21C Media Group’s Classical Music Preview 2010-2011
August 2010
Aug 10 – 23 ANNA NETREBKO returns to the Salzburg Festival to sing the doomed heroine in Bartlett Sher’s production of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. Last season she worked with the Tony Award-winning director on his production of Les contes d’Hoffmann at the Met. The performances mark the first time the Russian soprano will sing Juliette, now one of her signature roles, at the Austrian summer festival. [Salzburg, Austria; Aug 10, 13, 16, 20, 23]
Aug 13 – 16 Pianist PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD explores the influence of traditional works on contemporary music at this summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. His focus will be on the the music of J.S. Bach, which he will present alongside modern music by György Ligeti, Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, Harrison Birtwistle, and Georgian vocal music. Joining Aimard for these concerts will be musicians of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Ensemble Basiani, and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) with conductor Ludovic Morlot. [Aug 13: Kaplan Penthouse; Aug 14, 15: ATH; Aug 16: Rose Theater]
SEPTEMBER 2010
Sep 13, 15 Grammy Award-winning mezzo SUSAN GRAHAM embarks on a European tour with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, starting in Lucerne, Switzerland. [Sep 13: Lucerne, Switzerland; Sep 15: Milan, Italy]
Sep 14 Grammy-winning sextet EIGHTH BLACKBIRD performs Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, which was written for and premiered by the ensemble, on a new all-Reich recording, released worldwide on Nonesuch.
Sep 17 – 24 MUSIC MAKES A CITY: A LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA STORY opens at New York City’s Quad Cinema. Directed by native Louisvillian and filmmaker Owsely Brown III and Jerome Hiler, and narrated by singer/songwriter Will Oldham, Music Makes a City tells the story of one of the most ambitious artistic projects in American history. In 1948, a struggling, semi-professional orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky embarked on a journey that would make the city an international cultural destination and an unlikely home for avant-garde classical music. Guided by the vision of Louisville’s charismatic mayor, Charles Farnsley, the orchestra commissioned new works from composers from around the world; over the years, nearly every living composer of note would be commissioned and recorded. As Farnsley predicted, as the orchestra’s reputation grew, so did the cultural and economic life of Louisville. No American orchestra has since matched the scope of the Louisville Orchestra’s ambitious project. [Sep 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24; Quad Cinema]
Sep 21 Violinist GIL SHAHAM performs at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center‘s season-opening concert. Shaham will join his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, CMSLC co-artistic directors pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel, violists Paul Neubauer and Richard O’Neill, and cellist Sophie Shao in a program featuring the music of Haydn, Dohnányi, and Brahms. [ATH]
Sep 22 ALAN GILBERT opens his second season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic with a nationally-televised gala concert featuring works by Richard Strauss and Paul Hindemith, as well as the U.S. premiere – with the Philharmonic and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra – of Wynton Marsalis’s Swing Symphony. The new work by the famed trumputer and composer was created specially for this occasion and draws on the full tonal and rhythmic forces of these two powerful ensembles. [AFH]
OCTOBER 2010
Oct (date tba) New recordings this month from EMI CLASSICS. Celebrating Sir Simon Rattle’s 30th anniversary of recording exclusively with the label, EMI Classics releases his high-spirited take on Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, with the Berlin Philharmonic, and also completes its Simon Rattle Edition with the release of two new generously-packaged boxed sets focusing on Second Viennese School composers (Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern) and Beethoven’s complete symphonies; the series – 81 CDs in all – was first introduced in 2007 and offers a fresh hearing of many previously deleted treasures. Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin is soloist and, for the first time, conducts from the keyboard on a new recording of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 27; his partner is the Kremerata Baltica. Also this month, EMI Classics releases two operas on DVD. The first is Puccini’s La rondine from the Met production by Nicholas Joël filmed in Jan 2009, conducted by Marco Armiliato, and starring Angela Gheorghiu, Lisette Oropesa, Roberto Alagna, Marius Brenciu, and Samuel Ramey. Gounod’s Faust from London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, is conducted by Maurizio Benini and features an all-star cast led by Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, and Bryn Terfel.
Oct (date tba) Vanguard Classics releases the second volume in its cycle of MICHAEL HERSCH’s complete works for solo strings. After the much acclaimed release of Hersch’s Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 for Unaccompanied Cello, Vanguard follows up with Hersch’s complete works for violin, with Miranda Cuckson performing.
