Category: piano
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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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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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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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Music in Time, Spoleto Review 2001

Conductor John Kennedy and Pianist Sarah Cahill, and others, team up for an amazing Spoleto performance of contemporary classical music. (Photo credit — hinnk — of Ms. Cahill performing at Berkeley Art Museum.)
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Music in Time, Spoleto’s Contemporary Classical Music Showcase, a Preview
2001 Archives My interview with John Kennedy. Every Spoleto, I was most reliably excited by Kennedy’s curated contemporary classical music series. For this year, 2001, we got to hear music by Ruth Crawford Seeger, in honor of her centennial, including Nine Preludes for Piano, Music for Small Orchestra, and Three Songs, as well as some…