Several of Rochester’s leading cultural institutions — New York State Ballet, Rochester Oratorio Society, and The Lyric Theatre co-Opera-tive — converged Friday night at the Lyric Theatre to present a concert tribute to composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The performance utilized the dancers to depict the onstage action, while the orchestra, vocal soloists, and chorus provided […]
Classical
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Classical review: RPO performs ‘The Music of Swan Lake’
In Thursday’s concert of mostly ballet music at Kodak Hall, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra showed flashes of pure brilliance. Unfortunately, the performance as a whole was lackluster. The RPO opened the program with a trio of AntonínDvořák’s “Slavonic Dances,” and was joined onstage by members of the Rochester City Ballet. Stare conducted with a light […]
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RPO announces its 2018-19 season
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra has announced its 2018-19 season, and Music Director Ward Stare continues to hone the RPO’s artistic image under his tenure. The orchestra seems to be gradually and methodically working to elevate its status to one of more national relevance. While Stare’s programming tastes can frequently be conservative, the choices he makes […]
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Classical Review: In ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ program, RPO plays the infernal and the impressionistic
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra started 2018 by inviting Marcelo Lehninger, the Brazilian-born music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, to guest conduct this week’s program. The RPO performed last night and will repeat the concert on Saturday. Lehninger is offering an unusual but intelligently balanced program: Russian emotional rawness tempered by French Impressionism, and […]
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Classical review: RPO performs Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra on Thursday performed a rare, Baroque-heavy program with holiday overtones, and the results were close to perfection. Guest conductor Michael Christie — Minnesota Opera Music Director since 2012 — has crafted a smart, cohesive, and accessible playlist of mostly Italian masters, and in the process, has presented the RPO in a […]
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Classical review: Publick Musick’s ‘Rejoice’
Except for Handel’s “Messiah,” and perhaps Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” baroque music and Christmas may not go together in most audiences’ minds. The truth is that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of vocal and instrumental works dedicated to the Christmas season by hundreds of 17th and 18th century composers. Publick Musick’s first concert of its 2017-18 […]
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Opera review: Eastman Opera Theatre’s ‘L’incoronazione di Poppea’
Eastman Opera Theatre continues to impress with presentations brimming with excellent singers and professional production values. This time around, it was Claudio Monteverdi’s final opera “L’Incoronazione di Poppea.” Performed in Italian with English supertitles, this production of “The Coronation of Poppea” at Kilbourn Hall was also notable for its use of period instruments, and for […]
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Classical review: Pegasus marks Monteverdi’s 450th
Pegasus Early Music kicked off its 2017-18 concert season in grand style on Sunday, with a program featuring the madrigals and sacred song settings of Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi — widely considered the father of opera — marking his 450th birth year. The concert also featured instrumental music by his contemporaries Dario Castello, Biagio Marini, […]
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Classical review: Cordancia’s ‘Streets of Paris, Songs of Russia’
There is a vast, rich musical world in Rochester beyond the walls of the Eastman School of Music and Kodak Hall. Cordancia Chamber Orchestra drove this point home last Friday at the Finger Lakes Community College Auditorium with a fascinating program of obscure orchestral gems written by important, mostly underappreciated composers. The program began with […]
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Classical review: RPO performs an inconsistent concert with Isabel Leonard
On Thursday, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director Ward Stare welcomed accomplished opera star Isabel Leonard to Kodak Hall for a program that was heavy on Spanish influence – a welcome programmatic turn – but light on consistency. The story of the concert was a tale of two halves. The inconsistency was apparent from […]
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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 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 […]
