praised by the Washington Post for her stunning performances "rendered with drama and nuance," Lara presents the piano repertoire - from iconic favorites to newly commissioned works - in new ways that bridge musical tastes, genres and audiences. Today, Friday March 2, Lara will be featured on Performance Today, in a special segment on 13 WAYS of Looking at the Goldberg: Bach Reimagined. American Public Media's Performance Today is broadcast on 250 public radio stations across the country. To find out where and when the show is broadcast in your area, please check performancetoday.org. Performance Today is also carried on Sirius XM's Symphony Hall Channel (channel 80), Monday through F...

“The hits keep coming at medici.tv.” — Alex Ross (The Rest Is Noise) This weekend, medici.tv offers two more must-see musical events live on the web. This afternoon, Friday February 24 at 2 pm, violinist Renaud Capuçon performs Henri Dutilleux’s gorgeous L’Arbre des songes (The Tree of Dreams), with conductor Tugan Sokhiev and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. The Toulouse program also presents Tchaikovsky’s great “Pathétique” Symphony. On February 25 at 2:15 pm, medici.tv is especially proud to present the opera Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, starring soprano Renée Fleming and conducted by Christian Thielemann, in a production from Baden-Baden, Germany. Premiered in the 1980s by the eminent violinist Isaac Stern (who commissioned the work), Dutilleux’s L'Arbre des songes is a rare classic among contemporary concertos. Scored for a large orchestra that includes a piano, cimbalom, and five percussionists, the work is a wonder of the imagination: from the co...

STARRING ANGELA MEADE, MARCELLO GIORDANI, DMITRI HVOROSTOVSKY AND FERRUCCIO FURLANETTO SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25 at 12:55 p.m. ET/9:55 a.m. PT THE MET: LIVE IN HD ERNANI Running time: Approximately 210 minutes, including two intermissions Host: Joyce DiDonato For more information: metopera.org/hdlive Four extraordinary singers star in Verdi’s Ernani. American soprano Angela Meade, whose victory in the Met’s National Council Auditions was chronicled in the 2008 documentary film The Audition, takes the role of the noblewoman Elvira in her first Live in HD appearance. Marcello Giordani, star of the Live in HD transmissions of Manon Lescaut, La Damnation de Faust, Madama Butterfly, Turandot, Simon Boccanegra, and La Fanciulla del West, sings the title role of the noble bandit who loves Elvira. Dmitri Hvorostovsky adds a new role to his distinguished repertory as Don Carlo, a royal suitor for Elvira’s hand, and Ferruccio Furlanetto is da Silva, a wealthy relative with his own designs o...