#polyphony

#polyphony

The Sixth is one of the hardest symphonies to tame. Bychkov leans into the contrasts, the Alma theme glowing with inner fire and a slow movement that shimmers like a limpid Austrian lake.

Pianist Dr. Gabriela Calderón and violinist Dr. Catalina Barraza celebrate the rich musical heritage of Latin America.

Fast forward a few decades and John Wilson is still hand-picking musicians and still serving up performances so polished they leave critics scrabbling for superlatives. These days Wilson's main outfit is the Sinfonia of London, and he is as likely to be conducting the symphonic mainstream as showtunes.

By the early 1900s, player pianos had evolved to more fully reproduce a human performance, including subtle dynamics like tempo changes and the introduction of a damper pedal. The human role went from deskilled to fully deprecated as electric motors replaced foot-powered bellows. With the Seeburg Lilliputian Model L, the only job left for humans who wanted to play the piano in the 1920s was to put in a coin.

Bomsori Kim is a 36-year-old, South Korean, classical violinist who plays from the soul. In Bomsori's hands, she takes people on a journey to the music of another century.

Built in 2000, the two-story house on a corner lot has plenty of curb appeal. A black-hued gable roof creates visual contrast against crisp white siding and shutters. A white picket fence wraps around the front of the property.

PLC announces the retirement of its Artistic Director, Mary McCarty, following 11 years of inspired leadership and artistic excellence.

When wonderful scores of music have been rediscovered after being forgotten for 350 years, it's akin to finding doubloons that were lost at the bottom of the ocean in a shipwreck. Yet the result of musical rediscovery is much better than finding long-lost gold, because musical treasures can be shared with a world of listeners.

People all saw that there is something new is being attempted here that you've just got to see. I think that is its own reward. In an era where New York's storied Met Opera has faced layoffs, pay cuts, postponed productions, and a controversial financial agreement with Saudi Arabia, forward-thinking artistic direction becomes essential for survival.

"Piano piano" is an old Italian saying that sounds nonsensical, but is actually full of wisdom, especially if you, like me, are finding yourself wishing away these frigid winter days and hoping spring and summer gets here fast. These days, I've found myself rushing from one thing to the next, frustrated at the smallest things, from post office lines to just missing my train. And I'm ready to make a change.

Glass joined a growing list of performers and artists who have canceled shows and cut ties with the arts center since President Trump replaced its board with people who share his aversion to woke programming, and affixed his name to the facade without congressional or Kennedy family approval. The new board also named Trump as chairman, and, in an unprecedented move, the president hosted this year's Kennedy Center Honors, which garnered its lowest ratings ever when broadcast on CBS. Ticket sales have also tanked.

Upon its debut in 1725, The Four Sea­sons stunned lis­ten­ers by telling a sto­ry with­out the help of a human voice. Vival­di drew on four exist­ing son­nets (pos­si­bly of his own prove­nance), using strings to paint a nar­ra­tive filled with spring thun­der­storms, summer's swel­ter, autum­nal hunts and har­vests, and the icy winds of win­ter. The com­pos­er stud­ded his score with pre­cise­ly placed lines from the son­nets, to con­vey his expec­ta­tions that the musi­cians would use their instru­ments to son­i­cal­ly embody the expe­ri­ences being described.

Formed at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the group blends technical precision with expressive range, moving comfortably between classical staples and contemporary compositions. Their programs often highlight contrast, pairing the clarity and balance of Haydn with modern textures that stretch tone and color.

I'm a harmonica and accordion player and one half of folk-classical duo Stevens & Pound. As a multi-instrumentalist I am rooted in a folk tradition that is oral, aural and communal. Music and song are passed down by ear, either through recordings or more fun traditional music sessions. Here, players and singers get together to share, swap and play tunes, drawing from a repertoire that is always evolving.

Carlo Gesualdo wrote some of the most darkly sublime music of the late Renaissance. He also savagely murdered his wife and her lover in their bed. Now be honest: which would you like to discuss first? It is a provocation that sets the atmosphere for an evening that resists easy resolution. Presented at St Martin-in-the-Fields as the launch of the church's 300th anniversary celebrations,

We began in the world that was-in the humid atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Vienna, from which Zemlinsky, Schreker, and Schoenberg emerged. In a program note, Blier wrote that the "Fugitives" concept was inspired by Zemlinsky's "Meeraugen," or "Sea Eyes," which tells of a "person staring into the roiling abyss of the ocean." You had the feeling, as the evening went on, that the crushing realities of twentieth-century history-war, revolution, inflation, the Depression, Fascism-made such refined aestheticism untenable and forced composers onto other paths.

I've just given a keynote presentation at Lines of Flight: Improvisation, Hope and Refuge, a conference hosted by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation. I'd been invited to talk about my performance research with D&aacutelava, a cross-genre project that is influenced by animist, Slavic cosmology and a land-based folk song tradition that has been in my family for generations.

Any composer's relationship to music is intense, but Sarah Kirkland Snider, whose debut opera, Hildegard, receives its world premiere at the LA Opera this week, ratchets that intensity up to a higher, more metaphysical level. When Snider hears music, she says, she sometimes wants to eat it that's how deep the desire goes. She's not traditionally religious, but she has come to see music as a mysterious, divine force within her.