The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s opening OrKIDStra concert last month, a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Iolanthe,” took its audience on a trip to Fairyland, complete with wands and wings. This weekend’s show, “A Tour of World Flutes with Orchestra,” covers pretty much the entire globe, as represented by 13 different flutes, from pennywhistle to shakuhachi […]
David Raymond
Posted inArts & Entertainment
THEATER | ‘Red Herring’
Michael Hollinger’s “Red Herring” certainly gives you your money’s worth. This film noir farce, set in the rip-roaring, Red-baiting year of 1952, juggles three love stories among American and Russian spies, assumed identities, a murder mystery, a nuclear espionage plot, and (to be sure) the identity of a red herring — just to cover the […]
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CLASSICAL | ‘Monteverdi’s 450th’
Pegasus Early Music gets its 2017-18 season off to a splendid start with a musical birthday party for one of the great figures in Western music: composer Claudio Monteverdi, born in 1567 and died 1643. Pegasus Artistic Director Deborah Fox calls the program “an unabashed personal selection of some of my favorite pieces by my […]
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VOCAL | ‘A Splendid Grandeur’
Born in New Hampshire after the Civil War, Amy Marcy Cheney made her debut as a piano prodigy in 1885, the same year she married and took the last name Beach. In 1892, Boston saw the first performance (at age 25) of her Grand Mass in E-flat. Many notable compositions followed, including the first major […]
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Classical review: RPO’s 2017-18 season opener
If you’re going to open a symphony orchestra season, you may as well open it with a dazzling flourish or two. Richard Strauss’s tone poem, “Don Juan,” begins with one of the greatest opening salvoes in the orchestral repertoire, a hurtling rocket of strings and brass. When Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra leaped […]
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CLASSICAL | RPO Season Opener
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Music Director Ward Stare enjoys getting the season off to a brilliant start, and no doubt the orchestra’s audiences do, too. Brilliance is on the agenda for the 2017-18 season opener. The guest soloist is Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan (the first artist-in-association with the New York Philharmonic) performing in the Grieg Piano […]
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CLASSICAL | ‘Joys and Litanies’
The latest chapter in the long-time, mutually fruitful relationship between Rochester composers and Rochester musicians will unfold, Sunday evening, when First Muse presents its opening concert of the season. “Joys and Litanies: A Local Perspective” spotlights chamber music written during the past 20 years by three of Rochester’s most talented composers, performed by nine talented […]
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Classical review: SCMR’s ‘Mozart and Pärt in Harmonie’
Mozart lavished his musical imagination on wind instruments as part of the orchestra, but he also wrote some terrific works for the unassuming octet known in the 18th century as the Harmonie ensemble – pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns. (If you add a flute, it’s also the wind section of the classical-era orchestra […]
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Sounds all around
Rochester’s 2017-18 classical music season has a little something for everyone, from traditional performances to contemporary concerts.
Posted inMusic
CLASSICAL | Neave Trio
The Boston-based Neave Trio — formed in 2010, and consisting of violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura — will bring an enticing program to RIT’s Ingle Auditorium. On the bill is a work by the father and most prolific composer of piano trios, Franz Joseph Haydn; early works of great interest […]
Posted inMusic
CLASSICAL | ‘Mozart and Harmonie’
Mozart gave many of his most magical musical thoughts to wind instruments, whether in symphonies, operas, piano concertos, or concertos of their own. He also wrote some terrific works for wind octet, or as it was called in the 18th century, the “Harmonie” ensemble — pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns. The Society for […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Critics’ picks: David Raymond
“13 the Musical,” “The Queens Speak,” “When Shakespeare’s Ladies Meet,” and more.
