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 […]
Rochester Classical Music
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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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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’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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Pulling back the curtain
Over the years, CITY’s annual Fall Guide — along with, of course, writing about the great things to do during a Western New York autumn — has become our annual preview of the upcoming arts and cultural seasons.
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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.
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Itzhak Perlman returns to Rochester for a cinema serenade
Itzhak Perlman’s appearances with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, which date back to 1970, have included the great works of the concerto repertoire, like Beethoven, Brahms, Prokofiev, Bartók, Tchaikovsky. This week, Perlman will return to the RPO — performing for the first time with Music Director Ward Stare — in a program of a different kind […]
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Gateways celebrates and promotes classical musicians of African descent
Only 1.8 percent of American symphony orchestra members are African-American or of African descent, according to the League of American Orchestras. And that number doesn’t seem to be increasing significantly anytime soon. The prospect of young students of African descent not only getting into the field of classical music but succeeding in it, says Paul […]
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The RPO’s 2016-17 season in review
CITY’s classical music critics recap the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2016-17 season
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Classical review: RPO performs ‘La Boheme’
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Music Director Ward Stare rose to prominence as Principal Trombone for Lyric Opera of Chicago. Here in the Flower City, he has made a conscious effort to perform operatic works in their entirety. On Thursday, when the RPO performed Giacomo Puccini’s beloved “La Bohème,” the result was unsettled at first, but ultimately […]
