Music

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Page 88
A klezmer band with the clarinet front and center. (Image by Mitaskim, via Creative Commons/Wikimedia)

Astral Artists: Old World/New World

From klezmer to the cosmic

Astral Artists presents a concert that’s as American as pizza, with a tour de force for the clarinetist on their roster of promising young musicians.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 4 minute read

Philadelphia Orchestra’s season begins (second review)

Mountain views and a stormy Mozart

Each time he mounts a large-scale composition, our beloved Yannick shows his mastery of the expanded orchestral forces involved. If only Lang Lang exerted such (self) control.
Victor L. Schermer

Victor L. Schermer

Articles 4 minute read
Lang Lang: Here we go again.

Philadelphia Orchestra’s season begins (first review)

The grand and the grandiose

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s season opener featured Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 with a willful Lang Lang doing everything at the keyboard except playing the music, and Richard Strauss’s sprawling Alpine Symphony, which showed the Orchestra to much happier effect.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 5 minute read
Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett: The only problem is when they are singing together. (Sony Music Entertainment)

Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga

Tony and Barbra get a gimmick

Some popular singers cover the standards; others do unexpected partnerings. These albums, by two of the best singers in the last half century — Barbra Streisand and Tony Bennett — do both.
Armen Pandola

Armen Pandola

Articles 5 minute read
Di Wu: simultaneously ringing and reflective. (Photo © Sengzong Gan, via www.DiWuPiano.com)

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with pianist Di Wu

Youthful stars and might-have-beens

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia opens its season with a program that sticks to a conventional format but varies it with two novelties.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 3 minute read
Stand up and sing

Choral Arts Philadelphia sings Rachmaninoff's 'All Night Vigil'

On the road with Choral Arts

Most of the singers in Choral Arts Philadelphia are unpaid volunteers, but they attack their job like pros.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 5 minute read
Kristen Choi as Suzuki, Yunah Lee as Cio-Cio-San, and Aleksey Bogdanov as Sharpless in the Glimmerglass Festival's 2014 production of ‘Madame Butterfly.’ (Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival.)

The 2014 Glimmerglass Opera Festival, part two

A new take on ‘Madame Butterfly’

Francesca Zambello may well be a model for opera directors in the 21st century. Her direction of Madame Butterfly hints at some of the reasons why.
Karl Middleman

Karl Middleman

Articles 5 minute read
Lutfisk, Spock, lutfisk! (Photo by Ken Whitmore - © 1978 Ken Whitmore - Image courtesy mptvimages.com)

'Star Trek' and my own 'Enigma Variations'

Dreams of music

I never dream of music. I’ve heard composers talk of it, and I’ve envied that gift. Because it is a gift if a composition can indeed come to you just like that, like a scene in a movie, in a dream. What I wouldn’t give to have that! But I don’t.
Kile Smith

Kile Smith

Articles 5 minute read
Christian Bowers as Clyde Griffiths in the Glimmerglass Festival's new production of Tobias Picker's "An American Tragedy." (Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival)

The 2014 Glimmerglass Opera Festival

Deserted, abused, drowned, abandoned

In the summer, you have to leave Philly to enjoy opera. The Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, New York is a worthwhile destination.
Karl Middleman

Karl Middleman

Articles 6 minute read
Those were the days, my friend. (Photo by Nathan Gibbs, via Creative Commons/Flickr)

I was the mother of a teenaged garage band

Ever since Noah was small, I’ve taught him that rock and roll is more than music; it is, as Bruce insinuates, a religion.
Ilene Raymond Rush

Ilene Raymond Rush

Articles 4 minute read