Latest news with #orchestra
ABC News
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
MSO: An Evening of Fairy Tales
Cruel witches, beautiful princesses and gallant princes abound in this overview of fairy tale favourites. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra offers a curated collection of fairy tale excerpts from Humperdinck, Prokofiev and of course Tchaikovsky, led by young British conductor Alpesh Chauhan. Recorded live in concert at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, Narrm/Melbourne, on May 17, 2025 by ABC Classic. Producer Jennifer Mills. Engineer Alex Stinson. Program Engelbert Humperdinck: Prelude from Hansel and Gretel Sergei Prokofiev: Cinderella: At the Ball (Act II highlights) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Dramatic highlights from Sleeping Beauty Artists Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Alpesh Chauhan (conductor) Find out more Read MSO programs here
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Waiting for Gustavo Dudamel, the Philharmonic Is Doing Just Fine
The New York Philharmonic is flying free. Its former music director, Jaap van Zweden, left last summer. Its next, Gustavo Dudamel, is gradually deepening his commitment — including performances of Mahler's Seventh Symphony at David Geffen Hall through Sunday — but doesn't officially start until fall 2026. Those who follow orchestras tend to assume that their quality will dip without a devoted director to oversee things. Partly because of the myth of the indispensable, all-powerful maestro, it can be easy to fear that conductorless periods will be rudderless ones. That certainly hasn't been the case this season at Geffen Hall. The Philharmonic has been sounding great: fresh, vital, engaged, more cohesive. The chilly blare that seemed to frost the hall's acoustics when it reopened in 2022 after a renovation has warmed and softened. The most telling music-making of the year was in a program last month led by the Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer. The final hour of the concert was given over to a rare performance of Bartok's fairy-tale ballet 'The Wooden Prince,' a sprawling, instrument-packed score that swerves from candied to bombastic, from radiant expanses to driving dances. The orchestra rose to the occasion with playing that was nuanced and colorful, and in Mozart's 'Turkish' Violin Concerto, the ensemble matched Lisa Batiashvili's sensual flair. But in a way, I was even more impressed by the opener: Mozart's overture to 'The Magic Flute,' a chestnut of the kind that is often passed over quickly in rehearsal. It glowed. The true test of a great orchestra — what reveals its base line standard — isn't how it does in the big symphonies and premieres that steal the lion's share of attention and applause. It's how the group sounds in little repertory standards, and that 'Magic Flute' overture may have been the most encouraging seven minutes of the season. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: Dudamel Unveils a Love Letter to the Philharmonic
'Is there anything like that first strike of the bow?' Kate Soper asks at the start of her new piece for the New York Philharmonic. 'A hundred players moving as one! All that splendor, all that might!' She is describing the wonders of an orchestra, and you don't have to take her word for it. In Soper's sweet, clever 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,' which had its premiere at David Geffen Hall on Thursday under Gustavo Dudamel's baton, the ensemble illustrates her words as she says them, 'Peter and the Wolf' style. 'The highs got higher, the lows got lower,' she says, explaining the development of instruments, and we hear ethereal pitches, then loud rumbles. 'Wood was lacquered,' she goes on, to delight in the oboe and clarinet. 'Metal bent' elicits a horn fanfare and trombone slide. Soper soon proclaims, with disarming plainness, 'That's right everyone: I'm Orpheus!' In this half-hour monodrama for a mostly speaking, sometimes singing soprano, she offers a tender retelling of the legend of the great musician of Greek mythology. Her story blends into a poetic reflection on music's meaning, what it can do (offer glimpses of the sublime) and what it can't (most anything else). Soper does all this in quirkily postmodern style. Her eclectic, quick-shifting sounds, including touches of memorably ancient-feeling bass flute, are woven into a quilt of quotations from famous settings of the Orpheus myth by Monteverdi and Gluck, as well as lesser-heard ones by Sartorio, Landi, Campra and others. There are also flashes of Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart and Grieg in the mix, and the text, mostly original, interpolates passages from Rilke's 'Sonnets to Orpheus.' Modern music lovers may be reminded of Luciano Berio's more chaotic collage 'Sinfonia.' For fans of Soper, especially in her composer-performer mode, 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus' will recall brainy, winsome works like 'Ipsa Dixit' (2016), which she began by posing the spoken question, 'What is art?' and attempted to answer through snippets of writers like Aristotle, Lydia Davis and Freud. Creating her first big orchestral piece, Soper has clearly understood she's writing for a broader audience; 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus' is more immediately accessible than the fascinating but abstruse 'Ipsa Dixit.' Philharmonic programs don't tend to feature a lot of humor — certainly not of Soper's winking mash-up variety — and her voice is a whimsical change of pace as the season draws to an end. Dudamel, who becomes the Philharmonic's music director designate later this year before fully taking the reins in fall 2026, preceded the orchestra's latest commission with its first: Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements, conducted by its composer at its 1946 premiere. It's better known at Lincoln Center these days as the score for one of George Balanchine's classic leotard works, regularly danced by New York City Ballet. Played by the Philharmonic on Thursday with confident panache, it, like the Soper piece, offered a love letter to the orchestra's range, from burly power to graceful delicacy: 'All that splendor, all that might!' Too bad those qualities were missing from the program's closer, Philip Glass's dreary 11th Symphony (2017). Glass's listlessly chugging symphonies are nowhere near his greatest achievements, but the 40-minute 11th is finding its way to major orchestras; Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony did it a few years ago. A grumbling beginning yields to characteristically swirling Glassian figurations in the strings — well played by the Philharmonic, the arpeggios precise yet warm. After mild lyricism in the second movement, the third unleashes a battery of percussion. In Glass's 1984 opera 'Akhnaten,' that kind of raucous drumming is an arresting evocation of antiquity. Here, it's busy bombast, without real thrill or power.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Kaukauna orchestra celebrates 100 years
KAUKAUNA, Wis. (WFRV) – A local orchestra celebrated 100 years of history on Thursday night. The Kaukauna Area School District's orchestra includes students in fifth grade through seniors, about 147 students in total. Man in Wisconsin facing disorderly conduct charge for allegedly dumping multiple adult diapers on road 'I think it's really cool that we get to be here for 100th year and that we're making another year of history,' said freshman musician Anna Bestul. 'You know you're part of a strong program that is going to be good to you.' 'It's crazy to think about because it's really hard to fathom 100 years sometimes,' said sophomore Kai Cook. 'Just knowing that there were people 100 years ago that were playing the same instrument that I play is really cool.' 'Please be patient with our animal friends': Police in Wisconsin seeking info on driver who reportedly injured several geese The centennial celebration doubled as a tribute to the seniors in the program. Students have spent the last few weeks learning about the history of the orchestra program. On Thursday night, the played a special song called 'Echoes of a Century' composed by Carrie Lane Gruselle. Orchestra officials said when it first started back in 1925 there were just 14 students. Now there are 147 students. 'I mean it's really cool to say that we have had orchestra in Kaukauna for 100 years,' said Kaukauna Area School District orchestra teacher Katie Nesemann. 'We're paying tribute to the past but also showing what we can do with current music as well.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CTV News
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Spot prawns, comic con and a New West parade: Things to do in Metro Vancouver this weekend
A VSO Day of Music concert is seen in this photo from the orchestra's website. (
