Interchanging Idioms

Ildar Abdrazakov will join conductor Riccardo Muti – his friend and frequent collaborator– to sing Shostakovich’s Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from June 14-19. Abdrazakov (pronounced ahb-drah-ZAH-koff) has sung with Muti on many of the world’s most hallowed stages, including those of La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera and the Salzburg Festival, and their 2010 live recording of Verdi’s Requiem with the CSO won them Grammy Awards for “Best Classical Album” and “Best Choral Performance.” Of the performance that yielded the recording, the Chicago Tribune said: "The discovery of the evening was Ildar Abdrazakov, whose intriguing Slavic bass plumbed the somber depths of his music with real commitment." For those who can’t make it to Chicago for any of the three concerts, the Russian bass can be heard singing the Shostakovich song cycle, which the composer considered his sixteenth symphony in all but name, in a 2006 recording for Ch...

Commissioned as part of Lyric’s Renée Fleming Initiative; Music by Composer Jimmy López, Libretto by Playwright Nilo Cruz, Conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, Directed by Stephen Wadsworth; Based on Ann Patchett’s Best-Selling Novel; Soprano Danielle de Niese Stars in Central Role Anthony Freud, general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, today announced details of its new world premiere. Bel Canto , by the gifted young Peruvian composer Jimmy López, with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, is based on the best-selling novel by Ann Patchett. To premiere in Lyric’s 2015-16 season, the new opera, commissioned as part of Lyric’s Renée Fleming Initiative, will be conducted by Lyric music director Sir Andrew Davis and directed by Stephen Wadsworth. Both the 2001 book and the new opera are inspired by the Lima Crisis of 1996-97, when members of a revolutionary movement in Peru held hostages at the Japanese ambassador’s house for 126 days (Dec. 17, 1996-April 22, 1997). C...

“A winning actor ... a beautiful musician”- Classical Review 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. While in Chicago, Davies headlines three concerts, singing Handel with the Baroque Band under the direction of Harry Bicket. The concerts, on March 9, 10, and 14, are each at different venues. The Handel arias include “O Lord Whose Mercies,” “Their Land Brought Forth Frogs,” “Up the Dreadful Steep Ascending,” and “Sento amor” from Partenope. ...

"Smashing singing.” — The Independent on Pisaroni’s Argante at Glyndebourne Luca Pisaroni will make his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Argante in a new production of Handel’s Rinaldo (Feb 29-March 24), reprising a role that he played to acclaim at the UK’s Glyndebourne Festival last summer. In just his first performance as the treacherous Saracen king, the Telegraph declared that Pisaroni was “at the top of his game.” On March 10, the Italian bass-baritone will join his father-in-law, star-baritone Thomas Hampson, in a private performance benefiting Classical Action; it will be their first US appearance together. Pisaroni will also sing Schubert and Brahms in a recital as part of Lincoln Center’s “Art of the Song” series on March 25, appearing alongside tenor Michael Schade (and substituting for Thomas Quastoff, who recently announced his retirement from the concert stage). Pisaroni will join Schade for a similar program at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall on March 30. Pisaroni is...

Lyric’s 58th Season Features Nine Operas: Elektra , Simon Boccanegra , Werther , Don Pasquale , Hansel and Gretel , La bohème , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Rigoletto , and A Streetcar Named Desire , October 6, 2012 Through April 6, 2013 Anthony Freud, general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, announced yesterday the repertoire, principal singers, conductors, directors, and designers for Lyric’s 2012-13 season. This was Freud’s first news conference since becoming Lyric’s general director on Oct. 1, 2011. Joining Freud for yesterday’s announcement was Sir Andrew Davis, Lyric’s music director, and Renée Fleming, Lyric’s creative consultant (via Skype). Lyric’s 58th season features 68 performances of nine different operas: Elektra, Simon Boccanegra, Werther, Don Pasquale, Hansel and Gretel, La bohème, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Rigoletto, and A Streetcar Named Desire . The season runs from October 6, 2012 through April 6, 2013 at the Civic Opera House, an art deco landmark...

