Here are the twelve concerts I think warrant a journey to the Hollywood Bowl this summer:

JULY FOURTH FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR WITH HARRY CONNICK, JR. – July 2^nd – July 4^th

If you’ve never experienced a fireworks show at the Hollywood Bowl, you clearly don’t know what you’re missing. This year’s headliner for the annual July 4^th concerts is Harry Connick, Jr.

His most recent album centered on songs of faith, but I would expect this concert to focus more on the material he’s best known for which are jazz standards and songs from the Great American Songbook.

Thomas Wilkins leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in these three concerts.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

For those not in the Los Angeles area, he’ll be performing at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park in San Diego on July 6^th; Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA on July 9^th and 10^th and at Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville, WA on July 12^th and 13^th. These are the only dates on his schedule right now.

ALL- GERSHWIN – July 11^th

Who could ask for anything more than pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, opera’s Isabel Leonard and Broadway star Tony Yazbeck in an evening of songs and music by George Gershwin?

The program opens with the Cuban Overture and is then followed by Variations on “I Got Rhythm.“ Leonard and Yazbeck conclude the first half with selections of Gershwin’s songs.

The second act features Thibaudet playined Rhapsody in Blue and closes with An American In Paris.

Lionel Bringuier conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

MAESTRO OF THE MOVIES: THE MUSIC OF JOHN WILLIAMS AND MORE – July 12^th – July 14^th

This annual celebration of all things John Williams will be a little different. Yes, Williams curated the program utilizing his own music and many classic scores he loves from the Golden Age, but he will not be appearing this year.

Williams had to cancel all upcoming appearances due to a health issue “from which he is expected to make a full recovery.” Does that mean light sabers won’t be at the ready for the inevitable selections of music from Star Wars? Of course not. 

David Newman, who regularly conducts the first half of these concerts each year, will be conducting the full program.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

BIG BAND NIGHT – July 17^th

If you love large ensemble jazz music, this concert is for you. The evening opens with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra (who have made countless appearances at the Hollywood Bowl).

Next up is The Count Basie Orchestra who will feature vocalist Nnenna Freelon. 

The headliner is the Maria Schneider Orchestra which is celebrating its 30^th anniversary. Earlier this year Maria Schneider released a 3-lp vinyl box set entitled Decades. You can’t stream that recording, you can only get it here. But you can hear this incredible artist and her musicians live. This is her only US appearance until September.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

STRAVINSKY & KHACHATURIAN – July 30^th

I’ve written before how Aram Khachaturian’s music isn’t performed often enough. As they did in the Walt Disney Concert Hall this season, the LA Philharmonic is breathing new life into his work in this program that features the composer’s Violin Concerto and the Spartacus Suite No. 2.  Martin Chalifour is the soloist for the concerto.

The concert closes with the 1919 version of Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite. Kevin John Edusei conducts.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

PROKOFIEV & SHOSTAKOVICH – August 6^th

One of my top five piano concerti of the entire repertoire is being performed by Denis Kozhukhin in this concert. It is Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26. (My favorite recording of it is by Martha Argerich.)

The second half of the program is Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10. The work was completed the same year that Joseph Stalin died and is widely interpreted as the composer’s commentary on the brutality of the Soviet government during Stalin’s reign. It’s a big and powerful symphony.

Ryan Bancroft leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

HERBIE HANCOCK HEAD HUNTERS 50^th – August 14^th

Where were you on October 26, 1973? Maybe you remember the release of Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters which is considered amongst the best jazz-fusion/jazz-funk albums of all time.

Watermelon Man may not be a title recognize, but I guarantee you the music has burrowed its way into your soul. 

This is the ONLY reunion of Hancock with the surviving members of that record:  drummer Harvey Mason; saxophonist Bennie Maupin and percussionist Bill Summers.  Playing bass is Marcus Miller as original bassist Paul Jackson passed away in 2021.

The original four-track album runs less than 45 minutes. Which means there will be a whole lot more music performed by Hancock and his bandmates.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

THE ELEMENTS WITH JOSHUA BELL – August 15^th

Joshua Bell commissioned five composers to write individual movements based on the elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Space.  Those composers are Kevin Puts, Edgar Meyer, Jennifer Higdon, Jake Heggie and Jessie Montgomery.

Bell performs the work with Rodolfo Barráez conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Also on the program are Aaron Copland’s El Salón México, which opens the concert and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story  which closes the concert.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

SARA BAREILLES WITH THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL ORCHESTRA – August 17^th

What at one point years ago might have seemed like a pop concert, is now pure heaven for musical theater lovers. Sara Bareilles is a three-time Tony Award nominee having received two nominations for Best Original Score (Waitress in 2016 and SpongeBob SquarePants in 2018) and for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for the 2023 revival of Into the Woods.

Of course, she’ll perform music from throughout her career and this is her only concert on her schedule until late September.

But wait, there’s more. Tony Award winner Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) will open the show.

Thomas Wilkins conducts the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

THE RITE OF SPRING – August 22^nd

The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky is one of classical music’s most important and enduring works. Hearing this monumental work outside is reason enough to see this concert. But fans of Stravinsky’s music are in for a full evening of his genius.

Teddy Abrams, Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra, conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a concert that opens with Stravinsky’s arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner. His Circus Polka follows and the first half closes with Leila Josefowicz performing his Violin Concerto. Then the main attraction is on tap for the second half of the program.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

DUDAMEL LEADS BEETHOVEN 9^th – September 10^th

Not sure what else anyone needs to know beyond Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. But here goes:

The soloists for this concert are bass Dashon Burton; mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey; tenor Anthony León; countertenor Key’mon Murrah and soprano Hera Kyesang Park. The Los Angeles Master Chorale also performs.

The concert opens with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

DUDAMEL AND THE STARS OF OPERA – September 12^th

I couldn’t tell you the last time tenor Jonas Kaufmann performed in Los Angeles, but I can tell you the next time he will – at this concert where he will be joined by soprano Diana Damrau.

The two will perform selected arias and duets.

The concert opens with Verdi’s Overture to I vespri sicilliani which is followed by the ever-popular Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni. Respighi’s Pines of Rome closes the concert.

Gustavo Dudamel leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Those are the 12 Hollywood Bowl Concerts Not to Miss in my opinion. What concerts are on the top of your list? Let me know in the comments.

Main Photo: Hollywood Bowl 2023 (Photo by Craig L. Byrd)

The post 12 Hollywood Bowl Concerts Not To Miss This Summer appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The Elements had its world premiere on September 1st with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra with Alan Gilbert conducting. The US premiere took place in late September and early October with the New York Philharmonic. More performances are being scheduled and on October 25th Bell will perform three movements with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Higdon is one of the most acclaimed composers of her generation. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2010 for her violin concerto. She is the recipient of three Grammy Awards and her opera, Cold Mountain, had its world premiere in 2016 at Santa Fe Opera.

Higdon didn’t get to choose her movement. She took Air as her movement and thought quickly and decisively about the role her movement would play in Bell’s commission.

In this conversation she talks about her approach to Air, thinking about Joshua Bell as the soloist and the role of air in her daily life. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Joshua Bell had the idea of the elements and then adding space as a fifth component. But was it a lottery? How did you each composer get the element that you ended up writing? 

When Joshua called me he said, “Well, the elements have all been picked, so the only thing left is air.” And I said, okay, I’ll do air. At that point there were only four composers – we didn’t have space as part of it. At some point he decided he wanted space to be a part of the equation and they asked Jessie Montgomery. So I think the guys all picked the elements they wanted. Then they called me.

If it had all been open and you could have chosen any one of the five, which one do you think you would have chosen? 

Well, I think I could have come up with stuff for all of them. There was something interesting about air, though, because I’m a former flute player, so there was something striking about it and I might have picked that. 

I would say that if I were writing one of the other movements, it would be very different than what I wrote. Because to me the different elements feel like musically they would need to have different character just in the materials, the way it’s handled, the speed and the tempo. There are a lot of ways to go, but I think every composer approaches this according to their inner gyroscope. 

You weren’t dealing with air as wind. You were dealing with it as what we take in, what we breathe, what we need, what the planet needs. How did you go from conceiving the work as being about that component of air to what you actually put on paper?

I thought strategically, because I’ve written a lot for violin. My colleagues, I figured, would be excited to write some really virtuosic stuff for Joshua, which he plays fantastic. I thought to myself, what would the audience need to hold them through a long concerto? I love Joshua’s playing. His tone is beautiful in the lyrical lines he plays in all of the concertos and the solo stuff he does.

Maybe I should go and emphasize that and just make a quiet spot so the audience can breathe. I was thinking about the breathing thing. This is a much calmer sort of experience. It’s also a challenge for me because normally I write a lot of fast notes. 

