Peter Danish - Page 10

March is Chopin Month at The Carnegie Concert Series

New York City Opera was one of the great artistic treasures of New York. It was famously dubbed 'The People's Opera' by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia at its founding in 1943 and throughout its nearly 70 year history, the NYCO helped launch the careers of many of the world's greatest opera stars including Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes, Placido Domingo, Maralin Niska, Carol Vaness, Jose Carreras, Shirley Verrett, Tatiana Troyanos, Jerry Hadley, Catherine Malfitano, Samuel Ramey. Sills later famously served as the company's director and chief ambassador for the art form from 1979-1989. It also sought to produce an innovative choice of repertory, and provide a home for American singers and composers.

'Chinese Coffee' by Ira Lewis is a very idiosyncratic play that has been an actor's favorite since its debut 25 years ago. Al Pacino has championed the piece both on Broadway and in a film which he produced, directed and starred in. The current presentation at The Nyack Village is a real gem and shows vividly why actors are so drawn to the piece.

The only thing missing from the opening week of the New York Philharmonic's 'Dohnanyi/Dvorak' festival was Dohnanyi. The legendary conductor was laid out by a bad case of the flu, causing him to miss the first performance of the series. 32 year old Krzysztof Urbanski, the music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, stood in for the 85 year old maestro and last week and did a fine job, but after a massive promotional campaign one can be sure the management breathed an equally massive sigh of relief when Dohnanyi returned last Saturday night to an enthusiastic New York welcome.

David Chmielewski and Kimberly Hawkey gave beautifully touching performances in Elmwood Playhouse's aesthetically stirring production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical Sunday in the Park With George.

On Tuesday night, November 18, NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts will be the scene of an opera-lover's dream come true. As the Met continues to try to find ways to keep audiences engaged; trudging through tacky new productions of classic repertory and mediocre production of mediocre new works, Teatro Grattacielo has quietly shown that there is another way.

Petrouchka is an often performed piece that can sometimes feel tired and perfunctory. Along with The Firebird and The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky's other two big ballets from the same period (all of which remarkably flowed from the composer's pen within five years), Petrouchka requires a deft hand at the helm to feel fresh. Luckily, in the hands of Jacques Lacombe and the New Jersey Symphony, a fine fresh take was on the menu. The New Jersey players did a fine job, and even if this music was not their typical fare, Maestro Lecombe managed to bring excitement and subtle inner colors to the surface throughout.

If Gioacchino Rossini had written no music in his career other than his overtures, he would still hold a great place in the pantheon of music history. Despite the fact that they tend to follow a formulaic pattern - invariably beginning slowly, frequently just a solo cello, then slowly adding instruments, leading to a great crescendo. The primary motif generally gets repeated numerous times, each time further developed, adding more and more instruments. In spite of all this, they are mini masterpieces. The 'Guillaume Tell' is possibly his greatest and certainly his most famous overture, and with its four clearly defined and brilliantly contrasting parts it is practically a full symphony in microcosm.

Opera and Classical music fans in Toronto have a lot to sing about! Legendary soprano Aprile Millo will be returning to Toronto for in November for a very special weekend of performances. The New York Post's James Jorden said of Millo: 'The soprano, considered the foremost stylist of Italian romantic vocal music, always draws an audience of hard core cognoscenti, who are practically an opera in themselves'.

As birthday celebrations go, Saturday night's concert at the Madison Theater of Molloy College has to be close to the top of the list. Rock Music legend Keith Emerson celebrated his 70th birthday with pianist extraordinaire Jeffrey Biegel and the South Shore Symphony in an eclectic program entitled: The Classical Legacy of a Rock Star. It was very clear from the get go that the crowd was composed largely of ELP fans looking for a trip down memory lane, but that was not at all what they got. Rather, Maestros Emerson, Biegel and Wiley (conductor of the South Shore Symphony) challenged the audience right from the beginning with several unfamiliar selections including the world premiere of three string quartets by Emerson and a new orchestral tone poem entitled 'Glorietta Pass,' which the composer conducted himself. It was a bold and daring decision to play lesser-known works rather than more obvious crowd-pleasers such as 'The Nutrocker' (based on the Nutcracker) or 'Hoedown' (from Copland's Rodeo). Nonetheless, the works were engagingly performed and warmly received.

On July 7th 1977, Emerson, Lake and Palmer performed the opening concert of a three-night stand at Madison Square Garden. The tour, in support of their new album 'Works Volume One' was famous and infamous for the massive 76-piece symphony orchestra and choir that it featured. It was also the first concert of any kind that this writer attended. No concert in nearly forty years of concert-going has left the same kind of impression.

NY PHILHARMONIC PREMIERS SPECTACULAR NEW CONCERTO

THE CLASSICAL LEGACY OF A ROCK STAR: ROCK LEGEND KEITH EMERSON TO PERFORM WITH SOUTH SHORE SYMPHONY

THE WHITE PLAINS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER FALL SEASON

This Sunday, September 14th, the Performers of Westchester kicked off its 23rd season with a performance by the renown Brentano String Quarter in a program of Mozart, Bartok and Schubert. The Performers of Westchester was established in 1982 by pianist Joel Rosen with the purpose of arranging performances of chamber music in private homes rather than in concert halls. The concept was designed to allow audiences to listen and experience chamber music in the ambience originally intended by the composer. This season features an eclectic array of poplular chamber music repertoire as well as modern, rarely presented, and unusual pieces.

3rd Annual Nyack Film Festival huge success!

Since she burst onto the scene while still a student a Juilliard, pianist and composer, Lera Auerbach, has always been a bit of a trend setter and rule breaker and her exciting and audacious new project appears to be no exception. It is a global collaborative commissioning project for her new 'Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.' The global aspect of the project will kick off with the composer herself performing the World Premiere, with the Stuttgart Philharmoniker under the baton of Maestro Dan Ettinger on November 24th, of next year.

The Carnegie Room Concert Series presents pianist Christopher Oldfather & Frederica Wyman is two very rare performances of Beethoven's Symphonies arranged for two pianos.