Blog Archives

Opera Star and husband arrested for rape

1/31/2019

We reported some time back the allegations against countertenor David Daniels and his husband Scott Walters--a graduate student at Rice University reported that in 2010 he had been invited to their apartment after a performance. During that visit, the student alleged that he was drugged and raped.

Daniels and Walters have now been arrested on those charges.

The New York Times has the story here.

0 Comments

Vienna Boys Choir tours America

1/28/2019

0 Comments

The Vienna Boys Choir will be touring the U.S. and Canada beginning in February, making 35 stops on their concert tour.

17 Feb 19
6pm Ft. Lauderdale, FL Broward Center

18 Feb 19
7pm Lady Lake, FL Sharon Morse PAC

19 Feb 19
7:30pm Melbourne, FL King Center for the Performing Arts

20 Feb 19
7pm Venice, FL Venice Institute for the Performing Arts

21 Feb 19
1pm Clearwater, FL Ruth Eckerd Hall

23 Feb 19
7:30pm Celebration, FL Community Presbyterian Church

24 Feb 19
7:30pm West Palm Beach, FL Kravis Center

26 Feb 19
7pm Fort Myers, FL The Village Church at Shell Point

28 Feb 19
7:30pm Athens, GA Hodgson Concert Hall

01 Mar 19
7pm Sewanee, TN All Saint's Chapel at Sewanee

02 Mar 19
6pm Evansville, IN Victory Theatre

04 Mar 19
7pm Brentwood, TN Brentwood United Methodist Church

05 Mar 19
7:30pm Bowling Green, KY Southern Kentucky PAC

07 Mar 19
7:30pm Knoxville, TN Episcopal Church of the Ascension

08 Mar 19
7:30pm Frankfort, KY Grand Theatre

10 Mar 19
3pm Bay Harbor, MI Great Lakes Center for the Arts

11 Mar 19
7pm Dowagiac, MI Dowagiac Middle School PAC

12 Mar 19
8pm Grand Rapids, MI Covenant Fine Arts Auditorium

14 Mar 19
7:30pm Bloomington, IL Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts

16 Mar 19
8pm Springfield, OH Kuss Auditorium

17 Mar 19
7pm Birmingham, MI Birmingham First United Church

19 Mar 19
7:30pm Traverse City, MI City Opera House

20 Mar 19
7:30pm Cheboygan, MI Cheboygan Opera House

23 Mar 19
7:30pm Findlay, OH Marathon Center for the Performing Arts
24 Mar 19
7pm Wooster, OH Fisher Auditorium

25 Mar 19
7pm Cincinnati, OH Hamilton County Memorial Hall

26 Mar 19
7:30pm New Albany, IN Ogle Center at IU Southeast

29 Mar 19
7:30pm Waynesboro, VA Wayne Theatre

30 Mar 19
7:30pm Clarksburg, WV Robinson Grand Performing Arts Center

31 Mar 19
4pm Harrisburg, PA Market Square Presbyterian Church

02 Apr 19
7pm West Hartford, CT St. James Episcopal Church

03 Apr 19
7:30pm Troy, NY Troy Savings Bank Music Hall

05 Apr 19
8pm London, ON Aeolian Hall

06 Apr 19
3pm Toronto, ON Koerner Hall

07 Apr 19
4pm Ottawa, ON Dominion-Chalmers Church

0 Comments

Pianist live streaming on Facebook tomorrow

1/23/2019

0 Comments

The premiere of pianist Yael Weiss' 32 Bright Clouds project will be live-streamed from the Strathmore Hall Mansion on Thursday, Jan. 24th at 7:30 (EST).

Yael's new project is "32 Bright Clouds: Beethoven Conversations Around the World", which pairs Beethoven Piano Sonatas with newly commissioned short piano compositions from different countries spanning the globe. This is a global commissioning and performing project, born from a need to respond to current social and political environments in the U.S. and worldwide with a personally meaningful and purposeful musical endeavor.

This first performance at the Mansion at Strathmore will feature world premieres of works by composers from Iran, Jordan, Syria, Ghana, and the Philippines.

The live stream can be found on Yael's Facebook page.

