One for the books – Ensemble intercontemporain performs Matthias Pintscher and James Dillon at Elbphilharmonie

Music Director Matthias Pintscher conducting Ensemble intercontemporain at Elbphilharmonie Visions festival on Friday. © Daniel Dittus Freshly back from their US tour, Ensemble intercontemporain and Music Director Matthias Pintscher paid a visit to the Elbphilharmonie Visions festival on Friday, delivering exquisite performances of two somewhat different, yet equally compelling contemporary works, namely Pintscher’s own NUR... Continue Reading →

Compelling takes on Anna Thorvaldsdóttir and Hans Abrahamsen with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Alan Gilbert and Lauren Snouffer

Anna Thorvaldsdóttir sharing the stage with Alan Gilbert and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester after the Hamburg premiere of Catamorphosis (2020) at the Visions festival on Thursday. © Jari Kallio Every once in a while one comes across with a musical programme of special magnificence. Such was the case with Thursday evening’s astonishing concert given by... Continue Reading →

Olga Neuwirth’s harrowing Die Stadt ohne Juden in absorbing performance with Ensemble intercontemporain at Disney Hall

Ensemble íntercontemporain in performance with Music Director Matthias Pintscher. In hindsight, Hugo Bettauer’s harshly satiric 1922 novel Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews) bears a harrowing aura, further amplified by the all-too-realistic imagery of Hans Karl Breslauer’s 1924 silent film adaptation of the same name. The dystopian story is set in Utopia, a... Continue Reading →

A milestone in contemporary opera – John Adams conducts Girls of the Golden West with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, featuring a stupendous cast

John Adams on the podium. © Riccardo Musacchio To those who might have wondered what it would have been like to take notes from a musical conversation between Mozart, Berlioz, the Gershwins, Duke Ellington and Leonard Bernstein, John Adams’s gripping Gold Rush opera Girls of the Golden West (2015-17/2022) provides the most splendid answer. Given... Continue Reading →

From symphonic Beethoven to John Williams world premiere with Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma

Partnership in Beethoven: Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos Joined onstage at Walt Disney Concert Hall for Saturday afternoon’s Colburn Celebrity Recital, pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Leondas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma took the almost sold-out house on a veritable joyride through the Ludwig van Beethoven realm with their invigorating performances of two of... Continue Reading →

Salonen’s scintillating Organ Concerto comes to life in Berlin

Esa-Pekka Salonen and Olivier Latry onstage with Berliner Philharmoniker after the German premiere of Salonen's Sinfonia Concertante for Organ and Orchestra (2020-22) on Thursday. © Stephan Rabold Joined by Composer-in-Residence Esa-Pekka Salonen on the podium, the full line-up of the Berliner Philharmoniker was gathered onstage at the Philharmonie on Thursday, to deliver a ravishing outing... Continue Reading →

Top albums of 2022: Bruckner 4 according to LSO and Rattle

As judged by his contemporaries, Anton Bruckner the symphonist hardly received unanimous praise. Some success notwithstanding, the composer spent most of his life treading an uphill road towards the symphonic pantheon. In hindsight, his oeuvre stands out as a striking cycle of works-in-progress, out of which dazzling symphonic metamorphoses may be dissected. Thanks to their... Continue Reading →

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