Tan Dun Soundscapes at Bard Sosnoff
Tan Dun is a visionary composer and conductor. His work resembles a time-traveling holiday excursion into a hitherto untraveled soundscape. The any-day-explosion Fireworks, Op. 4 (1908) by Igor Stravinsky opened the program to hint at what was to come. Here ...
Musical Magic at The Stissing Center
by Kevin T McEneaney The Stissing Center in Pine Plains featured two young performers in a fascinating program of eclectic pieces chosen by 2023 Young Concert Artist Stissing Award Winner, Korean pianist Chaeyoung Park and award-winning American violinist Oliver Neubauer ...
Musical Rarities at Bard Sosnoff
by Kevin T McEneaney Last Saturday’s concert opened with delightful background commentary by violinist Concertmaster Eniko Samu about the first half of the program. Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) studied composition under Nadia Boulanger in Paris (1932-3). As a noted lead violinist ...
Gilbert & Sullivan Put on Trial!
by Kevin T McEneaney On a rainy afternoon last Sunday, there was much overflowing laughter in Great Barrington at St. James Place, as Crescendo, directed by Christine Gevert, put on stage two hours of raucous charm and wit which was ...
The Sherman Ensemble: Baroque Dexterity
by Kevin T McEneaney The Sherman Ensemble performed their annual Baroque music concert last Sunday at St. Andrew’s Church in Kent, CT. Their selection of music from that period included rarely performed works. One of the pleasing aspects of Baroque ...
Chanticleer Soundscape at Trinity-Pawling
by Kevin T McEneaney Last Friday night the twelve-man choir Chanticleer performed to a capacity audience in Gardner Hall. Chanticleer was founded in 1978 by tenor Louis Botto to showcase medieval and Renaissance music; their repertoire of over fifty CDs ...
William Grant Still at MET Museum of Art
by Kevin T McEneaney In connection wih the new Harlem Renaissance exhibit the New York City Metropolitan Museum featured in their auditorium a performance of the first Symphony (nicknamed the Afro-American Symphony) by William Grant Still. This performance was preceded ...
Beethoven, Stravinsky & Spring Budding at Bard
by Kevin T McEneaney Daffodils, the common peoples’ tulip, were in full bloom on the lawn outside of Sosnoff Theater at Bard College this past Sunday afternoon with the sun shining brightly as a prelude to this exciting Spring program ...
Shanghai Quartet: Lyrical Explosion at Hudson Hall
by Kevin T McEneaney The first time I heard the Shanghai Quartet, I was driving on Route 44 going west into Millbrook while listening to Robin Hood Radio playing cuts from their album Music for a Sunday Afternoon in the ...
Crescendo: Performance of Carisimmi’s Jephte
by Kevin T McEneaney Last weekend at St. James Place, Great Barrington, MA, and at Trinity Church, Lakeville, CT, Christine Gevert’s Crescendo choir, and small orchestra of seven instruments, presented the first known US production of Carisimmi’s oratorio Jephte (1648), ...