Collaboration Benefits Teens, Offering New Opera and Musical Theater Solo Voice Major Lyric Opera of Chicago Creative Consultant – and star soprano – Renée Fleming revealed details of a new collaboration between the world-renowned opera company and Chicago’s Merit School of Music in a media conference at the school on Monday, September 12. This collaboration – part of Lyric’s Renée Fleming Initiative – will benefit teenagers in a new Opera and Musical Theater solo voice major at Merit’s Alice S. Pfaelzer Tuition-free Conservatory. Other Merit students will also participate in Lyric offerings. Joining Fleming were Lyric President and CEO Kenneth G. Pigott, who also serves on the Merit board; Lyric General Director Designate Anthony Freud; Ryan Opera Center Director Gianna Rolandi; and Merit President Duffie Adelson. Since Lyric announced the Renée Fleming Initiative, plans have solidified for the long-term collaboration between Lyric Opera and the highly regarded community musi...

As creative consultant, Ms. Fleming is helping to shape the company’s artistic vision; she is working with Lyric’s board and staff to create new projects and initiatives designed to increase opera audiences and awareness of the art form. Their plans include expanding the company’s educational activities, highlighted by a joint initiative with Merit School of Music, a prominent community music school that serves more than 6,000 children and teens. Together, Lyric and Merit are seeking to find and nurture young, talented singers in the Chicago area, and make Lyric more accessible for students involved in all areas of music education at Merit. Details of this collaboration will be revealed at a press conference on September 12 in Chicago. Together with Chicago’s innovative advertising and communications agency Downtown Partners, Lyric is launching a major new visibility campaign this fall, celebrating opera as a vital, passionate art form. The campaign is funded by the donors of the R...

August 19th Ravinia Performance to Launch New Album Live performance on Chicago's WFMT Impromptu on August 17th On August 30th, the Cedille label will release Notable Women, the Lincoln Trio’s first full-length CD with a program of works by six contemporary female composers — rising stars as well as established names. The trio, international ambassadors of the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL, will perform the repertoire on the recording at Ravinia in Bennett Gordon Hall at 6pm on Friday, August 19th. After this concert the Lincoln Trio will participate in a post-concert CD signing where concertgoers can purchase the album prior to the public release date. On the album, the Lincoln Trio, presents the world-premiere recordings of Lera Auerbach’s Trio for violin, cello, and piano; Stacy Garrop’s Seven for piano trio; Laura Elise Schwendinger’s C’è la Luna Questa Sera?; and Joan Tower’s Trio Cavany. Rounding out the program are Augusta Read Thomas’s Moon Jig and Jennif...

Conductor James Conlon has been honored with a 2011 ECHO Klassik Award, one of the most established and well known music awards in the world, in the category “Music DVD Recording of the Year (Documentation)” for his performance in the film A Surprise in Texas: The Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The prize will be awarded to Mr. Conlon, as well as the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, during a ceremony to be held October 2, 2011 at the Konzerthaus Berlin. The documentary follows James Conlon and the competitors of the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition during the rigorous three-week competition, offering an intricate view into the inner workings of the world's most prestigious piano competition, including intense rehearsals, preconcert rituals, and finally the receipt of the gold prize. The documentary features pianists Haochen Zhang of China , 19 – the youngest competitor – as well as blind pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, 20, of Japan and Yeol Eum Son...

The dynamic, New York-based orchestra The Knights - making high-profile appearances from Central Park to Chicago's Ravinia Festival this summer - keeps winning fans and friends, whether the group is performing Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony or Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun." Performance Today host Fred Child says in the WNET video Discover The Knights! that people often "have this stereotypical image of what it is to be a classical musician. The Knights are part of a generation that is totally changing that. In the words of Alex Ross, 'What we're witnessing with The Knights is the death of the death of classical music.'" The Knights join Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble on June 7 for a cross-cultural concert in Central Park's SummerStage series. On June 20, the orchestra returns to Central Park for a concert that includes the world premiere of Lisa Bielawa's Tempelhof Etude at the Naumburg Bandshell. Back at the Band...