Oct 1 – 30 Baritone THOMAS HAMPSON stars in a new production of Macbeth, opening the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s season. Reviewing one of his previous performances of this role, the Financial Times observed, “His Macbeth was fascinating, delving into the subconscious to the point where every nerve-ending of the character was sliced open to view.” [Chicago, IL; Oct 1, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 30]
Oct 5 Deutsche Grammophon releases PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD’S new landmark recording of Ravel’s Piano Concertos, with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez. The two French masters have a long and rich personal and professional history, which started when Boulez selected Aimard as the original pianist and keyboard player for his Ensemble Intercontemporain in 1976. They continue to collaborate regularly today on the world’s most important stages. Aimard rounds out the recording with Ravel’s haunting Miroirs for solo piano.
Oct 7 – 10 Gilmore Award-winning pianist KIRILL GERSTEIN joins the Cleveland Orchestra, led by Semyon Bychkov, in Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. [Cleveland, OH; Oct 7, 8, 9, 10]
Oct 7 – 23 DEBORAH VOIGT makes her Washington National Opera debut as the sensuous and psychopathic Salome. Described as the leading Salome of her generation and “one of the greatest Strauss interpreters of all time” (Wall Street Journal), she will perform the title role in a new production by Francesca Zambello. [Washington, DC; Oct 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 23]
Oct 9 – Nov 6 MARC-ANDRE DALBAVIE’s new opera Gesualdo receives its world premiere at Zurich Opera, with the composer conducting. The opera depicts the controversial and colorful life of 16th-century Italian composer and nobleman Carlo Gesualdo, from the time of the brutal murder of his cuckolding wife and her lover by Gesualdo’s own hand. The libretto is by Richard Millet and the production by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, who recently created the Met’s new Hamlet. [Zurich, Switzerland; Oct 9, 14, 19, 23, 29, 31; Nov 6]
Oct 11 – 30 RENÉ PAPE delivers his American title role debut in the Metropolitan Opera‘s new production of Boris Godunov. After performances of the role in Berlin, the Financial Times described Pape as the “consummate Boris, terrifying yet pitiable, a complex and charismatic ruler whose greatest battle is with himself.” [Met; Oct 11, 15, 18, 23, 25, 30]
Oct 12 Pianist JEREMY DENK, described by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross as “the leading humorist-intellectual of the classical music blogosphere,” returns to Carnegie Hall with Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra for a performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major. [CH]
Oct 12 On the same day as his Carnegie Hall performance (see above), JEREMY DENK releases his first solo recording, Jeremy Denk Plays Ives, which includes Charles Ives’s Piano Sonatas 1 & 2 (Concord), on his Think Denk Media label. Denk has a deep commitment to the music of Charles Ives, and has famously paired the composer’s mammoth Concord Sonata with Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” in his recent recital at Carnegie Hall, which the New York Times called “thrilling” and “dynamic ”. Denk explains: “People ask me after concerts why I perform Ives—why I’m drawn to him—and the answer proves difficult to communicate at your average cocktail party. It’s because the music is brilliant, inventive, tender, edgy, wild, original, witty, haunting.”
Oct 22 – Nov 5 Maltese tenor JOSEPH CALLEJA takes on the role of Pinkerton in Houston Grand Opera‘s new, season-opening production of Madama Butterfly. [Houston, TX; Oct 22, 24, 30; Nov 2, 5]
Oct 22 – Nov 7 THE DALLAS OPERA opens its second season in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House with performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Tony Award-winning baritone Paulo Szot sings the title role in John Pascoe’s production, conducted by Nicolae Moldoveanu. [Dallas, TX; Oct 22, 24, 27, 30; Nov 5, 7]
Oct 26 Praised by the New York Times for her “clear, soaring tone, virtuosic technique, and elegant phrasing,” trumpeter Alison Balsom performs Italian concertos on a new recording from EMI CLASSICS. In Nov she plays repertoire from her new album in a recital at the Schubert Club (Nov 9, Minneapolis) and then a few weeks later in concert at New York’s Peoples’ Symphony Concerts (Nov 20). Also on the label, LEIF OVE ANDSNES joins forces again with conductor Antonio Pappano for two more of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos (Nos. 3 & 4). The new album, with the London Symphony Orchestra, completes the cycle; their previous Rachmaninov release, with the Berlin Philharmonic, was both critically acclaimed and a Billboard best seller.