For somebody who writes a lot of notes, how much does stillness, how much does silence, play a role in your concept of air? 

Actually quite a bit – especially in this. I used many more wind and brass voicings and less strings, partly to set off Joshua’s violin voice, but also just because they use air. I do put pauses in there. I make everything move slowly.

I was thinking a lot about the seasons. One of the things that strikes me is when seasonal changes come, the first thing we usually notice is the air when we step outside. The spring smells very different than the fall and winter. The bite of winter feels very different than the summer humidity that we often get on the East Coast. Part of it was just thinking about the distinctiveness of the air.

But I also thought about the fact that the word air is often used as a musical term meaning song, aria. The word aria came out of air, so that made for me a different kind of challenge than most people have. They have trouble filling things up. My goal is backing off and calming down. So I thought this would be a good way to do this. 

How does a work like The Elements come together given that five different composers are writing individual movements for it?

That’s the one thing about this concerto that’s fascinating. Every sound world is different because it’s a different composer. So you’re getting real variety in what you’re hearing. It makes the musical experience different than if you were listening to just a 40-minute concerto from one composer. The language is changing, the pacing, the rhythm, the interchange between the orchestra and the soloist. Actually it’s very, very effective. 

Is cohesion an outdated idea for contemporary works?

I think artists can’t really say anything is outdated. I think everything’s on the board. I like the idea of variety. We can have both. We could have cohesion within our own little movements.

One thing that gives Joshua a chance to do, if he does another piece with another orchestra and he wants to do one of these movements, he can do that. He can just pull it because the things work as self-contained units. They could also combine like maybe two or three of them if he needs a medium size work.

[As is the case with Bell’s October 25th concert with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra where he will perform the Bruch Violin Concerto and three movements from “The Elements.”]

In an interview that you gave to Annelena Lobb for the Wall Street Journal in 2005, she asked what you did to relax. After answering that you walked and went to the movies a lot, she said, “So it’s not music all the time?” And your response was, “I think that would be hard. The brain needs to breathe.” It seems as though, even 18 years ago, you were considering breath and air as part of your need to be healthy. 

My answer is still I take breaks. I compose about 6 hours a day, I have to take breaks. Our brain really does need to break because sometimes it has to solve the musical problems you’re wrestling with. If I go too long without walking, I get cranky in the same way that I get cranky if I go too long without composing. I’m really bad about taking the breaks, but I’ve learned through the years to make sure I do it because it actually helps the music.

What is the conversation that you would like to see amongst contemporary composers that maybe is a different conversation than the one that happens when contemporary works are sandwiched with the works by composers from anywhere from 100 or more years ago? 

I’m not sure how to answer that because I’m always on with older works. One of the things I have noticed when I attend concerts [is] the concerts that seem to be drawing more people are the ones that have some contemporary music on it. I’m not sure what shifted during the pandemic, but something did, and I can tell from quite a few of the concerts I have been to have been sold out. A lot of times I see orchestras just doing the same pieces over and over again, the audiences are shrinking.

One of the things I encounter a lot is the number of people who come up to me and say, “Oh my God, I’m so glad to see a woman on the program.” I didn’t realize how much it meant to other people. I just am writing the music. But other people take it as my voice is heard from the orchestral stage. I think that’s more important than a lot of people may realize because it makes it more relevant in the community. 

I always think of using music now to pull people in to hear an event or something that’s unusual and then program something else on that you really like. I fear that the audience is going to drop off too much. I think LA [Philharmonic] is doing an amazing job balancing that. It may be the orchestra that’s doing it probably better than anyone else.

You works get performed a lot around the world. You’re right up there with Phillip Glass and John Adams. Let’s say you’re in rarified air.

I’m lucky. I have like 250 performances a year, so I get pieces that are just repeated much more than Mozart or Beethoven ever heard in their lifetime. That’s actually an incredible, miraculous thing when I think about it.

I think that more people will get more performances if artistic administrators were looking around, were aware of more composers coming up. It’s ironic. I’m talking to you in L.A. The L.A. Phil is literally the last major orchestra in the United States who has not done my music. I think I’ve worked probably with 700 or 800 orchestras around the world. But the L.A. Phil is literally the only one that I’ve not had a performance with and I get asked about that now all the time. It’s unusual because [1999’s] Blue Cathedral, we’ve had 800 orchestras do that piece and even that hasn’t been in L.A. I’m sure it’ll get corrected in the next couple of years. 

Edith Wharton is quoted as having said, “The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.” How does the air of ideas inspire you as you move forward throughout your career?

It seems to me like anyone who is creative just lives in the era of ideas. Although I do know a lot of composers who struggle. If you’re able to actually write every day that tends to make the air produce more ideas. But I think you have to always be thinking. A lot of times people only get to work some small amount of time on a job. I think it’s hard to kind of air out the laundry and and get fresh ideas in what you’re doing. So it’s interesting. I know that’s a really good question. Isn’t that applicable to anyone doing anything creative, though?

Without that air and without those ideas, we’re stuck.

We’d be dead. It would not be an interesting world. Even the kids would come up with some cool idea of how to skateboard in a different way or something that’s also living in the air of ideas. That’s literally having your ideas fly through the air. But let’s look at the Wright brothers. Those are radical ideas. Same for astronauts and NASA. But I also realize that someone is cleaning a floor somewhere and they’re going, you know, there’s probably a better way to do this. The idea of raising kids, it takes constant creativity, always thinking. So I guess that quote is factual and is applicable to every human being that crosses this planet.

To see the full interview with Jennifer Higdon, please go here.

To learn more about The Elements, please go here.

Main Photo: Jennifer Higdon (Courtesy JenniferHigdon.com)

The post Composer Jennifer Higdon Lives in the Air of Ideas appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

My Top Pick:

Contemporary Classical:  JULIUS EASTMAN VOL. 3: IF YOU’RE SO SMART, WHY AREN’T YOU RICH – Wild Up (New Amsterdam Records)

Wild Up continues their multi-album series of recordings exploring and celebrating the music of Julius Eastman. Joining Wild Up for this recording are Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange) and Adam Tendler. 

Three of Eastman’s works are performed on this album: the title track, the Moon’s Silent Modulation and Evil N–. Since so much of Eastman’s work was thrown out after his untimely death, these recordings are essential in bringing into focus what Eastman was doing. This is another fine series of performances by Wild Up of his music.

Here are our other selections of the best New In Music This Week: June 16^th

Classical Music: BEETHOVEN: EMPEROR CONCERTO – Daniel Barenboim and New Philarmonia Orchestra (Warner Classics)

This is a vinyl only release of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with Otto Klemperer conducting. Warner Classics is honoring Klemperer on the 50^th anniversary of his death. Digitally this album is being released today with Beethoven’s 2^nd piano concerto as well.

Recorded in the late 1960s, this album reflects Barenboim’s youthful energy and Klemperer’s more studied approach. Simply put, the pairing works beautifully.  It’s as if the competing styles challenged everyone involved and the end result is terrific.

Contemporary Classical:  CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN COMPOSERS – Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO Resound Label)

Riccardo Muti leads the CSO in performances of works by Philip Glass, Jessie Montgomery and Max Raimi. Montgomery’s Hymn for Everyone opens the album. That is followed by Three Lisel Mutter Settings by Raimi and closes with Symphony No. 11 by Glass.

Hymn for Everyone and Three Lisel Mueller Settings were both commissioned by Muti. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong is the soloist for Raimi’s song cycle. When the CSO first performed Glass’s symphony in 2022 it was the first-ever performance of any of his symphonies by the orchestra. 

Jazz:  A TIME TO REMEMBER – Elina Duni (ECM Records)

If you ike your music beautiful and unconvenontial at the same time, you’ll want to check out this album that features the Swiss-Albanian jazz vocalist joined by guitarist Rob Luft, Flugelhorn musicians Matthieu Michel and percussionist/pianist Fred Thomas.

There are several original songs amongst the 12 tracks on A Time to Remember. There are a few traditional songs. Plus there are covers of songs by Abbey Lincoln, Sammy Fain and Stephen Sondheim.

All are beautifully sung and arranged. The simplicity with which each song reveals itself is amazing.

Jazz:  ANYONE IS BETTER THAN HERE – Jeremy Dutton

My first exposure to this incredible drummer was seeing him as part of Vijay Iyer’s group at a 2019 concert. Simply put, I was blown away. Clearly others have been two given the artists he has assembled for his debut album: trumpeter Ambrose Akiknmusire, bassists Matt Brewer and Daryl Johns, guitarist Mike Moreno, vibraphonist Joel Ross and saxophonist Ben Wendell.

