Classical

When we think of Surrealism, we think of poetry and visual art, not music. But a surreal evening came to pass nonetheless the other night at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Four musicians including world-famous cellist Mischa Maisky gathered for a concert commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide. Music by Russian and Armenian composers made up a program that asserted the power of art to challenge cruelty and violence.

Two recent albums that do new things with very old music.

How does a pianist work with living composers as they write new works for her? Find out in this fascinating interview with Yoonie Han.

Stavreva champions composers from her native Bulgaria, plays a mean Chopin, and is unafraid to perform her own works of rumbling, percussive intensity.

Jefferson Friedman's sharply modernistic but accessible new 'The Heart Wakes Into' paired nicely with Brahms's Quintet in F minor at the Metropolitan Museum.

Mozart's unearthly achievement with his unfinished 'Requiem' was on glorious display.

The Russian composer's long and active residence in New York City makes any celebration here of his work seem exceedingly fitting. With Russian-American soprano Dina Kuznetsova, baritone Shea Owens, and theremin player Dalit Warshaw joining pianist/arranger Steven Blier and pianist Michael Barrett, the NYFOS's tribute was a stellar evening.

We were in the presence of a brilliant musical mind with a timeless sensibility, brought to life by an ensemble of singers who are surely among our time's finest interpreters of Josquin and the other polyphonists of the 15th and 16th centuries.

This entertaining, amusing, and artistically rewarding evening evoked the music and the spirit of the Paris salon culture that sponsored and inspired many artists, musicians, and writers of great fame.