Oct 27 In the second of its new “Met Mastersingers” series, the METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD honors the Met’s new Boris Godunov, RENÉ PAPE, who will be on stage for an informal discussion of his life and career with the Guild’s Paul Gruber at New York City’s Town Hall. Videos of many of his most celebrated performances will be shown, as well as a new video profile created especially for this event. Pape will sing a few of his favorite songs. [Town Hall]
Oct 29 VIRGIN CLASSICS recording artist Christina Pluhar and her early music ensemble L’Arpeggiata perform the music of Monteverdi and his contemporaries – repertoire heard on their debut release, Teatro d’Amore, for the label – at Carnegie Hall, with guest artist French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. [CH]
Oct 29 – Feb 19 ANNA NETREBKO reprises the role of Norina in Otto Schenk’s production of Don Pasquale at the Metropolitan Opera. Reviewing her 2006 performances, the New York Times described her opening scene: “Ms. Netrebko, her rich voice filling the auditorium, her radiant top notes stopping your breath, struts about her terrace, even turning a somersault on the lounge chair, looking like someone you don’t want to cross. There was so much intensity in her singing you would have thought she was performing Lucia’s ‘Mad Scene’. The house, understandably, went wild.” [Met; Oct 29; Nov 2, 6, 10, 13, 18; Feb 4, 8, 11, 14, 19]
NOVEMBER 2010
Nov (date tba) New releases from VIRGIN CLASSICS and EMI CLASSICS. From the former, soprano Diana Damrau sings orchestral songs by Richard Strauss, backed up by Strauss conductor Christian Thielemann and Strauss’s “home town” orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic. On EMI Classics, the much-talked-about Ebène Quartet comes out with a crossover album featuring surprise special guests.
Nov 12 ALAN GILBERT and the New York Philharmonic are joined by Midori for one of the orchestra’s rare but compelling Carnegie Hall programs, featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Adams’s seminal Harmonielehre. [CH]
Nov 14 The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC presents the world premiere of MICHAEL HERSCH’s Two Pieces for Cello and Piano, with the composer accompanying cellist Daniel Gaisford. Also on the program is the Washington premiere of Hersch’s Sonata No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello. [Washington, DC]
Nov 16 VIRGIN CLASSICS recording artist David Fray gives his Carnegie Hall recital debut in Zankel Hall, playing Bach and Schubert, composers who featured prominently on the pianist’s first two acclaimed solo recordings for the label. [ZH]
Nov 19 JOSEPH CALLEJA returns to Toronto to present a recital of opera arias at Roy Thompson Hall. The Maltese tenor made his Canadian debut ten years ago, when he was only 22 years old, as Rodolfo in La bohème with the Canadian Opera Company. This performance marks his Canadian recital debut. [Toronto, ON]
Nov 19, 20 ALAN GILBERT and the New York Philharmonic present two CONTACT! concerts, featuring the world premiere of a new work by the orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence, Magnus Lindberg, and Gérard Grisey’s Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, the French composer’s final work, which premiered in 1999 soon after his death the previous year. [Nov 19: Symphony Space; Nov 20: Met]
Nov 20 Grammy Award-winning pianist YEFIM BRONFMAN teams up with his longtime friend the violinist and violist Pinchas Zuckerman for a program of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms sonatas at Carnegie Hall. [CH]
DECEMBER 2010
Dec (date tba) EMI CLASSICS’ new recording of Rossini’s Stabat Mater features conductor Antonio Pappano leading a stellar cast that includes ANNA NETREBKO, JOYCE DiDONATO, Lawrence Brownlee, and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, and Italy’s best-known orchestra, Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and its chorus. Pappano is the music director of the orchestra, one of Europe’s oldest, and has partnered with it on a number of releases for EMI CLASSICS, including a recent successful recording of Verdi’s Requiem. Rising star pianist David Fray’s new offering from VIRGIN CLASSICS is Mozart’s Concertos Nos. 20, 22, and 25 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Jaap van Sweden. Also on EMI CLASSICS, Chinese guitarist Xuefei Yang releases a new recording of the most famous concerto for guitar, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, performed with the Orquestra Sinfonica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, the same orchestra that premiered the work more than 70 years ago in 1939. This concerto is programmed with the world premiere recording of Stephen Goss’s new guitar concerto and rarely recorded transcriptions of Albeniz’s Espana suite.