Dutton composed the 12 tracks on this terrific album which further cements my belief that he’s a force to be reckoned with. I strongly recommend Anyone Is Better Than Here.

Jazz: WITH PETER BRADLEY – Javon Jackson (Solid Jackson Records)

This is the soundtrack for the documentary of the same name about abstract artist Peter Bradley. Jackson, who plays saxophone, composed the score for Alex Rappoport’s 2023 film about the abstract artist who continues to paint every day even though he hasn’t had a major show in over 40 years.

The genius of what Jackson has done with this moving score is offer tributes to many of the jazz artists who inspired Bradley: Art Blakey, John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Jackson is joined on the album by trumpeter Greg glassman, drummers Charles Goold and McClenty Hunter, pianist Jeremy Manasia and bassist David Williams.

Jazz: THE OMNICHORD REAL BOOK – Meshell Ndegeocello (Blue Note Records)

This isn’t strictly speaking a jazz album, but the depth of jazz influences on it makes it worthy of attention from jazz fans. Ndegeocello first gained prominence with her 1993 album Plantation Lullabies which featured the hit song If That’s your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night). 

Since then her work has explored a variety of styles and has always been interesting. This album is no exception. As is the impressive list of guest artists who join for the 18 original songs on The Omnichord Real Book: Ambrose Akinmusire, Jason Moran, Jeff Parker, Julius Rodriguez, Joel Ross and more.

Fans of her previous work will like this as will those who don’t know her previous work.

Jazz:  LEROY WALKS! – The Leroy Vinnegar Sextet  (Craft Recordings)

I wasn’t familiar with bassist Leroy Vinnegar until I heard this album and now I can’t stop playing it. Leroy Walks! Was originally released in 1957 and was his debut album. From the opening walking bass line of the album, you know you’re in for some great music.

The seven tracks are: Walk On, Would You Like to Take A Walk, On the Sunny Side of the Street, Walkin’, Walkin’ My Baby Back Home, I’ll Walk Alone and Walkin’ By the River. Do you see a theme there?

MUSICAL THEATER: OTHER LIVES: THE STORY SONGS OF MICHAEL COLBY (Jay Records)

Lyricist Michael Colby’s work was celebrated in a benefit revue off-Broadway at Urban Stages in New York last December. This is the cast album of that show.

The album features 22 songs with music written by an array of composers including Andrea Colby, Ned Paul Ginsberg, Larry Hochman, Paul Katz, Peter Millrose, Gerald Jay Markoe, Alex Rybeck, Steven Silverstein, Joseph Thalken and Herman Yabaloff.

The cast of 22 includes Klea Blackhurst, Steven Bogardus, Sean McDermott and more. Michael Lavine is the music director.

Other Lives is a great way to get introduced to Colby’s work (and some composers you may not be familiar with).

That’s our list of New In Music This Week: June 16th. What are you listening to? Let us know.

Enjoy the weekend and enjoy the music.

Main Photo: Art from Jeremy Dutton’s “Anyone Is Better Than Here”

The post New In Music This Week: June 16th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The end result will be six different programs (one for each suite). Which of the new works by these composers are included in each performance of Fragments will only be revealed to the public after the performance. The project is directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer.

The world premiere of Fragments 1 and 2 took place in Toronto in January. Weilerstein gives the US premiere of Fragments 1 at UC Santa Barbara on Friday, March 10th. On Sunday, March 12th she will also perform Fragments 1 at Irvine Barclay Theatre. She follows that with a performance on Tuesday, March 14th at The Baker-Baum Concert Hall in La Jolla. The New York premiere will take place on April 1st at Carnegie Hall.

Weilerstein’s 2020 recording of the Bach Cello Suites received great reviews. It was also her first recording of this essential work for cellists.

But for now, she’s focused on Fragments.

I spoke with Weilerstein last week. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

The concept of Fragments allows you as an artist to keep a centuries old work old alive. By combining it with newer composers you get to introduce, perhaps, a whole new audience to both something old and something new simultaneously. Was that part of the impetus for this? 

Juxtaposing the familiar with the new, for sure it was part of it. But the way in which we’re doing it is a bit different. All six of Bach’s suites are integrated into the project and 27 new pieces are integrated into the complete project. I didn’t want this to feel like a plus project. There’s actually far more new music than there is Bach – even in terms of timing. So I asked each composer to write 10 minutes of music and two or three fragments that could stand alone.

I was very upfront with every composer saying that this is not going to be used in a conventional way. These are not going to be played in order. They’re going to be interspersed with other works of music as well as the movements of the Bach. There’s not a single new piece that’s played in the order that it was written and there’s not a single Bach suite in this project that is played in its written order. There are six programs I’ve constructed to make musical sense as an entirely original work of art. 

That seems a bit like a Tetris game. You had 27 composers and they each had three fragments, you’re looking at up to 81 different pieces of music that you could place anywhere you wanted. What was the process of figuring out the right match? It seems like at any different time you might have put a different set of pieces together. 

There are certain rules, let’s say, to the game if we’re going to use the Tetris analogy. I knew I was going to construct six programs. The timing was very strict that each one was going to be one hour. Each one had to have a complete Bach Suite in it. Some composers wrote two fragments actually and the timing worked out just fine. Some wrote three. There are a few who wrote one and it was just a longer fragment, but it still worked out just fine.

There’s no Bach movement that’s going to be next to another Bach movement. It’s all going to be interspersed with other music – even though the complete thing will be there. These are my parameters also in constructing the programs. I did a lot of singing and juxtaposing different harmonic languages with another. Sometimes I really wanted to completely contrast the program.

I also had to take myself outside of it. What would I want as an audience member? Has it been too much kind of reflective music? Is it time now for complete shock? Is it time for something to be a continuation of something else or here’s a kind of a mirror image of something that came before it. It was really fun to play with all of that. 

Did you do this from looking at scores or did you have recorded samples so that you could hear what each piece sounded like?

I had to learn the pieces first and internalize them and then I could put the programs together. I couldn’t do it without that. I needed to hear them and kind of feel them in my fingers as well. 

Were these fragments meant to be inspired by the cello suites or could they be completely disassociated?

Several the composers asked me that actually. So it’s a very astute question. My answer always was the only absolute parameter are the timings. If the spirit moves you to be inspired by a Bach suite, by all means go for it. I got back a very wide variety of pieces; some were very obvious direct responses to something that they had heard. Some had absolutely zero to do with Bach at all. And everything in between.

Is there a dialog that you are creating not just with the Bach, but amongst these contemporary composers? 

I think so. There are certain pieces that support others, I think, or that are continuations of what other pieces say. Sometimes I’m creating a real break and a real contrast. Like the way you would hear a like a familiar piece that has a very kind of slash and burn movement followed by something very ethereal. 

I asked everybody to do the same thing and they’re all contemporary classical composers. I wasn’t interested in fusion or in any sort of crossover. I wanted to really celebrate what our art form does really well. Yet within that framework there’s so much variety. Every piece is so different. There’s not a single piece that’s remotely like another one.

That’s another reason for the no programs rule. I just wanted people to experience this music in a primal and hypnotic way. Kind of going back to what made us fall in love with music in the first place; how it how it reaches you without all this kind of context around it. 

In Toronto you played Fragments One and Two. Right now those are the only two on your schedule. What is the plan to roll out the remaining Fragments? 

One, two, three and four will be available next season. Then five and six will be added to that for the 24/25 [season]. So the whole thing will be out for the world to see by that point.

How has your relationship with Bach’s Cello Suites evolved over time as you’ve matured as a person and as a performer?

I’ve been playing the Bach suites for as long as I can remember. The first Bach Prelude, I could play the notes before I could really properly play the cello. As I got older I would kind of play one suite in public. But I thought this was something I was going to do when I was much, much older. I thought I was going to be 75 and have all of this, quote unquote, wisdom, which I couldn’t possibly have as a young, more middle-aged person. 

I started playing them in public in the five years leading up to the recording. I also started doing the Bach marathons – the complete suites in public. I realized that I was never going to be satisfied with the way I was playing them. This was something I had to accept or just not play them at all. I was 37 when I recorded them. It was a snapshot in time. When I’m 50, I’m going to do it again. It’s going to be different and that’s a good thing. 

There’s something about the power of this music that compels audiences to listen to it regularly and attend the marathons you’ve talked about. What is it about Bach’s Cello Suites? 

That’s the mystery, isn’t it? It’s also one of the reasons why they are such a challenge and joy at the same time to play. There is something that is untouchable about the music in the sense that it is very hard to describe. People describe being just viscerally touched by the music. They can’t necessarily tell you why in words, but it’s just something that is so perfect intellectually and yet so naked emotionally. You don’t have to come to the Bach suites with any prior knowledge to be moved by them and that’s just really remarkable. 