Deborah Voigt has been wowing critics and fans alike with her turn as Puccini’s quintessential New World heroine in the Metropolitan Opera’s centenary staging of La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West). The New Year soon brings another anniversary production, when Voigt embodies Puccini’s Gold Rush girl again at Lyric Opera of Chicago (Jan 22 – Feb 21). Of a December Met performance as the pistol-packing, poker-playing barmaid, the Associated Press raved: “Voigt displayed a shining top that pierced through the sumptuous orchestration. But it was not just her voice that made it a memorable night. Her warm, endearing manner combined with an infectious, stage-dominating moxie to make Minnie all her own.” Puccini described the original play of The Girl of the Golden West as “a drama of love against a dark and vast background of primitive characters and untrammeled nature.” The story inspired Puccini to write for one of his favorite female characters, the archetypal st...

Long synonymous with creative programming, eighth blackbird headlines its 2010-11 season with the launch of “PowerFUL/LESS”: two contrasting yet equally compelling programs that present the cases for and against Stravinsky’s incendiary claim that “music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all.” The sextet’s hometown audiences in Chicago will be the first to have the chance to hear both programs, which juxtapose the music of Corigliano, Rzewski, and John Luther Adams in “PowerFUL” (Jan 22) with works by Bach and Reich in “PowerLESS” (Feb 5), at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). This being the fourth consecutive season that eighth blackbird presents a special series in its hometown, the concerts will be preceded by a live preview performance and discussion on Chicago’s classical station, WFMT, on January 17. The “PowerFUL” program on January 22 is inspired by a quote by the novelist Chinua Achebe – “Art for art’s sake is just another piece ...

The team behind last season's hit "Orpheus & Euridice" bring you a new look at a romantic masterwork. Schubert's haunting and beloved song-cycle of love and loss receives the unique staging that only Chicago Opera Vanguard could conceive! Featuring dancers, environmental staging and an interactive 360 degree video landscape, this Winter's Journey will not soon be forgotten! A review of the performance is HERE 8PM FRIDAY MARCH 19 8PM SATURDAY MARCH 20 4PM SUNDAY MARCH 21 Fasseas White Box Theatre at the Menomonee Club Drucker Center 1535 North Dayton Street TICKETS: Fridays - Sundays: $25 [Students: $10]

Matt Haimovitz brings his FIGMENT program for solo cello to the west coast with performances in Seattle, Portland and Eugene (Jan 20-22), based on his newest CD, which has been called “spellbinding” ( Time Out Chicago), “a sound voyage that constantly surprises with its sonic landscapes and its playfulness ... monstrously inventive” ( Valley Advocate ) and was one of the Boston Herald’s Top Ten CDs of the 2009. The West Coast Figment dates will also integrate the groundbreaking Seven Ricercare for Violoncello Solo by Domenico Gabrielli (1651-1690). These precursors to the Bach Cello Suites will be interwoven with the modern works by Elliott Carter, Ana Sokolovic, Luna Pearl Woolf, Gilles Tremblay and Steven Stucky. Haimovitz returns to New York to celebrate the 150th birthday of popular composer Victor Herbert with the Little Orchestra Society on February 1 at Alice Tully Hall. He performs Herbert’s Cello Concerto No.2. The next day, Matt Haimovitz arrives in Cleveland where he is ...

“No one does a better choral Christmas than the virtuoso male voices of Chanticleer.” - The New Yorker The Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer , now in its 32nd season, will give 25 holiday concerts across America this season, continuing a tradition that has made “A Chanticleer Christmas” one of the group’s most beloved programs. As well as its live concert performances, the group will also appear for the fifth consecutive year on NBC TV’s popular T oday show, singing a traditional carols in both the 8 o’clock and 10 o’clock hours (eastern time; check local listings). While on the show the group will also talk about its two most recent recording projects: Fireside Christmas with Chanticleer , a DVD featuring a virtual Yule log and glorious selections of Christmas fare, from early music to traditional carols, drawn from Chanticleer’s distinguished discography (including Biebl’s Ave Maria , by far the group’s most beloved encore); and Best of Chanticleer , a greatest hits col...