Dec 1 – 4 Norwegian pianist LEIF OVE ANDSNES brings his four-city Risor Chamber Music Festival tour to an end at Carnegie Hall with four programs exploring a wide variety of music from the classical to the contemporary. Andsnes, taking his final lap as one of the festival’s long-time artistic directors, is featured with rising and established stars who have been associated with the festival. Highlights include Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet; Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor; Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (arranged by Schoenberg) and other songs, performed by soprano Measha Brueggergosman; and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14 with Andsnes as soloist. Marc-André Hamelin and Andsnes will also perform the two-piano version of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. [CH; Dec 1, 2, 3, 4]
Dec 1 – 8 PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD embarks on a four-city North American recital tour, playing Ravel’s Miroirs and works by Chopin and Messiaen. The tour concludes at Carnegie Hall on Dec 8. [Dec 1: Los Angeles, CA; Dec 3: Philadelphia, PA; Dec 5: Chicago, IL; Dec 8: CH]
Dec 1 – 11 JOSEPH CALLEJA sings Rodolfo in the Metropolitan Opera‘s production of La bohème. He recently appeared at the Met in his role debut as the title character in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann; the New York Times wrote that Calleja “gave his all, singing with ardor, stamina, and poignant vocal colorings and winning a rousing ovation.” This is the first of three roles the Maltese tenor performs at the house during the 2010-11 season. [Met; Dec 1, 4, 8, 11]
Dec 4 – May 29 After giving the work its world premiere last season in Atlanta – where it was described by Pierre Ruhe as “showy, exuberant, beautifully crafted,” EIGHTH BLACKBIRD makes Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s new concerto On a Wire a staple of its season; from Dec to May, the sextet performs the piece with several orchestras – including the Toronto Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra – in Vermont, Akron, Toronto, Michigan, and Cleveland. The premiere performance of On a Wire with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was recorded for a future CD release. [Dec 4: Burlington VT; Jan 14: Akron, OH; March 10: Toronto, ON; Apr 13: Allendale, MI; Apr 15, 16: Muskegon, MI; May 29: Cleveland, OH]Dec 6 – Jan 8 DEBORAH VOIGT stars as Minnie – in her house role debut – in the centennial run of Puccini’s Gold Rush extravaganza La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) at the Metropolitan Opera (where Toscanini premiered the work 100 years ago to the week). After making her role debut as Minnie with the San Francisco Opera in the summer, she stars as the the pistol-packing, poker-playing barmaid at the Met from Dec 6 to Jan 8, and soon afterwards heads west – still wearing her cowgirl hat – for the Jan-Feb 2011 production at Lyric Opera of Chicago. [Met; Dec 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 27, 30; Jan 3, 8]
Dec 7 The METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD presents its 75th anniversary luncheon at the Waldorf=Astoria in New York City. For three quarters of a century, the Guild’s annual luncheon has honored the great artists of opera, from Bruno Walter and Marjorie Lawrence in its first years to Kiri Te Kanawa, Franco Zeffirelli, Plácido Domingo, and Frederica von Stade more recently. To mark the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the artists will this year honor the Guild: a large contingent of current Met stars will participate in a musical celebration of this milestone, and two short videos will highlight the past, present, and future of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. [Waldorf=Astoria]
Dec 7 – Jan 2 After his long-awaited role debut as Wotan in a new production of Das Rheingold at La Scala in May 2010, which Die Welt described as “a wonderful role debut, which will change the perception of this Wagner character for decades to come,” RENÉ PAPE returns to La Scala for the second part of Wagner’s great Ring cycle, in performances of Die Walküre. [Milan, Italy; Dec 7, 10, 14, 17, 21, 28; Jan 2]
Dec 9 Following her acclaimed Montreal performance earlier in the year of Alban Berg’s rarely heard Seven Early Songs, SUSAN GRAHAM performs the work for the first time in New York at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, led by Edo de Waart. [CH]