What’s remarkable about being on the performance side of it and being the musician who’s getting to express all of that beautiful music? 

This is one of the most amazing experiences. I feel very lucky because I’ve been able to play the complete Bach suites so many times now in concert. The experience of going through that music, which take me about two and a half hours, I just feel completely wrung out intellectually, emotionally, physically by all of it. It’s deeply satisfying to go to all of those places with the suites.

You want the audience to listen and be present with their hearts, their minds and their ears when they experience Fragments. That’s the antithesis of the way we live our very distracted lives right now. What are the challenges that you see, or maybe saw in Toronto, in getting an audience instantly on board with this concept? When were you aware that true listening had taken them over? 

I felt that people were there right away. I’m sure people walked in skeptical. It’s a new concept. I felt that kind of the fantastic tension when a performance is really reaching a kind of universal place. I felt that immediately. In speaking to some people who were very experienced classical listeners, they said it took them about 15 minutes to let go of the desire to want to know exactly who they were hearing. Once they consciously let go they had a totally different experience.

Talking to people who are not experienced classical music listeners, they had absolutely zero issue with this at all. Which gives me a lot of hope. The audience was quite young. Younger than usual. There was a 19-year-old guy who brought his friends with him. They’re not accustomed to classical music concerts at all, but they somehow found themselves there. They were very positive about the concert. They said the staging was super interesting and they were saying some nice things about it. And they said, “But where do they hide the microphones?” This was my favorite comment of the evening. Yes, a cello really can make all of those sounds. It was a completely sincere, well-meaning question. That made my night.

The composers who have contributed new works to FRAGMENTS are: Andy Akiho, Courtney Bryan, Chen Yi, Alan Fletcher, Gabriela Lena Frank, Osvaldo Golijov, Joseph Hallman, Gabriel Kahane, Daniel Kidane, Thomas Larcher, Tania Leon, Allison Loggins-Hull, Missy Mazzoli, Gerard McBurney, Jessie Montgomery, Reinaldo Moya, Jeffrey Mumford, Matthias Pintscher, Gity Razaz, Gili Schwarzman, Caroline Shaw, Carlos Simon, Gabriela Smith, Ana Sokolović, Joan Tower, Mathilde Wantenaar and Paul Wiancko

To see when Alisa Weilerstein and Fragments might be in your city, please go here.

Main Photo: Alisa Weilerstein in the world premiere performance of Fragments in Toronto in January 2023 (Photo by Lisa Sakulensky/Courtesy 21C Media Group)

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She just made her directorial debut with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Close Quarters series episode #12 (Beyond the Horizon – available for streaming here).

This Saturday she will join fellow opera singers Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra in a streaming concert live from the Royal Opera of Versailles in France as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s Met Stars Live in Concert series. All three performed together in the 2017-2018 Met Opera production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

In June she stars in Desert In which was created for her by director James Darrah, composer Ellen Reid and writer Christopher Oscar Peña and includes compositions by Reid, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly and more.

Leonard is known for singing the title role in Muhly’s Marnie; Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and Miranda in Thomas Adés’ The Tempest at the Met. She has performed in opera houses around the world since launching her career in 2007.

What better time to talk to Leonard about her new projects and the state of the arts in a post-pandemic world. What follows are excerpts from last week’s Zoom interview that have been edited for length and clarity.

I know you’re a big Ella Fitzgerald fan. Something she said sounds to me like a description of your career: “A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside. I’m going to try to find out the new ideas before others do.”

I am a huge fan. I couldn’t love that more. From the very beginning my hope was always to bring an experience to the audience. To spend a period of time experiencing something they may have never experienced. That’s all I’ve wanted.

I think anybody involved in the opera business knows how far behind we are in general. Even on days when I think I’ve come up with a new idea, it might be new to the opera world, but it’s not new to the world in general.

Is directing part of your path to realizing that goal? What prompted you to take on this project with LA Chamber Orchestra?

Mainly because it was James Darrah who asked me. There are a few people in this business who say you should take this risk and I’ll follow them. You meet people along the way who see things the way you do and understand what you want to do and see your vision. James is one of them. I’ll follow him blindly into fire. I was terrified and I said yes.

Isn’t that where the most rewarding experiences come from, jumping in head first into the unknown?

With this piece it’s sort of funny. I said once a week to James, “I don’t feel like I’m a director. I don’t feel like I’m directing anything.” And he said, “Welcome to the world of being a director.” I just remember we had a first initial meeting and this is what I’d love to see happen with music and storytelling.

I was very affected by Fantasia when I was a child. Most people, when you talk about classical music, they talk about Bugs Bunny or a car commercial or something tied to a visual. We’re super visual people. The better the visuals and music tell the story in tandem, the more successful we can be. That was my idea for this project.

Jessie Montgomery, who curated your episode, told me she was very excited to see what an opera singer would do with music that at its most fundamental level is based in improvisation. How did your training in the rigors of opera mesh with creating a visual style for these compositions?

For me the idea of improvisation in that sense is not terrifying. If you said go sing with a jazz band and improvise I could, but it wouldn’t be particularly good. Improvisation comes from knowing your craft so well that you can forget it. I had a dance teacher who said you have to practice until you forget it so that your brain doesn’t have to tell your body what to do. When I know a piece I don’t have to tell myself what to do.

Streaming works like Close Quarters and the upcoming Desert In are redefining how classical music and opera is presented to the world. What role do you see works like this playing in the future?

I think and I hope that most of the companies that have put so much time and resources and their learning curve into this little box will hold onto it moving forward because they see how valuable this is. To come up to speed is great – we should be here already. The next step is to keep moving forward and keeping find out the best way to bring what we do to a wider audience and inspire them to want new content.

In addition to catching up with the power of technology, is there any one thing that you think the classical music/opera world has learned and perhaps the world at large during this pandemic?

Contrary to popular notions that artists had a year off, most artists were hustling like crazy just to pay grocery bills. That was one major thing that everybody has been dealing with the entire time. I started teaching as soon as I could very soon after the pandemic started because I knew we were going nowhere fast.

I cancelled all my subscriptions except Netflix. I knew we’d need it.

This should be a huge awakening to people who look at movies and art about how valuable that art and those artists are because this is what got you through the pandemic. Imagine if none of this existed and you had 10 VHS tapes for the whole year and a half of the pandemic. You’d be nuts.

As soon as the pandemic started the first people out of a job were artists. That’s not to say, “Oh woe is us.” I still lead a very privileged life as many of us do. But when it comes to a business and trying to see the business grow and be more sustainable for those involved, it means things have to change.

It’s not going to be easy. Broadway is coming back. Classical music is coming back. It’s back, but everybody working in that building is not doing better. They might be performing, but they’re still struggling and maybe even more than they were before the pandemic. There’s so much to do.

What kind of change do you think will be necessary? And what changes do you want to make moving forward in your career?

It’s not about complaining, it’s about having a conversation 100 times with as many people as you can find. We’re all in that boat right now trying to figure out how to make this sustainable for those people in it. I don’t know how to fix it, but I do think about it a lot. All these things are really interesting moving forward in the arts.

For me it’s about working on projects that scare me like LA Chamber Orchestra or doing a crazy opera film like Desert In. I’d love to do movies and bring my talents into another medium. By doing so bringing people from that medium to say, “Oh, she does opera, let’s go see an opera.” Or “Who is this person? Let’s see Marriage of Figaro. Oh, she can be a boy, too, that’s interesting.”

We must remember how integral and how important what we do is because it brings a lot of peace, joy and cathartic moments. I have lots of hope.

Photo: Isabel Leonard in Desert In (Photo by Michael Elias Thomas/Courtesy Boston Lyric Opera)

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Our top pick, previewed yesterday, is a reading of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart on Saturday. We also have some great jazz music for you (both traditional vocals and a very contemporary performance), a London production of Chekhov that earned rave reviews, a tribute to two of Broadway’s best songwriters, chamber music and a contortionist. After all, it’s Mother’s Day weekend. Don’t all mothers just love contortionists?

Here are the Top 10 Best Bets: May 7th – May 10th

*TOP PICK* PLAY READING: The Normal Heart – ONE Archives Foundation – May 8th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT

We previewed this event yesterday as out Top Pick, but here are the pertinent details:

Director Paris Barclay has assembled Sterling K. Brown, Laverne Cox, Jeremy Pope, Vincent Rodriguez III, Guillermo Díaz, Jake Borelli, Ryan O’Connell, Daniel Newman, Jay Hayden and Danielle Savre for a virtual reading of Larry Kramer’s play.