0 Comments

New Work premieres tomorrow

1/23/2019

0 Comments

(photo by Karsten Moran)

Tomorrow, Julia Wolfe's new work for orchestra and choir, Fire in my mouth, will have its world premiere at David Geffen Hall, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and performed by the Philharmonic, The Crossing, and the Young People's Chorus of New York City, directed by Anne Kauffman, and conducted by New York Philharmonic Music Director Jaap van Zweden. With Fire in my mouth, Wolfe seeks to recreate the world of the women who worked in New York City's garment industry in the early 20th century, with a focus on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and its aftermath.

“I had been thinking about immigrant women in the workforce at the turn of the century,” Wolfe writes. “They fled their homelands to escape poverty and persecution. The garment workers arrived to these shores with sewing skills. Many of the women wound up working on these huge factory floors—hundreds of women sitting at sewing machines.Fire in my mouth tells the story of these women who persevered and endured challenging conditions, women who led the fight for reform in the workplace. I am thrilled to work with Jaap van Zweden and the huge incredible force of the New York Philharmonic to bringFire in my mouth to life.”

Fire in my mouth will feature visual accompaniment by Scenic, Lighting, Video and Production Designer Jeff Sugg, who previously collaborated with Wolfe on her 2015 work Anthracite Fields. “My goal is to create an environment in which the combination of the music and the visuals provide the audience with a deeper, more saturated experience of the piece as a whole,” Sugg writes. The resulting visuals are not strictly representative of the text or the music, but rather complement and at times counterpoint with the music, inducing emotional energy and illuminating hidden themes and perspectives the way a film score might without usurping the music’s narrative priority.

Fire in my mouth's production team includes Anne Kauffman (Director); Mary Grey (Sound Designer); Márion Talán (Costume Designer); Kenny Savelson (Project Manager); Molly Houlahan (Associate Director); and Jason Kaiser (Stage Manager). Fire in my mouth will also feature wardrobe provided by EILEEN FISHER, chosen for its dedication to fair labor practices.

In the lead-up to the premiere, Wolfe has led workshops with the New York Philharmonic's commissioning partners: Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley; the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Campus-wide discussions about history, music, and creative writing have been an important part of Wolfe's writing process.

The premiere will be presented as the centerpiece of New York Stories: Threads of Our City, the New York Philharmonic’s examination of New York’s roots as a city of immigrants, and will be accompanied by a variety of events which explore this history. These events have included a performance and discussion at the Tenement Museum with musicians from the New York Philharmonic and The Crossing, which used a guided tour of three tenement apartments as a backdrop to connect Wolfe’s music to the stories of the immigrant garment workers of the time; and a free Insights at the Atrium panel discussion in the David Rubinstein Atrium, moderated by Philharmonic President and CEO Deborah Borda, featuring Wolfe, Forward archivist Chana Pollack, and Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition founder Ruth Sergel.

Fire in my mouth is the third in a series of compositions about the American worker. Wolfe’s first, 2009’s Steel Hammer, examined the folk-hero John Henry, reveling in the contradictions of over 200 different versions of his life to tell a story which transcends time and space. Her 2015 oratorio Anthracite Fields honored the workers of the Pennsylvania Anthracite coal region at a time when the industry fueled the nation. The piece consists of five movements, each based on a source text describing a way the coal industry affected life in America on a local and national scale. The Los Angeles Timeswrote that the work "captures not only the sadness of hard lives lost...but also of the sweetness and passion of a way of daily life now also lost. The music compels without overstatement. This is a major, profound work." Steel Hammer was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music; Anthracite Fields won the award in 2015. A 2016 recording ofAnthracite Fields was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

0 Comments

Guitar Competition open for applicants

1/11/2019

0 Comments

Christopher Parkening, of course, has been one of the most gifted and well-know guitarists in recent memory. There is a competition named after him taking place this year at Pepperdine University, and the application period is open.

In addition to a gold medal and the prestige of winning, there is also a $30,000 cash prize.

More details and the application gateway can be found here.

0 Comments

Opera Star and husband arrested for rape

Vienna Boys Choir tours America

Pianist live streaming on Facebook tomorrow

New Work premieres tomorrow

Guitar Competition open for applicants

Author

Archives

Categories