In recognition of World AIDS Day, Chicago Opera Vanguard will present the World Premiere of The Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook - a one-night only benefit concert by various Chicago musical artists artistically responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Monday, December 1, 2009. The concert will be held at Center on Halsted in the Hoover -Leppen Theatre located at, 3656 N. Halsted St. in Chicago . All proceeds will benefit the Center’s programs. The AIDS Quilt Songbook was started on World AIDS Day 1992 in New York by the late baritone William Parker who passed away in 1993 of AIDS-related illness. For this concert, Parker invited various composers to add a "song panel" to a musical quilt of remembrance commemorating those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. Following this tradition, a new songbook, The Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook , created by Chicago Opera Vanguard’s Artistic Director Eric Reda has also commissioned works from a wide variety of Chicago-based and associated artists....

eighth blackbird ’s third consecutive season in residence at Chicago’s downtown Harris Theater is its most ambitious to date. On December 8, the Grammy-winning sextet presents the first of two concerts in its hometown series: Arnold Schoenberg’s 1912 numerological masterpiece Pierrot lunaire , in a new production conceived and directed by Mark DeChiazza that was first shown to audiences at the Ojai Music Festival this summer. DeChiazza is a New York dancer and choreographer with whom the ensemble has forged a strong working relationship. eighth blackbird performs almost all of its extensive repertoire from memory, and the players often move about the stage in an almost choreographed way. The new Pierrot lunaire – presented in a program with works by contemporaries and pupils of Schoenberg – will be no exception. Tim Munro, eighth blackbird’s flutist, says of the ensemble’s newest performance piece: “Mark DeChiazza uses movement and gesture to connect to the human core of this re...

Pierrot on December 8 and Slide on March 24 eighth blackbird’s third consecutive season in residence at Chicago’s downtown Harris Theater is its most ambitious to date. The ensemble gives local premieres of two of its most highly-praised selections, the evening-long Slide by Steve Mackey and Rinde Eckert, which received its world premiere when eighth blackbird curated California’s annual Ojai Music Festival last June; and Arnold Schoenberg’s 1912 numerological masterpiece Pierrot lunaire on December 8, in a production conceived and directed by Mark DeChiazza that was also first shown to audiences at Ojai this summer. DeChiazza is a New York dancer and choreographer with whom the ensemble has forged a strong working relationship. Slide , with music by composer, guitarist, and Princeton professor Steven Mackey and text by actor Rinde Eckert, will be revealed to Chicago audiences on March 24 in its second performance, at which there is much to look forward to, given the critical ...

November 15 Recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall features works by George Benjamin, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mozart and Beethoven Pierre-Laurent Aimard ’s 2009-10 season is, as has become the norm for the French pianist, conductor, and impresario, replete with engagements all over the world. He performs in major cities and at festivals in Japan, Europe, and the U.S., often conducting from the keyboard. This season he plays recitals in New York, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin, Paris, and elsewhere; performs concertos with Pierre Boulez and James Levine in Chicago and Boston; and leads such ensembles as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Aimard began the season with two tours – one leading the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Frankfurt, Bonn, Baden-Baden, and Paris; the other as piano partner of German baritone Matthias Goerne. The two performed in Japan, where Aimard also gave concerts with the Bamberg Symphony, with which he often tours in the U.S. and Europe as well. On November 15, Aimard...

“The evening was stolen … by René Pape, the powerful, playfully sardonic Méphistophélès. His basso ... rolled, roared, and crooned, as needed, with easy insinuation. Strutting through the evil charades with a different costume from a different period in each scene, he underplayed the menace, and doubled its impact. This devil got his due.” – Financial Times (2005) German bass René Pape’s exclusive appearances in the United States this season are at Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he reprises the part of Méphistophélès in Gounod’s perennial favorite, Faust . Pape sang the role for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in 2005, winning unanimous favor with critics and audiences. At that time, the New York Observer ’s Charles Michener wrote: “Faust stands or falls on its Devil. René Pape, the towering German bass with the figure of a pole vaulter, the agility of a panther and a voice of thunder, isn’t merely magnetic, he’s all-enveloping. There was nothing insinuating or ev...