The reading will be introduced by Martin Sheen.

There will be just this one live performance of The Normal Heart. It will not be available for viewing afterwards. There will be a Q&A with the cast and Barclay following the reading. Tickets begin at $10 for students, $20 for general admission.

PLAY READING: Rachel – Roundabout Theatre Company’s Refocus Project – Now – May 7th

Angelina Weld Grimké’s 1916 play Rachel, is the second play in the Refocus Project from Roundabout Theatre Company. Their project puts emphasis on plays by Black playwrights from the 20th century that didn’t get enough attention or faded into footnotes of history in an effort to bring greater awareness to these works.

Rachel tells the story of a Black woman who, upon learning some long-ago buried secrets about her family, has to rethink being a Black parent and bringing children into the world.

Miranda Haymon directs Sekai Abení, Alexander Bello, E. Faye Butler, Stephanie Everett, Paige Gilbert, Brandon Gill, Toney Goins, Abigail Jean-Baptiste and Zani Jones Mbayise.

The reading is free, but registration is required.

JAZZ: Joel Ross & Immanuel Wilkins – Village Vanguard – May 7th – May 9th

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more compelling pairing of jazz musicians than vibraphonist Joel Ross and alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins.

The two have been collaborating for quite some time. Wilkins is a member of Ross’ Good Vibes quintet.

Nate Chinen, in a report for NPR, described a 2018 concert in which Ross performed with drummer Makaya McCraven this way. “Ross took one solo that provoked the sort of raucous hollers you’d sooner expect in a basketball arena. Again, this was a vibraphone solo.“

Wilkins album, Omega, was declared the Best Jazz Album of 2020 by Giovanni Russonello of the New York Times.

I spoke to Wilkins last year about the album and his music. You can read that interview here. And if you’re a fan, Jason Moran, who produced the album, told me that this music was “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Tickets for this concert are $10.

PLAY: Uncle Vanya – PBS Great Performances – May 7th check local listings

Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya is performed by a cast headed by Richard Armitrage and Toby Jones. Conor McPherson adapted the play for this production which played at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London and was directed by Ian Rickson.

Arifa Akbar, writing in her five-star review for The Guardian, said of the production:

“Ian Rickson’s exquisite production is full of energy despite the play’s prevailing ennui. It does not radically reinvent or revolutionise Chekov’s 19th-century story. It returns us to the great, mournful spirit of Chekhov’s tale about unrequited love, ageing and disappointment in middle-age, while giving it a sleeker, modern beat.

“McPherson’s script has a stripped, vivid simplicity which quickens the pace of the drama, and despite its contemporary language – Vanya swears and uses such terms as “wanging on” – it does not grate or take away from the melancholic poetry.”

CHAMBER MUSIC: Beyond the Horizon – LA Chamber Orchestra – Premieres May 7th – 9:30 PM ET/6:30 PM PT

This is the 12th episode in LACO’s Close Quarters series and definitely one of its most intriguing. Jessie Montgomery, the composer who curated the previous episode, curates this episode as well. She is joined by her fellow alums from Juilliard, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (who directs) and music producer Nadia Sirota.

The program features Alvin Singleton’s Be Natural (a pun any music major will understand); Mazz Swift’s The End of All That Is Holy, The Beginning of All That is Good and Montgomery’s Break Away.

The performance portion of Beyond the Horizon is conducted by Christopher Rountree of Wild Up! Visual artist Yee Eun Nam contributes to the film as does art director James Darrah.

There is no charge to watch Beyond the Horizon.

CHAMBER MUSIC: MusiKaravan: A Classical Road Trip with Delerium Musicum – The Wallis Sorting Room Sessions – May 7th – May 9th

Music by Johannes Brahms, Charlie Chaplin, Frederic Chopin, Vittorio Monti, Sergei Prokofiev, Giacomo Puccini and Dmitri Shostakovich will be performed by Delerium Musicum founding violinists Étienne Gara and YuEun Kim. They will be joined for two pieces by bassist Ryan Baird.

The full ensemble of musicians that make up Delerium Musicum will join for one of these pieces? Which one will it be? There is only one way to find out.

This concert is part of The Sorting Room Sessions at The Wallis.

Tickets are $20 and will allow for streaming for 48 hours

MOTHER’S DAY OFFERINGS: MOMentum Place and A Catalina Tribute to Mothers – May 8th

Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum is celebrating Mother’s Day with MOMentum Place, a show featuring aerial artists, circus performers, dancers and musicians. The line-up includes circus artist Elena Brocade; contortionist and acrobat Georgia Bryan, aerialist and stilt dancer Jena Carpenter of Dream World Cirque, ventriloquist Karl Herlinger, hand balancer Tyler Jacobson, stilt walker and acrobat Aaron Lyon, aerialist Kate Minwegen, cyr wheeler Sarah Moser and Cirque du Soleil alum Eric Newton, plus Dance Dimensions Kids and Focus Fish Kids. The show was curated by aerlist/dancer Lexi Pearl. Tickets are $35.

Catalina Jazz Club is holding A Catalina Tribute to Mothers at 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM PT. Headlining the concert are singers Jack Jones, Freda Payne and Tierney Sutton. Vocalist Barbara Morrison is a special guest. Also performing are  Kristina Aglinz, Suren Arustamyan, Lynne Fiddmont, Andy Langham, Annie Reiner, Dayren Santamaria, Tyrone Mr. Superfantastic and more. Dave Damiani is the host. The show is free, however donations to help keep the doors open at Catalina Jazz Club are welcomed and encouraged.

JAZZ: Love in Exile – The Phillips Collection – May 9th – 4:00 PM ET/1:00 PM PT

There is no set program for this performance by pianist/composer Vijay Iyer, vocalist Arooj Aftab and bassist Shazad Ismaily. The website says Love in Exile performs as one continuous hour-long set.

Having long been a fan of Iyer, spending an hour wherever he and his fellow musicians wants to go sounds like pure heaven to me.

Iyer’s most recent album, Uneasy, was released in April on ECM Records and finds him performing with double bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. It’s a great album. You should definitely check it out.

There is no charge to watch this concert, but registration is required. Once Love in Exile debuts, you’ll have 7 days to watch the performance as often as you’d like.

DANCE: Past, Present, Future – ALL ARTS – May 9th – May 11th

ALL ARTS, part of New York’s PBS stations, is holding an three-night on-line dance festival beginning on Sunday.

If We Were a Love Song is first up at 8:00 PM ET on Sunday. Nina Simone’s music accompanies this work conceived by choreographer Kyle Abraham who is collaborating with filmmaker Dehanza Rogers.

Dancers (Slightly Out of Shape) airs on Monday at 8:00 PM ET. This is part documentary/part dance featuring choreographer Pam Tanowitz as she and her company resume rehearsals last year during the Covid crisis. It leads to excerpts from Every Moment Alters which is set to the music of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw.

One + One Make Three closes out the festival on Tuesday at 8:00 PM ET. This film showcases the work of Kinetic Light, an ensemble featuring disabled performers. This is also part documentary/part dance made by director Katherine Helen Fisher.

All three films will be accompanied by ASL and Open Captions for the hearing impaired.

BROADWAY: Broadway Close Up: Kander and Ebb – Kaufman Music Center – May 10th – 7:00 PM ET/4:00 PM PT

You know the work of John Kander and Fred Ebb: Cabaret, Chicago, Flora the Red Menace, Kiss of the Spider Woman, New York New York, The Scottsboro Boys and Woman of the Year.

Their work will be explored, discussed and performed with host Sean Hartley.

He’s joined by Tony Award-winner Karen Ziemba (Contact) who appeared in two musicals by the duo: Curtains and Steel Pier. The latter was written specifically for her.

Any fan of Kander and Ebb will want to purchase a ticket for this show. Tickets are $15

Those are our Top Ten Best Bets: May 7th – May 10th (even if we cheated a little bit by having two options listed together). But there are a few reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera has their own view of mothers with their theme of Happy Mother’s Day featuring Berg’s Wozzeck on Friday; Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on Saturday and Handel’s Agrippina on Sunday.

Puccini returns for the start of National Council Auditions Alumni Week with a 1981-1982 season production of La Bohème. We’ll have all the details for you on Monday.

LA Opera’s Signature Recital Series continues with the addition of a recital by the brilliant soprano Christine Goerke.

One rumor to pass along to you: word has it Alan Cumming will be Jim Caruso’s guest on Monday’s Pajama Cast Party.

That completes all our selections of Best Bets: May 7th – May 10th. I hope all of you who are mothers have a terrific weekend. For those of you celebrating with your moms, I hope we’ve given you plenty of options to consider.

