Michel van der Aa portrait by © Sarah Wijzenbeek On Thursday 29 July, Upload (2019-20), the new film opera by Michel van der Aa receives its stage premiere at the Bregenz Festival, starring soprano Julia Bullock and baritone Roderick Williams, with Otto Tausk conducting the Cologne-based ensemble MusikFabrik, in production directed by the composer. Co-commissioned... Continue Reading →
In the course of the sixties and early eighties, Herbert von Karajan recorded most of his Sibelius repertoire for Deutsche Grammophon with the Berlin Philharmonic. These recordings convey an impressive thirty-year span of the composer’s orchestral music, encompassing four of the seven symphonies, the Violin Concerto, two forays into Sibelius’s theatre music, as well as... Continue Reading →
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Dmitri Shostakovich symphony-cycle-in-progress with their Music Director Andris Nelsons on Deutsche Grammophon has reached its fifth volume. The latest installation, a two-disc set clocking at two hours and thirty seven minutes, encompasses an impressive forty-six-year span of the composer’s symphonic career, extending from his very first foray to the genre to... Continue Reading →
Among the Ludwig van Beethoven oeuvre, the works for cello and piano comprise a microcosm of their own, extending into an encompassing twenty-year span and demonstrating the most fascinating developmental arch, both in terms of the composer’s style and within the very medium itself. Beethoven’s first forays to the genre originate in the mid-1790s, comprising... Continue Reading →
Rarely have I come across with an equally delightful debut album than c/o chamber orchestra’s Divertissement! On BIS Records. Working from the beginning without a conductor, the Berlin-based collective of thirty musicians from a dozen European countries has been around for seven years now. On their first disc appearance, the c/o musicians provide us with... Continue Reading →
Titled First Light,the new Pentatone album by the brilliant Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto is one of those discs that cast a powerful spell from the very first hearing on. An impression enhanced by further listening, the album is a remarkable collaboration between Kuusisto, the fabulous New York based composer Nico Muhly and the astounding Norwegian... Continue Reading →
The members of the English Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director & Principal Conductor Kenneth Woods performing Mahler 9 at Wyastone Concert Hall. © ESO Digital Released online on the composer’s 161st birthday yesterday, the performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 (1908-09) by the English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods is a gripping affair. Recorded... Continue Reading →
Chief Conductor Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra onstage at Mikaeli Concert Hall on Tuesday. © Jari Kallio On their third evening at the St Michel Music Festival, the Mariinsky Orchestra and Chief Conductor Valery Gergiev provided the audience with insightful takes on the symphonic firsts by Jean Sibelius and Sergei Prokofiev. After two evenings... Continue Reading →
The members of the Mariinsky Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Valery Gergiev at St Michel Cathedral after Monday evening's performance of Bruckner VIII. © Jari Kallio Sharing an acoustic space with the full sonic spectrum of a large symphony orchestra is always such unique experience. Hearing the sheer mass of sound of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony... Continue Reading →
The Mariinsky Orchestra with Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Valery Gergiev opening the St Michel Music Festival at the Parish Church on Sunday. © Jari Kallio The Mariinsky Orchestra and their Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Valery Gergiev launched the 30th anniversary year of the St Michel Music Festival on Sunday with a captivating programme... Continue Reading →
