Interchanging Idioms

Keith Lockhart led opening night program featuring Broadway sensation Bernadette Peters, music by Boston Pops Laureate Conductor John Williams, and a new orchestral arrangement of  Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” Celebrating Keith Lockhart’s 20th anniversary as Boston Pops Conductor, the orchestra's 2015 Spring Season opened on Wednesday, May 6 at 8 p.m. with Tony Award-winning actress Bernadette Peters as the special Opening Night guest. Maestro Lockhart was fetted in grand fashion at the end of the evening with a five-foot tall cake presented on stage at Symphony Hall. Keith Lockhart opened the first concert of the 2015 Boston Pops season with John Williams’ celebratory “Sound the Bells!,” a musical tribute to Frank Sinatra, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the singer’s birth, and the premiere of a new orchestra arrangement of Meghan Trainor’s hit pop song “All About that Bass,” written exclusively for the Boston Pops. The Broadway megahit “Everything’...

World Premiere by Terry Riley NY Premiere by Philip Glass Special Guests: Bryce Dessner, Wu Man, Jherek Bischoff, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, + Musicians from Face The Music As a highlight of its 40th anniversary season,   Kronos Quartet   takes the stage in Carnegie Hall’s fabled Stern Auditorium on   Friday, March 28 at 8 pm . The one-night-only concert features a world premiere by   Terry Riley , and boasts a stellar array of guest artists.   Composer   Bryce Dessner   of The National will play electric guitar on   Aheym , the title piece from his acclaimed new Anti- CD of works written for Kronos. Pipa virtuoso   Wu Man , a frequent partner, will be heard in the New York premiere of   Philip Glass ’s   Orion: China . Protean indie-rock composer   Jherek Bischoff   joins in on electric bass for   A Semiperfect Number , which he premiered with Kronos last July at Lincoln Center Out of...

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's 2012-13 season launches with a dynamic program of works both familiar and new when Music Director Jeffrey Kahane conducts and performs as soloist. It features two highly anticipated West Coast premieres, including LACO Composer-in-Residence and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Andrew Norman’s The Great Swiftness, commissioned and premiered by the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2010. Inspired by the city’s signature Alexander Calder sculpture, La Grande Vitesse, the piece prompted the Grand Rapids Press to describe it as “sliding down the giant sculpture's graceful arms.” The other West Coast premiere, True South by James Matheson – recipient of the prestigious $200,000 Charles Ives Living Award and heralded by The New Yorker as “an early thirty-something American composer who is ignoring style labels and writing synthetic, satisfying music that avoids the glib theatricality of postmodernism” – was commissioned and premiered in 2010 by the New York Philharmo...

April 29th at 4 p.m. at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater, Los Angeles "The range of colors and voices that Sō Percussion coaxes from its menagerie is astonishing and enticing." - New York Times Don't miss the upcoming Los Angeles appearance of the Idyllwild Arts Academy Orchestra , with special guests Guitar/Songwriting Legend Richard Thompson and the inimitable Sō Percussion. The program also features the World Premiere of a new commissioned work from Chen Yi and Peter Askim. In a program that celebrates the premiere compositional and performance talent of today, The Idyllwild Arts Academy Orchestra joins an impressive lineup of the most prevalent contemporary musicians for a must-see spring concert. As part of the IAAO annual New Music Concerts, the event is set for April 28th and 29th and boasts renowned talent and highly-anticipated music premieres for audience members. Pulling an eclectic showcasing of original work from some of the most acclaimed contemporary mus...