Have a great weekend! Enjoy the culture!

Photo: Larry Kramer (Photo by David Shankbone/Courtesy David Shankbone)

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Indirectly celebrating this natal day are multiple options that fall under the category of a line from Hamlet, “The play’s the thing.” Beyond the Shakespeare options are five other plays.

If you want funky jazz, contemporary classical music, operas from Europe or modern dance, I’ve got that for you as well. They’re all so good, I can’t make one of them the top pick.

In As You Like It, these famous words are said, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” So in this spirit of this weekend’s Academy Awards, the nominees for great players in Best Bets: April 23rd – April 26th are:

THEATER: Neat – Manhattan Theatre Club – Now – April 25th

Charlayne Woodard’s one-person show Neat opened at New York City Center in a Manhattan Theatre Club production in 1997.

Lawrence Van Gelder, writing for the New York Times, said of Woodard’s play, “Ms. Woodard sings, she dances, but most of all she tells good stories, bringing them to life in ways that are poignant.”

Woodard revisits the work in this prevention as part of MTC’s Curtain Call series. The great thing is you can see this wonderful play and performance for free. All you have to do is register. But act quickly, the run ends on Sunday, April 25th.

DANCE: Digital Program 5 – San Francisco Ballet – Now – May 12th

Three archival performances make up this program from San Francisco Ballet. They include 7 for Eight from 2016 and Anima Animus and Snowblind from 2018.

Helgi Tomasson is the creator of 7 for Eight which is set to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. David Dawson is the choreographer of Anima Animus which is set to music by Ezio Bosso. Cathy Marston is the choreographer of Snowblind which uses music by Amy Beach, Philip Feeney, Arthur Foote, and Arvo Pärt.

Tickets are $29 and allow for 72 hours of access to the program.

PLAY READING: Two Sisters and a Piano – New Normal Rep – Now – May 23rd ART IN AN EMAIL

Playwright Nilo Cruz is best-known for his Pulitzer Prize winning play Anna in the Tropics from 2002. Three years prior to that success he premiered Two Sisters and a Piano.

The play tells the story of two sisters under house arrest in Cuba in 1991. One sister is an author and the lieutenant keeping track of their case has fallen in love with her. The other is a pianist who finds her piano tuner falling head over heels for his client.

Cruz has directed a new reading of Two Sisters and a Piano with Jimmy Smits (Anna in the Tropics); Florencia Lozano (Rinse, Repeat), Gary Perez and Daphne Rubin-Vega (both of whom appeared in Two Sisters and a Piano at The Public Theater.)

In A.D. Amorosi‘s review of this reading for Variety, he says, “Cruz’s playful poetic language, even at its most harshly politicized, and his easy direction allow his actors a delicious freedom. Even when its characters are not free, enclosed in one cramped apartment with nothing but mangoes, rice and the occasional rum shot (and despite the virtual limitations of a laptop’s viewing screen), Two Sisters and a Piano is as open as a Havana landscape, with all of its flavors, scents and sensory overloads at full tilt.”

Tickets are $25 with $10 tickets available for students.

PLAY: The Royale – Private Reels: From the LCT Archives on Broadway on Demand – Now – May 16th

Real life boxer Jack Jackson (the first African-American world heavyweight champion) serves as the inspiration for the story of Jay “The Sport” Jackson in Marco Ramirez’s 2016 play The Royale. (He was also the inspiration for The Great White Hope).

The story is told in six rounds.

Rachel Chavkin, Tony Award-winner for Hadestown, directed this production. Starring are McKinley Belcher III (the 2020 revival of A Soldier’s Play), Khris Davis (Sweat), Montego Glover (Tony nominee for Memphis), John Lavelle (Catch-22) and Clarke Peters (Five Guys Named Moe).

As Ben Brantley said in his rave New York Times review, “…the great subject of The Royale, which has been given such original and graceful theatrical form, is the selfish single-mindedness required of champions, and the repercussions such a focus has when it’s exercised by a black man in a white man’s world.” 

There is no charge to watch The Royale, but you will have to register with Broadway on Demand.

THEATER: An Iliad – A Noise Within – Now – May 16th

Easily one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I’ve had seeing a play was when I attended Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson’s An Iliad at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. It’s a powerful work that is inspired by Homer’s Iliad.

This play, specifically called An Iliad because it isn’t the Iliad, calls for just one actor and a cellist and that actor has to be completely on top of his/her game.

A Noise Within is offering streaming performances of An Iliad with co-founder Geoff Elliott and actress Deborah Strang alternating performances. Joining them as both composer and cellist is Karen Hall. Julia Rodriguez-Elliott directs.

The link in the title will take you to the website so you can see which actor is performing in each performance. Tickets, which are $25 for an individual and $40 for a family, must be reserved a minimum of two hours before each performance.

To see what Denis O’Hare had to say about the show, check out my 2014 interview with him here.

OPERA: Jules Massenet’s Manon – Wiener Staatsoper – April 22nd – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM

Conducted by Frédéric Chaslin; starring Nina Machaidze, Juan Diego Flórez and Adrian Eröd. This Andrei Serban production is from 2019.

Massenet’s opera was composed in 1883 and had its world premiere in January of 1884 in Paris. The libretto is by  Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille.

They based the opera on the 1731 Abbé Prévost novel, L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut.

A young woman from a small town has an intense desire to lavish herself with all the riches and pleasures life has to offer her. But life doesn’t always work out the way we want. Sounds like a story that could be written today.

This is the first of Vienna State Opera’s productions I’ve included in our listings. Very much like the Metropolitan Opera, they offer a different production each day. There is no charge to watch the productions, but you do need to register on their website. Each production will be available for 24 hours.

MUSICAL: A Letter to Harvey Milk – Now – April 25th

The creators of this musical, Jerry James, Laura I. Kramer, Ellen M. Schwartz and Cheryl Stern were inspired by a short story of the same name by Lesléa Newman. A Letter to Harvey Milk opened off-Broadway in 2018 at the Acorn Theatre in New York.

The setting is San Francisco in the mid 1980s. Harry, a kosher butcher who has retired and is also a widower, is given an assignment to write a letter to someone who is dead. He chooses California politician Harvey Milk – the first openly gay politician elected in California who was later assassinated by Dan White in 1978. But why?

Members of the original cast has reunited for this streaming production. They include Adam Heller, Julia Knitel, Cheryl Stern who are joined by Michael Bartoli, Jeremy Greenbaum, Aury Krebs and Ravi Roth. Evan Pappas directs.

Tickets range from $10 – $50 with proceeds going to The Actors Fund and HIAS. All tickets purchased will allow viewing of the musical through Sunday, April 25th at 11:59 PM EDT/8:59 PDT.

SHAKESPEARE: Shakespeare Sonnet Slam – Gingold Theatrical Group – April 23rd – 6:00 PM EDT/3:00 PM PDT

Happy Birthday William Shakespeare. You don’t look a day over 450. The Gingold Theatrical Group is celebrating by holding a virtual open mic where Shakespeare’s sonnets or other material based on or inspired by the Sonnets will be performed. Everyone is invited to participate and you have three minutes to give it your all.

Joining in this celebration are Stephen Brown-Fried, Robert Cuccioli, Tyne Daly, George Dvorsky, Melissa Errico, Alison Fraser, Tom Hewitt, Daniel Jenkins, John-Andrew Morrison, Patrick Page, Maryann Plunkett, Tonya Pinkins, Laila Robins, Jay O. Sanders, Renee Taylor, Jon Patrick Walker and more.

You’ll have to come up with your own take on the Sonnets, but this is a free party! You can find the Shakespeare Sonnet Slam on Gingold Theatrical Group’s Facebook page.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC: Sonic Shift – Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra – Premieres April 23rd at 9:30 PM EDT/6:30 PM PDT

Composer Jessie Montgomery has curated this new episode of LA Chamber Orchestra’s Close Quarters series. On the program are works by composers Marcos Balter, Anna Meredith and Alyssa Weinberg. Each work explores the progression from acoustic music to electronic and electro-acoustic music with an emphasis on the wind section.

Will Kim provides the visuals that accompany the performance which is lead by Christopher Rountree of Wild Up! Nadia Sirota is the music producer.

This is the first of two Close Quarters episodes curated by Montgomery. I recently interviewed her about working with LACO. You can read that interview here.

There’s no charge to watch this performance. Donations are encouraged.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Neave Trio – Asheville Chamber Music Series – April 23rd – April 25th – Art in an EMAIL

Pianist Eri Nakamura, cellist Mikhail Veselov and violinist Anna Williams are the members in Neave Trio. Following on the heels of their 2019 album Her Voice, which featured female composers, their concert this weekend as part of the Asheville Chamber Music Series will also showcase female composers.

