Chris Lee News

It's December! Voting is now underway for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! Now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized. Check out the first set of stats below.

Voting is NOW OPEN and the first votes are in for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! The nominees are set, and now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized!

According to the Carnegie Hall program, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded just a year after the most modern pieces on last Friday's program were written. Those were Richard Strauss's “Four Last Songs,” composed in 1948, some of the most gorgeous music he wrote. Though I came for the songs and excerpts from Strauss's opera, INTERMEZZO, as it turned out, the symphony, Brahms' Fourth, was what made the evening.

Daniil Trifonov will make his first appearance as the New York Philharmonic's 2019–20 season Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, performing Scriabin's Piano Concerto led by Music Director Jaap van Zweden. The program will also include Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 and will take place Wednesday, November 27, 2019, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, November 29 at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, November 30 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, December 3 at 7:30 p.m.

Jakub Hrusa will return to the New York Philharmonic to conduct Saint-Saëns's Cello Concerto No. 1 with Alisa Weilerstein as soloist; Borodin's Symphony No. 2; and Dvořák's Symphony No. 6, Thursday, November 21, 2019, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, November 22 at 11:00 a.m.; and Saturday, November 23 at 8:00 p.m.

Check out photos from the September 26th performance of Jaap van Zweden conducting the New York Philharmonic premiere of Bengt Gomér's production of Erwartung and Bluebeard's Castle!

Signature Theatre presents Assassins with music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman and directed by Signature Theatre Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer (Broadway's Gigi, Follies). John Weidman stopped by the show recently and posed for a photo with the cast.

The New York Philharmonic announces its fall 2019 education activities, including the beginning of the 97th season of Young People's Concerts, interactive performances introducing children ages 6a?"12 to the orchestra; ninth season of Insights at the Atrium, free events at Lincoln Center's David Rubenstein Atrium tied to the season's themes, programming, and artists; and New York Philharmonic Teaching Artists performing a free concert for individuals with dementia and their caregivers as part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts's Lincoln Center Moments.

Sondheim's Assassins recently opened at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. The production runs through September 29, 2019 in The MAX space. Read what the critics had to say!

It is not often one opens a theater program and on page one sees a letter from composer Stephen Sondheim. I had the privilege of attending the joint Jason Robert Brown and Stephen Sondheim concert on June 24, 2019 at Town Hall in New York City to raise funds for 'Brady United Against Gun Violence' (see link below). It was a very moving evening of great theatrical music by two of this country's best composers.

Signature Theatre presents Assassins with music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman and directed by Signature Theatre Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer (Broadway's Gigi, Follies).

This summer, US and international performances by Carnegie Hall's three acclaimed national youth ensembles—the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA), NYO2, and NYO Jazz will be broadcast and webcast to audiences around the globe, extending their music making to a wide international audience.

Signature Theatre has announced the full cast and creative team for Assassins with music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman and directed by Signature Theatre Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer (Broadway's Gigi, Follies). Signature Theatre continues to be the largest single producer of the work of Stephen Sondheim and Assassins marks the 30th production of a Sondheim musical in Signature Theatre's history. Assassins will run from August 11 - September 29 in Signature Theatre's intimate MAX Theatre.

Credit Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer for this season on a high.

Signature Theatre presents Blackbeard, a world premiere musical commissioned by Signature Theatre with book & lyrics by John Dempsey (Signature's The Witches of Eastwick, The Fix), music by Dana P. Rowe (Signature's The Witches of Eastwick, The Fix), and directed by Signature Theatre Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer(Broadway's Gigi, Follies, and Signature's Titanic). Blackbeard will run from June 18 through July 14 in Signature Theatre's MAX Theatre.

Signature Theatre presents Blackbeard, a world premiere musical commissioned by Signature Theatre with book & lyrics by John Dempsey (Signature's The Witches of Eastwick, The Fix), music by Dana P. Rowe (Signature's The Witches of Eastwick, The Fix), and directed by Signature Theatre Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer(Broadway's Gigi, Follies, and Signature's Titanic). Blackbeard will run from June 18 through July 14 in Signature Theatre's MAX Theatre.

The 22nd edition of the fiercely independent film festival, Dances With Films (DWF) concluded on Sunday evening (June 23) with a closing night celebration at the TCL Chinese Theaters in Hollywood where the excitement was electric throughout the arena. 

The New York Philharmonic finished up its season with a powerful performance of a new version of the FIDELIO story by composer David Lang, which he neatly titled PRISONER OF THE STATE, summing up a key part of the story. Lang's score and the staging by Elkhanah Pulitzer—and the pulsating performance of the score by the Philharmonic under music director Jaap van Zweden--were triumphs, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats as the 70-minute work unfolded.

Last night Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic gave the World Premiere performance of David Lang's prisoner of the state - a fully staged reimagining of Beethoven's Fidelio, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. The program concludes the Orchestra's three-week Music of Conscience series, exploring how composers respond to the social and political issues of their times.

Now featured in Carnegie Hall's Rose Museum: Carnegie Hall's first-ever exhibit about its visionary founder-Andrew Carnegie-charts the Carnegie family's passage from Scotland through the course of Andrew's extraordinary life and ever-present influence in America.