Dec 10 – 12 On the heels of his critically acclaimed CD Air. a baroque journey, DANIEL HOPE presents an evening of Baroque music with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall. While in New York, Hope also gives a concert with pianist Wu Han at the Peoples’ Symphony. [Dec 10, 12: ATH; Dec 11: Washington Irving High School]
Dec 17, 18 ALAN GILBERT and the New York Philharmonic present another program of compelling new music in their CONTACT! series, this time offering the world premieres of new works by James Matheson and Jay Alan Yim, as well as the U.S. premiere of Julian Anderson’s Comedy of Change. [Dec 17: Met Museum; Dec 18: Symphony Space]
Dec 28 Violinist DANIEL HOPE and cellist Paul Watkins are the soloists in Brahms’s Double Concerto with the New York String Orchestra conducted by Jamie Laredo at Carnegie Hall. [CH]
JANUARY 2011
Jan 6 – 8 THOMAS HAMPSON has long been closely associated with the music of Gustav Mahler, and he celebrates the occasion of the great Austrian composer’s 150th birthday, and the centenary of his death, with many performances throughout the new season. These activities reach two high points this month with Hampson’s new recording for Deutsche Grammophon of Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Vienna Virtuosi, and a live performance of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic. [AFH; Jan 6, 7, 8]
Jan 11 – 27 JOSEPH CALLEJA portrays the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Met, the role in which he made his house debut in 2006. [Met; Jan 11, 15, 18, 22, 27]
Jan 13 – 15 YEFIM BRONFMAN returns home for his only concerts with the New York Philharmonic this season, playing Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Christoph von Dohnányi conducting. [AFH; Jan 13, 14, 15]
Jan 15 Renowned for his opera performances, RENÉ PAPE will treat Los Angeles to one of his rare recitals of German Lieder. [Los Angeles, CA]
Jan 20 – 22 ALAN GILBERT returns to the podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra for a program featuring Magnus Lindberg’s EXPO, the work with which Gilbert opened his tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral.” Also on the program, principal oboe Richard Woodhams joins Alan Gilbert for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto. [Philadelphia, PA; Jan 20, 21, 22]
Jan 21, 23 The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents the world premiere of a new work for pianists Emanuel Ax and Yoko Nozaki by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer STEVEN STUCKY. [ATH; Jan 21, 23]
Jan 22 – Feb 6 Mezzo-soprano JOYCE DiDONATO returns to the role of Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at Houston Grand Opera conducted by Patrick Summers. Leonard Foglia takes his New York City Opera production to Houston for the first time. [Houston, TX; Jan 22, 29; Feb 2, 4, 6]
Jan 22, Feb 5 EIGHTH BLACKBIRD offers two concerts to its hometown audiences at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, introducing the group’s politically-driven two-part season-headlining program “Powerful/less,” which tackles Stravinsky’s provocative statement questioning the value, meaning, and power of art. “Powerful” (Jan 22) comprises Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man and Rzewski’s Coming Together, representing two composers’ respective political beliefs expressed forcefully in music; “Powerless” (Feb 5) pairs an ensemble arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne with Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. [MCA, Chicago, IL]
Jan 22 – Feb 21 DEBORAH VOIGT stars as Minnie – in another house role debut – in Puccini’s La fanciulla del West at Lyric Opera of Chicago, after debuting the role in San Francisco Opera and taking it to New York earlier in the season. [Chicago, IL; Jan 22, 26, 29; Feb 4, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21]
Jan 31 EIGHTH BLACKBIRD returns to Zankel Hall to perform “Still Life”: a whimsical program of music by Mazzoli, Boulez, Glass, Hurel, Ades, and Hartke. [ZH]
FEBRUARY 2011
Feb 5, 6 PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD returns to New York, this time for a series of concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, with whom he plays Schumann’s Piano Concerto under the orchestra’s music director Franz Welser-Möst. [Feb 5: CH; Feb 6: Newark, NJ]
Feb 11 – 20 DANIEL HOPE and his frequent collaborator, pianist Jeffrey Kahane, embark on a North American tour, ending at the Peoples’ Symphony in New York City. [Feb 11: San Francisco, CA; Feb 12: Los Angeles, CA; Feb 15: Vancouver, BC; Feb 19: Orono, ME; Feb 20: Washington Irving High School]
