Last month, the Atlanta Boy Choir (ABC) asked for the resignation of its artistic director, David White. I'd heard White and the choir perform just a couple of times over the past eight years, and wasn't especially impressed with the results -- not a poor performance, by any measure, but below the national standards set by other Atlanta groups such as the Spivey Hall Children's Choir. (I think it was Robert Shaw who, with a fundamentalist's zeal, proclaimed, There are no bad choirs, just bad choirmasters.)
In reporting a 1-A story for the AJC, I spoke with more than a dozen ...
- "Alice gave herself very good advice, although she rarely followed it."
Good children's theater appeals to the little ones in the audience at the 10 a.m. matinee, and also to the adults who chaperone. That's a balance rarely achieved. Georgia Shakespeare's "Alice in Wonderland" runs through August 1 and is reviewed in Tuesday's AJC. The company mounts an impressive effort -- Katy Munroe's costumes are storybook wonderful, for example -- but they can't cope with Lewis Carroll's clever wordplay and fantasy world.
In my review, I fault the quartet of young actors for some of the show's leaden spirit, but likely ...
Melanie Lynch-Blanchard, director of Zoetic Dance Ensemble, forwarded this message on the death of Antonio Sisk, an Atlanta dance teacher, performer and director of the modern-dance Roswell Dance Theatre:
Family, friends, students and colleagues will come together on Tuesday July 28 to celebrate the life and spirit of Antonio Sisk, who passed away on July 23, 2009. He was an amazing artist, mentor, teacher and friend whose legacy of amazing work far exceeds his years with us. Services for Antonio will be held on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at the Roswell Funeral Home, 950 Mansell Road, Roswell, GA 30076. The viewing is ...
There's a review in today's AJC of the Atlanta Symphony's Saturday night concert in Alpharetta, brightened by an excellent Finnish pianist, Juho Pohjonen, who was making his ASO debut. The concert was devoted to music by Beethoven, who mostly failed to roll over.
But the real focus of the article is "rapt," a site-specific multi-media dance event by the innovative forces of gloATL. During the performance, it felt entirely fresh, like a cultural watershed moment. Dancers came from all directions, and it was a mild shock to realize that "Rapt" was unfolding on different planes of reality, and that you couldn't take ...
Emory University announced today its 2009-2010 pipe organ series. All the recitals are free. Most will be performed on Jaeckel Op. 45, a 54-stop, 3605-pipe mechanical-action instrument in Emerson Concert Hall.
I love organ recitals. Music by Bach sounds more enriching and spiritual on the organ than on any other instrumental combinations, and organ composers aren't afraid to sometimes pile high the weird harmonies and dissonances. Coupled with the high volume and room-rattling power, a good organ concert never fails to make your head spin, a giddy experience. I'm not sure why the picture Emory folks sent me is a photo-negative, ...
Jeff Baxter's Bach B-minor Mass review last week on ArtscriticATL drew at lot of attention. It also generated at least one charge of extreme partisanship regarding Robert Shaw.
I'll summarize the opposition's position by quoting from Harry Haskell's 1988 book "The Early Music Revival: A History": "The monumental Bach cantata series that they [Leonhardt and Harnoncourt] embarked on in 1972 offered a convincing alternative to the more traditional performances of conductors like Karl Richter, Helmuth Rilling and Robert Shaw." Simply put, Shaw was never radical enough for the revolutionaries. (That's Jeff on the Berlin Philharmonie stage. Photo by Brenda Pruitt.)
As I ...
