Thursday, November 21, 2024With an opening night gala and an ambitious, awesome sounding first subscription concert, Jaap van Zweden officially became the New York Philharmonic's 24th Music Director. The Dutch maestro, who transitioned from Concertmaster of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to conductor with the Leonard Bernstein's encouragement, comes to an orchestra still in serious need of overhauling and/or dynamiting David Geffen Hall and continuing its overdue image change. van Zweden's predecessor Alan Gilbert succeeded making the NYP a local and digital presence (here's hoping Gilbert gets his wish to one day conduct Olivier Messiaen’s St. François d’Assise because Manhattan socialites will never sign off on it unless
Tag: Leonard Bernstein
Feature: Leonard Bernstein’s Secular Liturgical Music
Saturday, August 25 is the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein's birth. During the upcoming weekend, Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony's Berkshires summer home where "Lenny's" conducting career began as a student in 1940 and ended with his last concert months before his death in 1990, and London's BBC Proms offer non-stop Bernstein. The classical music streaming service Medici.tv is offering a week of Bernstein archival footage and documentaries. For those who want to keep the music going there is Sir Antonio Pappano and the The Santa Cecilia Orchestra's new release of Lenny's three symphonies. Additionally, since musical milestones are aimed at
Music: Curtis Opera Theatre presents ‘A Quiet Place’ at the Kaye Playhouse
2018 marks the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein's birth. Accomplishments such as the first American music director of the NY Philharmonic, music educator who united the concert hall with television, and composer "West Side Story" fill more than one lifetime. Yet that formidable legacy overshadows his lesser-known work worth knowing, including "A Quiet Place." On March 13, 2018 his alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, visited from Philadelphia for a single performance of the 1983 opera at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. "A Quiet Place" is the sequel to Bernstein's 1951 "Trouble in Tahiti". Both are one act, and Bernstein