Feb 12 – 16 MUSIC FROM JAPAN explores the world of Japanese flutes and classical song, featuring flutists Kohei Nishikawa and Elizabeth Brown, mezzo-soprano Keiko Aoyama, and pianist Yoshio Tsukuda. [Feb 12, 13: Baruch Performing Arts Center, NYC; Feb 16: Freer Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington, DC]
Feb 12 – March 5 SUSAN GRAHAM returns to the Metropolitan Opera to reprise her “intense and vulnerable performance” (New York Times) in the title role of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. [Met; Feb 12, 16, 21, 26; March 2, 5]
Feb 14 – 15 Hilary Hahn joins the CURTIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA conducted by Juanjo Mena to perform the Philadelphia and New York premieres of Jennifer Higdon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Violin Concerto – the latter performance at Carnegie Hall. [Feb 14: Philadelphia, PA; Feb 15: CH]
Feb 16 JEREMY DENK takes a recital program of Ligeti and Bach to Zankel Hall as part of the “Keyboard Virtuosos III: Keynotes” series. [ZH]
Feb 16 – 20 eighth blackbird curates and performs at the new “Tune-In” festival at NYC’s Park Avenue Armory. Highlights include the New York and indoor premiere of John Luther Adams’s Inuksuit, featuring more than 70 percussionists. The ensemble also plays its two-part “PowerFUL/less” program in two separate concerts. [Park Avenue Armory]
Feb 17 – 19 LEIF OVE ANDSNES plays Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. The San Francisco Chronicle, reviewing a West Coast performance of the piece, wrote: “Andsnes delivered the huge swaths of notes that Brahms requires from the soloist with a blend of clarity and theatrical strength.” [Chicago, IL; Feb 17, 18, 19]
Feb 22 YEFIM BRONFMAN returns to Carnegie Hall for a performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta. [CH]
Feb 24 – March 19 JOSEPH CALLEJA sings Edgardo opposite Natalie Dessay in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera. This marks the last of three roles the tenor sings at the house during the 2010-11 season. [Met; Feb 24, 28; March 4, 8, 12, 16, 19]
Feb 25 MICHAEL HERSCH’s Last Autumn for horn and cello is performed by Daniel Gaisford, cello, and Jamie Hersch, horn, at Vanderbilt University. Completed in 2008, the work received its world premiere in New York City in Feb 2010. It is built around poetic fragments of the late W.G. Sebald and is the companion piece to Hersch’s 2005 work, The Vanishing Pavilions. [Nashville, TN]
Feb 27 The METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD presents “Met Legends: Renata Scotto”. One of the great artists of the 20th century will be on stage at the Kaye Playhouse to watch rare video clips of her indelible performances and to discuss her life and work with the Guild’s Paul Gruber. A number of Ms. Scotto’s friends and colleagues will be there to celebrate her accomplishments. [Kaye Playhouse]
MARCH 2011
March 6 JOYCE DiDONATO makes her Carnegie Hall mainstage recital debut, singing a program of music by Haydn, Rossini, Chaminade and a world premiere by Jake Heggie. [CH]
March 10 – 15 As part of the New York Philharmonic‘s “Hungarian Echoes” festival, PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD is the soloist in Ligeti’s Piano Concerto under festival conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. [AFH; March 10, 11, 12, 15]
March 18 YEFIM BRONFMAN gives a solo recital at Carnegie Hall; on the program is a world premiere by composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. [CH]
March 24 – April 9 Now in his eighth season as Associate Artistic Director, DANIEL HOPE returns to the multi-genre Savannah Music Festival, where he will perform in a series of chamber music and orchestral concerts. [Savannah, GA; March 24 – April 9]
March 24 – April 21 JOYCE DiDONATO is joined by an all-star cast, which includes her frequent co-star Juan-Diego Flórez and soprano Diana Damrau, in Bartlett Sher’s new production of Rossini’s Le comte Ory. This production marks the first time Rossini’s seldom-performed comedy has been mounted in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. [Met; March 24, 29; April 2, 5, 9, 14, 18, 21]
APRIL 2011
April 1 – 7 LEIF OVE ANDSNES plays two piano sonatas by Beethoven and works by Brahms and Schoenberg on a four-city US recital tour beginning in Boston’s Jordan Hall and ending at New York’s Carnegie Hall. [April 1: Boston, MA; April 3: Chicago, IL; April 5: Champaign-Urbana, IL; April 7: CH]
April 2 – 17 ANNA NETREBKO makes her role debut as Donizetti’s Anna Bolena in a new production at the Vienna State Opera, opposite Elīna Garanča as Giovanna. The Russian soprano will take the role to the Met to open its 2011-12 season. [Vienna; April 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17]
