LONDON - The guy behind the ticket counter at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre checked out my Brooklyn zip code and asked "Did you come over for this?" "It was in the top three reasons." He wasn't surprised. People had been coming to the theater over the past week from as far away as Australia to see 4:48 Psychosis, probably never having never heard of the composer, … [Read more...] about The devastating debut of 4:48 Psychosis (the opera) stands high in 2016’s best
Michael Hersch, 9/11, and the twin towers of light
With each 9/11 anniversary, I still don't know how to process the experience. Of course, I was glad on Sunday's 15th anniversary of 9/11 that the new World Trade Center is up and in what has become one of the most vibrant, architecturally advanced sections of Manhattan. I was happy about my photographic accident to the left, which had the emblematic twin columns of … [Read more...] about Michael Hersch, 9/11, and the twin towers of light
David Lang’s new opera The Loser may yet win
Pulitzer-winning composer David Lang has written several operas so far, none of them in the least bit conventional, and all of them showing how much the ultra-minimalist Bang on a Can aesthetic can be fascinatingly at odds with an art form that's traditionally grand. His latest is The Loser, which was unveiled Wednesday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House in a … [Read more...] about David Lang’s new opera The Loser may yet win
Bach’s Brandenburgs: Liberated by the Sebastians?
The world probably wouldn't be appreciably different had Bach's Brandenburg Concertos not been discovered sitting on some shelf, possibly unplayed and unexamined, a century or so after they were finished in 1721. J.S. Bach still would've been re-discovered. His works would be as venerated as they are now. But the Brandenburg Concertos are so singular in Bach's output, in the … [Read more...] about Bach’s Brandenburgs: Liberated by the Sebastians?
Boulez haunts the Philharmonic – with music from from his noisy youth
Pierre Boulez has been haunting the New York Philharmonic mercilessly. On Monday night at the fashionable Williamsburg, Brooklyn venue known as National Sawdust, the recently deceased composer was heard alongside the French contemporary he often hated, Olivier Messiaen, as well as younger somewhat-modernist composers such as George Benjamin and Oliver Knussen. Hosting was a … [Read more...] about Boulez haunts the Philharmonic – with music from from his noisy youth