BORLETTI - BUITONI TRUST AWARD WINNER JÖRGEN VAN RIJEN PREMIERES NEW TROMBONE CONCERTO BY KALEVI AHO BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Vedernikov Barbican,London Shostakovich The Bolt– Suite Kalevi Aho Trombone Concerto (UK Premiere) Sibelius Symphony No 1 The commissioning of this new trombone concerto from prolific Finnish composer Kalevi Aho represents the last of van Rijen’s several projects funded by his 2006 BBT award. Having performed the work earlier this year in Holland and Finland, he is now well acquainted with the intricacies of this virtuosic piece with its double-­‐tone playing and complex manoeuvres: “Kalevi has produced a spectacular showcase for the trombone in all its different guises. As well as demonstrating the lyrical and singing capabilities of the instrument in the two slow movements, there is a lot of virtuosic work – such as flutter-­‐tonguing, double and triple tonguing, fast vibrato and glissando – in the fast movements, with the help ...

Works by composers Philip Glass (U.S.), Guo Wenjing ( China ), Jonny Greenwood ( UK ), Tansy Davies ( UK ), Toshi Ichiyanagi ( Japan ), Toshio Hosokawa ( Japan ), Somei Satoh ( Japan ), Hooshyar Khayam ( Iran ), and Stephen Scott ( U.S. ) American premiere of John Cage’s trilogy Twenty-Six, Twenty-Eight, and Twenty-Nine, the last of his works not yet performed in the U.S. Casts announced for new productions of Philip Glass’s Kepler and Guo Wenjing’s Feng Yi Ting Internationally recognized for its adventurous opera and classical music programming, Spoleto Festival USA’s 2012 season features numerous musical premieres from notable American, British, Chinese, Iranian, and Japanese composers. In addition to new opera productions of Philip Glass’s Kepler and Guo Wenjing’s Feng Yi Ting , the season will also include the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra performing the highly-anticipated U.S. premiere of 48 Responses to Polymorphia by English composer and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood in...

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...

LA PHIL’S "SOUNDS ABOUT TOWN" SERIES PRESENTS JAMES CONLON CONDUCTING LOS ANGELES CHILDREN’S CHORUS AND AMERICAN YOUTH SYMPHONY IN WORLD PREMIERE BY ICELANDIC COMPOSER DANÍEL BJARNASON AS PART OF SHAKESPEARE-THEMED PROGRAM Sunday, March 4, 2012, 7:30 PM at Walt Disney Concert Hall Other Featured Works Include Willcocks’ The Glories of Shakespeare and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet The LA Phil’s prestigious Sounds About Town series continues with a Shakespeare-themed program featuring renowned conductor James Conlon conducting two of the country’s leading youth ensembles – the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus (LACC) and the American Youth Symphony (AYS) – in the world premiere of The isle is full of noises… by Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest and co-commissioned by LACC and AYS on Sunday, March 4, 2012, 7:30 pm, at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The ensembles also perform Sir David Willcocks’ The Glories of Shakespeare, which draws on text...

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky looks forward to a number of important premieres this month. His orchestral tone poem Silent Spring (2011) receives its world premiere on February 17, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s eponymous book, which helped launch the environmental movement. Conducted by Manfred Honeck, this premiere performance comes courtesy of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where Stucky currently serves as Composer of the Year; after three performances at the ensemble’s Pittsburgh home, the same forces undertake the new work in its New York premiere on February 25 and at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall on February 26. This follows the New York premiere of Stucky’s Aus der Jugendzeit (2010-11), with baritone Randall Scarlata and the Dolce Suono Ensemble, at Symphony Space on February 6. A Pittsburgh Symphony commission, Silent Spring pays musical tribute to celebrated marine biologist and Pittsburgh-area native R...

Boulder Symphony , the Community Orchestra of Boulder County, is proud to present our fourth concert of the 2011-2012 season, “Heroism Reborn” at 7:00 pm Friday, February 17 at First Presbyterian Church, Boulder. Boulder Symphony music director Devin Patrick Hughes will conduct the orchestra in the World Premiere piece Invisible Heros by composer Chip Michael; Handel’s " Ch’io mai vi possa " from Siroe ; Gabrieli’s Sonata piano e’ forte ; Shostakovich’s Concerto no. 2 in F Major featuring the winners of the Colorado State Music Teachers Association Concerto competition; and the magnificent "Eroica" Symphony No. 3 by Beethoven. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. Additional information is available at www.bouldersymphony.org or at 970-577-1550.

