I loved almost everything about last weekend’s performance by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at Emory University’s Emerson Concert Hall, part of the school’s Flora Glenn Candler concert series. The group stopped in Atlanta just a few days before a high-profile New York show, and it seems that we got the better performance.
Piotr Anderszewski (left), a wondrous pianist, headlined the evening with two popular Mozart piano concertos, in B-flat (No. 27) and D minor (No. 20). His sound was clear and concentrated, and his every phrase seemed to come loaded with a rich backstory. (Despite the pianist’s talents, I wondered if ...
Unlike the last few weekends, when all the interesting classical concerts occurred on the same evening, the next few days hold one intriguing event each.
Gaubert Vivant! A film and lecture tonight at the Alliance Française in Midtown and a concert Sunday afternoon at Spivey Hall. Philippe Gaubert (1879-1941, at left) was among the greatest flutists of the past century, and a contributor (along with his teacher, Paul Taffanel, and his student, Marcel Moyse) to the modern French style of playing that inspired Debussy and Ravel and continues to dominate international orchestras.
Approaching the 70th anniversary of his death, Gaubert’s family wanted ...
In recital Saturday at the Bailey Center in Kennesaw, Measha Brueggergosman proved that she’s back. Or trying to get there. She was ravishing for her encore “Oh! Quand je dors,” a voluptuous Franz Liszt song to a Victor Hugo poem:
Oh! quand je dors, viens auprès de ma couche,
comme à Pétrarque apparaissait Laura,
Et qu'en passant ton haleine me touche...
Soudain ma bouche
S'entrouvrira!
("Oh, when I sleep, approach my bed, as Laura appeared to Petrarch; as you pass, touch me with your breath ... at once my lips will part.")
With pianist Justus Zeyen, the Canadian soprano finally convinced us of her greatness in this ...
Even if the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was not preparing this weekend’s program for Carnegie Hall, last night’s concert in Symphony Hall would have felt like one of the major events of the city’s classical season.
The ASO and Chorus performed an energized and extroverted program that involved some of the most interesting music heard in a long while. During the "Credo" movement of Janáček’s “Glagolitic Mass,” I thought I was hearing the most wildly creative piece of music in the world.
The concert was crafted to fit Carnegie’s Great American Orchestras subscription series as well as the limitations of the Carnegie stage, ...
One prominent faction of Atlanta’s classical composers -- hungry for attention, looking to break out of their new-music ghetto -- convened Tuesday at Georgia State University’s Kopleff Recital Hall. The scene was a concert by GSU’s NeoPhonia ensemble, which opened its 16th season with another “Red Clay Connections,” an occasional series devoted to music from the Atlanta soil and with strong GSU connections.
The program was elegantly arranged like a palindrome: a pair of older works by Charles Knox framing a pair of premieres by Mark Gresham and, in the center, a premiere by Brent Milam.
At one point, while stagehands were ...
UPDATE 10/19: A spokeswoman for the ASO called to say that Robert Spano has changed the program for this week and at Carnegie Hall: Arvo Pärt's "Fratres" will replace Ligeti's "Atmosphères." The reason? Carnegie's stage is smaller than Atlanta's Symphony Hall stage, and making room for the chorus doesn't allow enough space for the large string section in the Ligeti. In other news, Spano's opening fanfare, composed to celebrated his decade as ASO music director and originally penciled in for this week's Atlanta concerts, has been postponed.
Last month, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus turned 40.
Sprung fully formed from the head of ...
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