Category: Symphony
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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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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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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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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…
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Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” is a French-styled “Total Work of Art”
The “hero’s welcome” for composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at the opening night performance of the L.A. Philharmonic’s production of Debussy’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” hit with a refreshing coolness of modesty; with an apropos absence of fanfare perfectly suited to the production at hand. Salonen so casually enters while other philharmonic members are still trickling in that…
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Kurt Weill’s Die Burgschaft, Spoleto Festival Review
“Die Burgschaft is the story of Mattes and Orth, two men in the mythical land of Urb who witness the gradual and tragic degradation of their trust in one another because of the dividing and corrupting influence of money and power.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
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Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Spoleto Review 2001
Many in the audience seemed truly touched by this “jewel of Western opera repertoire,” as Director Chen Shi-Zheng has called it.
S.E. Barcus 