We wanted to share with you some very interesting news about the discovery of a rare, unpublished piece of music: BBC Radio 3 has uncovered a fragment of new music by Johannes Brahms which is being unveiled in a short film to be broadcast on Saturday 21 January at 12:15 (GMT), with celebrated pianist András Schiff playing the piece and discussing it with music journalist Tom Service. We are hoping you can help spread the word on this exciting news, covering it on your website and posting it to your social media channels. Further details in the press release below. Additionally, embeddable video content will available from Radio 3’s YouTube channel next week.

This weekend, conductor Larry Rachleff leads the Colorado Symphony in the historic premiere of the newest work by Colorado composer and musician, William Hill Artists: Colorado Symphony Orchestra Larry Rachleff, resident conductor Program: BERLIOZ: Le carnaval romain, ouverture pour orchestre (Roman Carnival Overture) Opus 9 WILLIAM HILL: Symphony No. 3 BARTOK: Concerto for Orchestra Performances: Friday, January 6 at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, January 7 at 7:30 p.m. This weekend, Denver concertgoers have the rare opportunity to experience the world premiere of a new symphony as the Colorado Symphony opens 2012 with a brilliant beginning to the New Year. In two must-attend concerts, the Colorado Symphony premieres William Hill's Symphony No. 3, led by American conductor Larry Rachleff on Friday, January 6 and Saturday, January 7. Both concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets currently start at only $19. An exceptional event in the music world, this premiere is remarkable ...

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra starts December with a seasonal treat: a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio conducted by popular SCO guest Richard Egarr (Queen’s Hall Edinburgh: 1 December; City Halls Glasgow: 2 December). Bach’s oratorio was written for performance on six feast days of Christmas during the winter of 1734 and 1735. The Orchestra will perform four of the work’s six cantatas: the first tells of the birth of Jesus; the third of the adoration of the shepherds and the fifth and sixth of the journey and adoration of the Magi. Egarr, who is widely recognised as one of the worlds’ finest Bach interpreters, leads a magnificent cast of British singers: soprano Mhairi Lawson, mezzo Clare Wilkinson, tenor Andrew Staples and bass Andrew Foster-Williams. Egarr commented: “The Christmas Oratorio, like all of Bach’s cantatas, contains his most personal and most colourful music. Every time I explore a new one of the over 200 cantatas, I’m amazed at the world that Bach creates...

“The blackbirds are examples of a new breed of super-musicians.” – Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times eighth blackbird ’s world premiere performance of Slide was the centerpiece of the 2009 Ojai Music Festival, where it made an indelible impact. The genre-defying new music-theater piece wowed the Daily Sound as “part opera, part performance art,…and purely amazing,” while for the Los Angeles Times it “epitomized the kind of new musical world that eighth blackbird is ushering us into. …Powerful and impressive.” An eighth blackbird commission*, Slide exploits the unique blend of virtuosity, new-music chops, and youthful exuberance that marks the Chicago-based, Grammy Award-winning sextet as “the straight-A students of the contemporary scene” ( Washington Post ). Now, after extensively touring the work, the group makes it available to audiences at home, with Cedille Records’ September 27 release of Lonely Motel: music from “Slide.” eighth bl...

This season features several new works by leading contemporary composers Alexander Raskatov, Matthias Pintscher, Kalevi Aho and our own Composer in Residence Julian Anderson. On 21 September the premieres begin with Alexander Raskatov's homage to Mussorgsky A White Night's Dream, a world premiere .   Modest Mussorgsky created some of the most novel music of the nineteenth century. No painstaking craftsman, Mussorgsky wrote in fitful episodes of white-hot inspiration, exemplified by the hair-raising audio-cinematography of hisNight on a Bare Mountain. Here his works are placed alongside twentieth and twenty-first century creations that will reveal just how forward-looking Mussorgsky’s music was. To end there’s the chillingly vivid realm of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death – a series of narrative songs shot through with deception and darkness, the composer’s myriad textures and creeping lines portraying a humanity confronted with the pitiful inevitability of life’s end. ...