On the program is the Trio No. 1, Op. 33 by Louise Farrench; Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio and Cécile Chaminade’s Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 11.

Perhaps none of these composers is familiar to you. They aren’t to me. But Neave Trio’s passion for this lesser-known music makes this concert utterly compelling.

There are three performances: Friday, April 23rd at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT; Saturday at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT and Sunday at 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT.

You can watch this concert for free, but donations are encouraged.

JAZZ: Sun Ra Arkestra – SFJAZZ – April 23rd – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

The name Herman Poole Blount probably doesn’t mean anything to you. But if told that was the birth name of Le Sony’r Ra who would later become known as Sun Ra, you might have a better idea who he was.

Experimental, free and avant-garde jazz was his specialty. It was always performed best by the Sun Ra Arkestra.

After Sun Ra’s death in 1993, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen starting leading the ensemble. As he does in this concert at SFJAZZ from 2017.

To get a sense of what might be in store for you in this Fridays at Five concert, here are some of the songs being performed: Space Loneliness, Saturn, Angels and Demons at Play and Space is the Place. It’s going to be trippy.

And you can take that trip for $5 (which offers one full month of digital membership or $60 (which includes a one year digital membership.)

There is an encore showing on April 24th at 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT.

PLAY: Romeo and Juliet – Great Performances on PBS – April 23rd – Check Local Listings

You don’t expect just some stand-up sonnets for Shakespeare’s birthday, do you? Of course not. Let’s throw in some tragedy. As in the tragic love story of them all – Romeo and Juliet.

The National Theatre created this film which maneuvers its way from rehearsal into and around the Lyttleton Theatre. The cast are stuck in a theater that has shut down and act out the story of the Capulets and the Montagues.

Starring as the title characters are Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley. The cast also includes Fisayo Akinade, Ella Dacres, Deborah Findlay, Tamsin Greig, Ellis Howard, Lloyd Hutchinson, David Judge, Adrian Lester, Lucian Msamati, Alex Mugnaioni, Shubham Saraf and Colin Tierney. Simon Godwin is the director.

As with any show on PBS, I’d advise checking your local listings for exact airdate and time in your part of the country.

OPERA: Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte – Wiener Staatsoper – April 24th – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT

Conducted by Adam Fischer; starring Benjamin Bruns, Olga Bezsmertna, Íride Martínez, Markus Werba and Annika Gerhards. This Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier production is from 2015.

Mozart’s opera premiered in September 1791 in Vienna a mere two months before the composer died. It features a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder.

Prince Tamino is asked by the Queen of the Night to free her daughter Pamina from Sarastro. Tamino, however, is impressed with Sarastro and the way his community lives in the world and wants to be a part of it. Both alone and together Tamino and Pamina endure multiple tests. If they succeed, what will happen to them? To the Queen of the Night?

MONOLOGUES: Whispers International – April 24th – 2:00 PM EDT/11:00 AM PDT

As you know, there was a massive blast in Lebanon on August 4th of last year. Almost 200 people were killed and over 6,000 people were injured.

Whispers International was created to raise money for the victims and to help in the rebuilding of the area around the blast site.

British playwrights Geraldine Breenna, Mike Elliston, Kim Hardy, Angela Harvey, John Jesper and Kate Webster have made their writing available to a company of Lebanese actors to perform.

Those actors are Nadine Labaki, Georges Khabbaz, Nada Abou Farhat, Talal El Jurdi, Bernadette Houdeib, Rita Hayek, Badih Abou Chacra, Dory Al-Samarany, Bshara Atallah, Sany Abdul Baki, Josyane Boulos, Agatha Ezzedine and Hagop Der Ghougassian 

Tickets are £13.52 which at press time equals approximately $18.75.

OPERA: Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel – Weiner Staatsoper – April 25th – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT

Conducted by Christian Thielemann; starring Ileana Tosca, Daniela Sindram, Adrian Eröd, Janina Baechle, Michaela Schuster, Annika Gerhards

The Grimm brother’s fairly tale about a brother and sister who are lured to a house with sweets and candies only to find a witch who wants to eat the duo is the basis for this opera that had its debut in 1893 in Weimar. Richard Strauss conducted the premiere. A second production the next year in Hamburg was conducted by Gustav Mahler. Adelheid Wette, Humpderdink’s sister, wrote the libretto.

Hansel and Gretel has the distinction of finding much of its popularity not just through opera houses, but on the radio. It was the first opera broadcast on the radio in Europe when a 1923 Covent Garden production was heard over the airwaves. Eight years later in 1931, it became the first ever opera broadcast in its entirety by the Metropolitan Opera.

The opera is commonly seen and heard during the Christmas season. An odd choice, but librettist Adelheid Wette did soften some of the harsher elements found in the original Grimm tales for her brother’s opera.

CABARET: Mandy Gonzalez – Seth Concert Series – April 25th – 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT

With the upcoming film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, it’s a great time to check in on one of the musical’s original cast members: Mandy Gonzalez, who originated the role of Nina.

Gonazalez is an insanely talented singer and actress.

I saw her in In the Heights. She’s also appeared in Wicked, Lennon, Dance of the Vampires and as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton.

I’ve also seen her perform her cabaret act and it is impossible to express the amount of pure joy that comes out of her when she’s singing. (And she does a killer version of Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.)

She is Seth Rudetsky’s guest in his concert series this weekend.

Tickets are $25 and you can watch the live performance at 3:00 PM EDT or the replay of the concert at 8:00 PM EDT. Whichever you choose, you will certainly have a good time.

IN PERSON: DANCE: Uniting in Movement – American Ballet Theatre – Segerstrom Center for the Arts – April 25th – 1:30 PM PDT

You could be ambivalent about the Academy Awards and go see a rare live performance of ballet in Costa Mesa. ABT has been creating a program of three different works that were filmed this week. On Sunday, they are opening up Segerstrom Center for the Arts for a limited number of people to see the performance live.

The works are Let Me Sing Forever More by choreographer Jessica Lang and set to the recordings of Tony Bennett (clearly the title comes from Fly Me to the Moon); La Follia Variations by Lauren Lovette set to music of the same name by composer Francesco Geminiani and Indestructible Light by Darrell Grand Moultrie which is set to music by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Neal Hefti and Billy Strayhorn.

Hefti, by the way, composed the theme for the television series Batman.

At press time the only available tickets were $80 each. There are Covid-protocols in place for this performance.

For those willing to wait, Uniting in Movement will be available for streaming through Segerstrom Center for the Arts from May 12th – May 26th for $25.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Argus Quartet: noise/Silence – Five Boroughs Music Festival and The Noguchi Museum – April 25th – 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT (Art in an email)

Cellist Audrey Chen, violinists Clara Kim and Gioncarlo Latta and violist Maren Rothfritz make up the Argus Quartet. Though they perform music from across all eras of classical music, they seem to excel in contemporary works.

This concert was filmed at one of my favorite museums in New York, The Noguchi Museum. It is being presented by the Five Boroughs Music Festival. The Argus Quartet will perform works by composers John Cage (String Quartet in Four Parts); Dorothy Rudd More (Modes for String Quartet), Rolf Wallin (several selections from Curiosity Cabinet) and Paul Wiancko (Vox Petra).

The concert will be available for free streaming on the Five Boroughs Music Festival YouTube channel through December 31st.

OPERA: Bizet’s Carmen – Weiner Staatsoper – April 26th – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT

Conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada; starring Anita Rachvelishvili, Piotr Beczala, Erwin Schrott and Vera-Lotte Boecker. This Calixto Bieito production is from 2021.

Georges Bizet collaborated with librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy on this immensely popular opera. It was based on Propser Mérimée’s novella of the same name. 

When Carmen was first performed in Paris in 1875 it was considered both shocking and scandalous. 

Set in Seville, Spain, Carmen is a gypsy who has caught everyone’s eye. A soldier, Don José, plays coy and gives her no attention. Her flirtation causes troubles for both when Don José’s girlfriend, Micaëla arrives. Tensions escalate between the two women and after a knight fight, José must arrest Carmen. When she seduces him it sets off a series of events that will not end well for the gypsy woman.

PLAY: Measure for Measure – Goodman Theatre – April 26th – May 9th

Here’s another opportunity to celebrate the bard. But this isn’t going to be your standard production of a Shakespearean play.

Director Robert Falls has transported this play from Vienna to New YOrk City circa the late 1970s (or as I like to describe it, before Disney moved into Broadway).

