Category: Music
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Yuja Wang don’t give a shit.
LA Philharmonic brings back the piano prima donna. By S.E. Barcus Perhaps you do not know who “Yuja Wang” is…? Well, judging by her commanding performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall February 18, 2020, in Los Angeles, along with her confident demeanor and skyrocketing fame over the past decade … I really do not…
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My Interview with Philip Glass, and His, “New-World-Fusion-Chamber-Music-Quartet-Extravaganza!”
“CP: How insulting is it to you when you hear “New Age” or “trance music”? PG: “Oh, I don’t care, really. I’ve been called all sorts of things. Those things come and go.”
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John Adams and the Noir of January 6
Composer John Adams conducts the Seattle Symphony on the anniversary of the insurrection, January 6, 2022.
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Tan Dun’s Soundscape Monument for Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters
Tan Dun has called his Nu Shu a “soundscape monument for mothers, daughters, and sisters.” “Monument” is a good word choice. Despite all of the amazingly ambitious and wonderful music this composer has already made throughout his life, I can’t imagine anything will top this piece, and all of the real, human mythology surrounding it.
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Jinkxies! — “Get Ready Bitches ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!”
“Get Ready ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!” is what Jinkx proclaimed as she was crowned the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race in Season 5. Well, it was a slowly increasing pitter-patter (delayed, in part, by the plague), but Jinkx is now starting to truly feel more like a downpour. I think Monsoon Season is really here…
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Seattle Symphony’s Pastiche of Germans … And a Scot
The imaginative and variegated quality of tonight’s program is truly appreciated. Three completely different styles, a little something for everyone, tied together with a theme. Tonight, the theme was Germans, and heroes. While the contemporary German composer, Widmann, wrote his “Con brio” in honor of his hero, Beethoven, Ludwig himself wrote the 5th piano concerto…
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We Are the World. We are the Cello. (Jan Vogler’s Cello….)
Bao was rightfully back to her baton — this piece got so crazy, and oftentimes so fast, it would have been impossible to keep these bunch of drunks in sync without a stick with which to beat them!
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Chapela and Kuusisto Set Antiphaser to Killing It
Mexico City composer Enrico Chapela had a world premiere tonight in Seattle of his new electric violin concerto, Antiphaser. What is that, you ask? Some sort of guitar pedal, (or anti-pedal)? Or was CCM Chapela going to explore the phasing techniques of Steve Reich? No!
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Jan Lisiecki, A Tale of Two Washingtons
Chopin Piano Concerto in DC; Chopin Nocturnes and Études in Seattle March 17, 2022 By S.E. Barcus Over the past two months, I had the chance to check out pianist Jan Lisiecki, a relatively young man (about to turn 27) who is marketed as pretty hot stuff. He is Polish-Canadian, and his claim to fame…
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Beethoven and the Russian Invasion of February 24
Night at the an der Vilar Review of Colorado Symphony performing Beethoven’s 5th and 6th Symphonies Beaver Creek, CO By S.E. Barcus (and Vladimir Putin) February 24, 2022 The Colorado Symphony (CS) perform Beethoven’s 6th and 5th Symphonies for the (mostly) wealthy skiers of Beaver Creek and Vail, February 24-27, 2022, at the Vilar Performing…
S.E. Barcus 