April 17 The METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD presents the sixth annual Opera News Awards, which this year return to the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza in New York City. Hundreds of luminaries from the the worlds of opera, culture, and New York society will be on hand to pay tribute to the five winners, who will also be celebrated in video screenings of some of their most memorable performances. [The Plaza]
April 22 – May 14 DEBORAH VOIGT makes her much-anticipated role debut as Brünnhilde – one of opera’s most iconic roles – in Wagner’s Die Walküre, in a new production by Robert Lepage at the Metropolitan Opera. [Met; April 22, 25, 28; May 2, 5, 9, 14]
April 28, 29 THOMAS HAMPSON sings selections from American composer George Crumb’s Six American Songbooks for piano, baritone, and percussion at the Library of Congress and then at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, in two concerts presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. [April 28: Washington, DC; April 29: ATH]
April 29, May 5 As part of Joan Tower’s spring residency at the CURTIS INSTITUTE OF MUSIC, the school’s contemporary music ensemble, Curtis 20/21, performs an all-Tower program at Curtis’s Field Concert Hall and then at New York’s Miller Theatre. [April 29: Philadelphia, PA; May 5: Miller Theatre]
April 30, May 8 EIGHTH BLACKBIRD performs the Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet in a festival of works by Steve Reich presented at Carnegie Hall. Traveling with the festival across the Atlantic to the Barbican Hall, the group then makes its London debut. [April 30: CH; May 8: Barbican Hall, London]
MAY 2011
May 1 – 7 PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD starts his recital tour of North America at the Telus Center in Toronto; the tour includes performances at the Washington Performing Arts Society, and at Atlanta’s Spivey Hall. [May 1: Toronto, ON; May 3: Princeton, NJ; May 5: Washington, DC; May 7: Atlanta, GA]
May 5 ALAN GILBERT and the New York Philharmonic cross town and head to Carnegie Hall for the second time this season for a historic concert celebrating the 120th anniversary of the famed venue. Performing works by Dvorak, Beethoven, Ellington, and Gershwin is a star-studded line-up of musicians, including guest soloist GIL SHAHAM. [CH]
May 7 – 13 JOYCE DiDONATO returns to the Metropolitan Opera for her house role debut as the Composer in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. [Met; May 7, 10, 13]
May 11 STEVEN STUCKY’s August 4, 1964 receives its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall, performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The concert drama follows a pivotal day in American history through the eyes of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara, and two mothers of slain civil rights protesters. [CH ]
May 20 eighth blackbird returns to the Library of Congress for a concert that includes the world premiere of a new work by Stephen Hartke. [Washington, DC]
May 27, 28 SUSAN GRAHAM takes her beloved portrayal of Marguerite in Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust to Philadelphia. Charles Dutoit leads the Philadelphia Orchestra and a cast that includes Graham’s frequent co-star tenor Paul Groves as Faust. [Philadelphia, PA]
JUNE 2011
June 9 – 11 DEBORAH VOIGT and the New York Philharmonic perform Schoenberg’s Erwartung. Chicago Tribune‘s John von Rhein wrote of her Chicago performances of the monodrama: “Deborah Voigt has everything required to deliver a spellbinding vocal tour–de–force – laser-beam high notes, a rich, gleaming, voluminous soprano sound that easily cut through the densest textures, remarkably accurate pitch and fine German diction.” [AFH; June 9, 10, 11]
June 16 – 18 GIL SHAHAM continues his multi-season “Concertos of the 1930s” project, joining Ludovic Morlot and the New York Philharmonic as the soloist in William Walton’s Violin Concerto. [AFH; June 16, 17, 18]
June 22 – 25 ALAN GILBERT and the New York Philharmonic perform Janácek’s fairy-tale opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, in a fully-staged production designed and directed by Doug Fitch, who was Gilbert’s creative partner for the Philharmonic’s New York-premiere performances of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre. [AFH; June 22, 23, 24, 25]
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All concerts are in New York City, except where otherwise specified.
AFH = Avery Fisher Hall
ATH = Alice Tully Hall
CH = Carnegie Hall
Met = Metropolitan Opera
Met Museum = Metropolitan Museum of Art
ZH = Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall