The members of Kamus Quartet performing Beethoven op. 131 at Kangasala Hall on Saturday evening. © Ville Hautakangas In the course of four festival days, the second instalment of Kangasala Classic brought together an uplifting selection of chamber works from Bach to contemporary in inspired performances, given in various venues across the settlements of Kangasala.... Continue Reading →
On a personal level, coming across with the works of Žibuoklė Martinaitytė has been one of the most joyful aural discoveries in recent (and more distant) memory. In the riveting orchestral scores of the New York-based, Lithuanian composer, several musical strata are bound together into sonic realms of astounding beauty and connectivity. In terms of... Continue Reading →
In celebration of Steve Reich’s 85th birthday season, Nonesuch Records, the composer’s home label for almost forty years, indulges its audiences with an outstanding new album, featuring the world premiere recording of Reich/Richter (2018), a thirty-seven-minute masterstroke for chamber orchestra. As implied by its title, the music was written for a collaborative project between the... Continue Reading →
Sometimes wonderful musical albums come in the most surprising guises. This was exactly the case with the second volume of New Mozart by Reihard Goebel and Mozarteumorchester Salzburg on Sony Classical. Truth be told, seen with the eyes of our authenticity-poised era of music-making, a disc featuring world premiere recordings of two early-nineteenth-century orchestral adaptations... Continue Reading →
Leila Josefowicz portrait by © Tom Zimberoff The American violinist Leila Josefowicz is a cultural phenomenon. For the past twenty five years now, she has been a relentless champion of a vast catalogue of music of our time, including notable works by John Adams, Thomas Adès, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews, Steven Mackey, Luca... Continue Reading →
Tampere Philharmonic and Eero Lehtimäki performing John Williams at Tampere Hall on Wednesday evening. © Jari Kallio Celebrating the ninetieth birthday year of John Williams, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Eero Lehtimäki had put together an evening length-programme of selections from the Maestro’s unparalleled career in film scoring. The evening’s playlist covered forty years of... Continue Reading →
Auguring the new millennium, the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pásion según San Marcos (2000) was a milestone event within the contemporary music world, to say the least. Cherished by audiences and critics alike, the Pásion presented the audiences with an ingeniously organic fusion of musical styles, somewhat in the manner of Leonard Bernstein’s... Continue Reading →
The English Symphony Orchestra in session with Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Kenneth Woods. © English Symphony Orchestra The sumptuous music of Walter Arlen is quite a discovery. Born in Vienna in 1920, the young Arlen escaped from Nazi persecution in Austria in 1939, crossing the Atlantic and finding exile first in Chicago and then... Continue Reading →
Herbert Blomstedt conducting Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, op. 29 The Inextinguishable with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall in February. © Roger Mastroianni, courtesy of The Cleveland Orchestra Titled The Seeker, this month’s episode of In Focus, The Cleveland Orchestra’s wonderful online series, features an invigorating performance of Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, op.... Continue Reading →
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the extraordinary Finnish ensemble, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Director Malin Broman have put together their first joint album, released on Alba Records. Titled Stockholm Diary, the marvellous album opens with the world premiere recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s wonderful string orchestra piece of the same name. Composed in 2004,... Continue Reading →
AIM - Adventures in Music 