John Adams
The nearly 10 year wait for the premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s string quartet Homunculus was worth it.
Liberty’s First Crisis presents reminders that elected officials have always been capable of uncivilized behavior toward their colleagues.
More composers who followed their own distinctive paths when they incorporated jazz into their piano concertos.
In Available Light , Lucinda Childs’ dancers execute a series of movement phrases which to a viewer may seem simple, but in fact require intense focus and control on the dancers’ part.
What we seem to have here is one of the glories of our democracy in action: the blind leading the oblivious; aping distortions and downright falsehoods about the opera.
Things are going well with Monadnock Music: before Saturday’s concert kicked off, managing director Christopher Sink announced that the festival had cleared its financial debts as it heads into next year’s 50th anniversary season.
Howard Hersh hails from northern California, and, as in John Adams’ “City Noir,” the music on Hersh’s album, “Angels and Watermarks,” embraces polyglot West Coast culture in various ways.
This album manages to impressively realize the depth and versatility of John Adams’s music for string quartet. It also announces the arrival of a phenomenal ensemble that plays with a mix of maturity, adventure, and musical insight: this is a group to follow closely and cheer.
Commentary: Top Classical Recordings of 2016
I make no claims to have listened to everything released in 2016; here are my picks for the top classical recordings of the year.
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