The Brazilian jazz pianist goes full-tilt from the start, with dense and intense rhythms, indeed a florid, Lisztian intricacy, on "To Each His Dulcinea." One listen to Elias's substitutions on the theme and you know she's playing with a full quiver of creativity as well as a twinkle in her eye.
Read More »Jon Sobel
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Musical Instrument Galleries Reopen
Among the fascinating objects associated with major artists and historical figures are a narwhal-tusk flute made for Frederick the Great, a 16th-century Amati violin made for the marriage of Philip II, guitars owned by Segovia, and a clarinet that belonged to Benny Goodman.
Read More »Concert Review: American Classical Orchestra with Contralto Avery Amereau (NYC, 24 March 2018)
The venerable original-instruments orchestra presented familiar and seldom-heard works, including Brahms's 'Alto Rhapsody' and music by Schubert and Ferdinand Ries.
Read More »Music Review: Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout – ‘J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord’
All told, these are some of Bach's most compelling and beautiful works, and it's hard to imagine a finer performance than this.
Read More »Theater Review (NYC): ‘The Dream of the Rood’
Western Europe's earliest known dream-vision poem, newly translated from the Anglo-Saxon and adapted for the stage.
Read More »Music Review: Kim Richey – ‘Edgeland’
There's a feeling of fine control you get when you listen to a Kim Richey album. Her songs dig outward in two directions from country/americana, into both folk and pop. And her silvery vocals, burnished with a constant, cool vibrato, lack twangy affectation, sounding almost weirdly non-manipulative – to paradoxically emotional effect.
Read More »Theater Review (NYC Off-Broadway): ‘Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story’
This wondrous musical show from Canada defies genre, yet sweeps you up in the tale of two Jewish refugees who more than a century ago made a new home in a new world.
Read More »Theater Review (NYC): Phoebe Legere’s ‘Speed Queen: The Joe Carstairs Story’
Uneven pacing and lengthy diversions derail this loving musical tribute from the multitalented Legere to the cross-dressing lesbian oil heiress and speedboat champion.
Read More »Theater Review (NYC Off-Broadway): ‘Good for Otto’ by David Rabe
The play buffets us from patient to patient, crisis to crisis, and dream sequence to real-life therapy. Artifice this skillful glows with a heightened authenticity. The glittering cast including Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Rhea Perlman, Mark Linn-Baker, and F. Murray Abraham.
Read More »Concert Review: New York Polyphony – ‘Tallis Lamentations’ (NYC, 24 Feb 2018)
The a capella singers presented a succinct, enlightening survey of Thomas Tallis's groundbreaking 16th-century music. The concert also offered a reminder of why the composer's best-known works, such as the 'Lamentations,' remain popular after more than four centuries.
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