Robin Ticciati conducts the second week of the Season in a programme which includes the premiere of a new work commissioned by the SCO from exciting young Glaswegian composer Martin Suckling: storm, rose, tiger . The title is adapted from a phrase in the short story The Circular Ruins by the great Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. The story of a magician’s attempts to dream into being a living man is, amongst other things, an allegory of the creative process which had particular resonance for Suckling. In the same programme, the brilliant violinist Viktoria Mullova makes her SCO debut and, with the Violin Concerto, launches the Orchestra’s Season-long journey through many of the concertos, symphonies and choral works of Beethoven. Popular guest conductor Thierry Fischer continues the Beethoven strand the following week with Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’, and is joined by great Dutch musician Pieter Wispelwey for the Haydn Cello Concerto in D. Olari Elts conducts the Season’s seco...

New Album 'An Appalachian Christmas' Featring James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma And More Set For September 20 Release Grammy winning composer, violin virtuoso and educator Mark O'Connor, proclaimed by Strings Magazine (cover story this month) to be "revolutionizing string pedagogy" has confirmed a string of new U.S. tour dates this fall. As a sought-after solo performer and composer, these upcoming dates will include a week at NY's Blue Note collaborating with vocalist Jane Monheit; a world premiere of a new orchestral overture, 'Queen Anne's Revenge,' commissioned to celebrate the recovery of pirate Blackbeard's ship, off the coast of North Carolina; a residency at the University of Miami for a 3rd year in a row; and many symphony orchestra solo appearances. See below for full tour schedule. O'Connor will release his first holiday album, 'An Appalachian Christmas,' on September 20 via OMAC Records. A star-studded collection featuring J...

Thomas Hampson’s 2011-12 season will begin on September 10 at San Francisco Opera, where he will create the role of Rick Rescorla in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Heart of a Soldier . The new opera (seven performances through September 30), commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, features a libretto by Donna Di Novelli and is directed by Francesca Zambello. Based on the 2002 book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James B. Stewart, the opera is inspired by the true story of Rescorla, his wife, Susan, and his friend Daniel J. Hill, culminating in Rescorla’s tragic death in the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center following his heroic evacuation of all 2,700 employees of Morgan Stanley. “This role is a great challenge and I feel honored – and very motivated – to meet it,” says Hampson.

Michael Hersch’s new horn concerto, a sheltered corner , will receive its world premiere during the 50th-anniversary season of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina this summer. A commission for the festival, it is his first large-scale work for horn and orchestra. Hersch, one of the most gifted composers of his generation, has been a prolific writer of orchestral, chamber, and choral works. Music critic Tim Page heralded his arrival on the international stage more than a decade ago, referring to him in The Washington Post as “a Promethean creator who has been charged with relaying his particular message. He combines a mixture of urgency and facility that is dazzling.” The New York Times said, “If the symmetries and proportions of Mr. Hersch’s music evoke the grounded fixity of architecture, its dynamism and spontaneous evolution are those of the natural world. Its somber eloquence sings of truths that are personal yet not confessional.” The premiere of a shelte...

To judge by some of the opening night reviews, Nico Muhly's first opera, Two Boys, premiered on June 24 at the London Coliseum, will be London's hot ticket for its entire run. The plot concerns two boys joined by an online chat-room, and the way their lives are entwined and move inexorably towards a tragic conclusion. The whole work is imbued with a sense of the half-life existence that keeps so many young eyes glued to their screens. The opera gets off to weak start, with meandering arpeggios on a road to nowhere. Once into it, Muhly reveals a sure mastery of mesmeric, other-worldly material. There is more to creating a dramatic stage work than writing pretty music, however, and in a piece that is predominantly quiet and slow, it is the lack of narrative shaping that finally lets it down.