What music can do: Thomas Buckner
At 66, baritone Thomas Buckner says he’s busier now than he was when in his forties. Last month, when we sat down to chat, he had just come back from…
Monday Late-Night Roundup
Elizabeth Brown and other cutting-edge stuff coming up at the Issue Project Room… All kinds of funny business going on at the Brooklyn Philharmonic, world premiere by Susan Oetgen coming…
CSO R.I.P.?
The Columbus Symphony Orchestra (OH) is in dire straits. It is possible the orchestra could fold in the very near future. The problems are financial and organizational, and management and…
Teddy, you’re doing a heck of a job!
This Saturday night at Greenwich House, composer Ted Hearne pays loving tribute to the glorious achievements of state and federal officials in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. An hour long…
Three Moments musicaux with Hilary Hahn
I. Early in our conversation yesterday, Hilary Hahn, loquacious and genial throughout, was chatting openly about music and athleticism; about how half her practice time was geared towards staying in…
Saturday Miscellany
Quick–whodunnit? Classical music; in the twentieth century; with the… twelve-tone row? PhD? Rock music? New York Phil? Wrong!!! (The corpse he’s mistaking for classical music is in fact his idea…
Dispatch from Wordless Music: Here’s Jonny!
Wordless Music packed The Church of St. Paul the Apostle last night by offering what was a surprisingly snoozy program. The chief somnambulists were Gavin Bryars and John Adams. Bryars’s…
Dispatch from Miller: Elliott Carter’s “What Next?”
Emerging from Elliott Carter’s “What Next?” for me paralleled uncannily the experience of the characters onstage, all of whom have just endured “some kind of accident” whose significance and impact,…
Dispatch from Tenri: The Kenners
The versatile performing duo known as “The Kenners” played a terrific concert Saturday night at the Tenri Cultural Institute. The program featured works by Charles Wuorinen, Toru Takemitsu, and Jason…
Dispatch from Carnegie Hall: Sphinx Gala
Two contemporary African-American composers shared the spotlight with Bach, Turina, Ellington, and Piazzolla at the Sphinx Organization Gala at Carnegie Hall last night. Cellist Tahirah Whittington held a sold-out Stern…