The story is still the same. Claudio is sentenced to death under an arcane law invoked by Angelo who has taken over for the Duke who has left rather than have to deal with morality issues in (originally Vienna). Claudio’s crime? Getting his girlfriend, Juliet, pregnant.

The Duke returns in disguise and becomes aware of the decisions Angelo has been making. Deception, bargains, bartering, love and death are all on the table in this fairly convoluted play.

Justin Hayford, in his review for the Chicago Reader, had mixed feelings about the production:

“It’s rare for one of Shakespeare’s plays to be ripped from its original setting, transplanted across centuries and continents—and still end up feeling vital, urgent, and utterly contemporary. At least for a while. If Falls and his stellar cast could maintain that vitality past intermission, they’d have a masterpiece on their hands.”

Nonetheless, I think the concept sounds interesting and worth checking out. What else are you going to do on a Monday night? (Of course, I have another option for you…)

Tickets are free, but require registration.

AUDIO PLAY: Brother, Brother – New York Theatre Workshop – Live Premiere April 26th – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT Art in an email

New York Theater Workshop is offering up a twist on audio plays. This will feature visuals, but not of the performers. Rather, artists Ibrahim Rayintakath​ and Liang-Hsin Huang have created imagery that will accompany Aleshea Harris’ play.

Brother, Brother tells the story of two brothers sharing a bicycle while making their way through Appalachia. They are actors headed to Tennessee. They start getting followed by a mysterious man in a maroon suit. At this moment the dreams they have for their future are confronted by the acts from their past.

Starring in this audio play are Amari Cheathom (terrific in August Wilson’s Jitney), André De Shields (Tony Award-winner for Hadestown), Gbenga Akinnagbe (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Owen Tabaka (Ratatouille: The Tik Tok Musical). Shayok Misha Chowdhury directs.

Tickets are $10. Brother, Brother will remain available for streaming through July 25th.

Those are my Best Bets: April 23rd – April 26th. But a few reminders (and a preview):

MasterVoices has debuted the 3rd part of Myths and Hymns, a series of short films set to Adam Guettel’s song cycle. For details about the series, go here. For my interview with MasterVoices Artistic Director Ted Sperling, go here.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Gala 2021 is available for streaming through Sunday. For details about the program and how to get tickets, go here.

Carnegie Hall’s Voices of Hope series continues with multiple new shows available for free viewing. For details go here.

The Metropolitan Opera streams Philip Glass’ Satyagraha on Friday (highly recommended); Beethoven’s Fidelio on Saturday and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites on Sunday (also highly recommended). For details and previews go here.

Here’s a preview of next week at the Met where the theme is City of Light (all the operas take place in Paris). Monday’s opera is, what else, La Bohème by Puccini.

That truly is the full and complete list of Best Bets: April 23rd – April 26th. Enjoy your weekend!

Photo: William Shakespeare (By BatyrAshirbayev98/Courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

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This weekend the first of two episodes of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Close Quarters series she curated makes its debut. Sonic Shift, featuring the work of composers Marcos Balter, Anna Meredith and Alyssa Weinberg premieres on Friday, April 23rd at 6:30 PM PDT.

The second episode, Beyond the Horizon, featuring the work of composers Alvin Singleton, Mazz Swift and one of Montgomery’s own compositions debuts on May 7th.

Last month I spoke by phone with Montgomery about her collaborations with LACO on this project, bringing in mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard to direct Beyond the Horizon and the future for Black composers in classical music. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

The programming you’ve put together is not the kind of material typically associated with LACO. What was their response to the repertoire you selected?

I’m happy to say there was really a lot of support. I basically used the guidelines LACO uses for their Sessions programming which I ended up transitioning from into this Close Quarters format. Sessions is part of their programming where they stretch beyond their usual repertoire and often includes a lot of new music. I already knew that I was going to be doing a program that was all living composers – so that was already understood. Then from there they gave me free rein. What is your aesthetic? What is your vision? What do you want to hear more of? I thought that was a great directive.

What did you want to accomplish with each episode?

My first instinct was I wanted to choose music I felt attracted to – all identity politics aside. There are two separate programs. Sonic Shift is playing with the balance and transition between acoustic and electronic or electro-acoustic sound worlds. So there’s a progression that happens through from beginning to end with that program. I really wanted to include a nice assortment of chamber wind players so that there was a balance of instrumentation.

The second program was the one I wanted to make more geared around certain aspects of my own music I’m working with and continuing to explore – which is the realm of improvisation. The other two artists are also African American artists. The cross-exploration of improvisation and jazz exists within that second program. And also total avant-garde experimental music through Alvin Singleton. I thought that was an interesting way to frame the broad range of styles and approaches of Black classical musicians.

Isabel Leonard was a surprising choice to direct Beyond the Horizon, particularly for a program about improvisation. The opera world is not exactly where you find improvisation welcomed.

I’m really excited to see what she’s going to do with it. The spirit of spontaneity may be something that she jumps on. We talked a little bit about how she might bring in that quality of surprise and spontaneity.

I love the idea of a performing artist designing and directing the visuals. I think that’s a really awesome and interesting angle for LACO to take. I’m really excited to work with her. Isabel, Nadia [music producer Nadia Sirota] and myself were at Juilliard together. It’s a reunion collaboration in a way.

What gives you faith in this moment in time that Black composers, both dead and alive, will continue to be embraced by major institutions in the long run?

I can say that I’m seeing it happen just in the invitations and the places I’m involved in. I’m seeing more Black artists brought into the decision-making roles whether they are on artistic planning committees or curator roles or even within higher CEO and director positions. There are definitely organizations that are bringing in Black artists and not necessarily letting them do what they want, which is all too common and other organizations that are completely resisting it all together.

It was deliberate that I did a program of all-Black artists, but it was guided mainly by the music and then the fact I wanted to make a contribution in terms of the direction things are moving. There’s as much range amongst Black artists as there is any group of people. I think it’s really interesting in this context to show that range as well. So I would say I have to stay optimistic that these changes and attitudes and the interest we’re seeing is genuine in most cases and that will prevail to keep our ears open and our eyes open.

In a 1936 Chicago Defender* article, composer Florence Price** was quoted as saying, “Keep ideals in front of you; they will lead to victory.” Does that resonate with you and if so, does it inspire you?

Absolutely. I think Florence Price is an incredible example of somebody who really fought that fight. She was told she couldn’t achieve what she achieved. She was rigorous in her writing and in the amount of music she wrote. She was so determined to work within the classical music structure: orchestral pieces, concertos, organ pieces, piano pieces, string quartets – really traditional models. It speaks to her determination and her sense of I’m going to do this because I know it’s possible no matter what happens.

I think we all have to have that attitude as artists – that we can create what we want when we want to create it. Just being a human being and having the right and freedom to create what you want is a natural human right and ability we all possess and develop in different ways. That should be the case for everybody.

*Chicago Defender is an African-American newspaper founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott. It ceased print publication in 2019 and is an online only publication today.

**Florence Price was the first Black American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Her Symphony in E Minor was given its debut by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, marking the first time a work by a Black female composer was performed in the United States by a major classical orchestra.

All photos of Jessie Montgomery by Jiyang Chen (Courtesy MKI Artists)

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Clearly not all the fireworks are going to be taking place in Tampa. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that these are some of the best offerings on any given weekend in recent memory. Though I will admit there aren’t a lot of new offerings on Sunday, but many of these listings are for more than just one day.

Our top pick this weekend is drummer/multi-instrumentalist/composer Tyshawn Sorey at the Village Vanguard on Friday and Saturday.

So let’s get to it. Here are the Best Bets: February 5th – February 7th.

PLAYS/READINGS: Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue – Center Theatre Group – Now – April 4th

If you’ve seen the film One Night in Miami, you are familiar with the work of playwright Kemp Powers. He adapted his play for the Regina King-directed film now available on Amazon. (Earlier this week the film received two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor – Leslie Odom, Jr. and Best Director for King). Kemp is also the co-director and co-writer of Pixar’s newest film, Soul.

Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue tells the story of twin brothers who find life treats them very differently. One brother has to battle with racism because of his dark skin and the other can pass as white. The play takes place in two different settings: New York City in the 1980s when they were just boys and a Minnesota courthouse in 2006, by which time their lives have taken very different paths.

This “produced reading” (meaning there are sets and costumes) stars Giovanni Adams, Jovan Adepo (Fences), Amaia Arana, Lorena Martinez (South Coast Rep’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Connor Paolo (Business Doing Pleasure), Adam J. Smith (Taken 3), Cory Michael Smith (1985), Larry Bates (Big Little Lies) and Justin Lawrence Barnes (InterVallum). It was directed by Jennifer Chang.

Center Theatre Group subscribers and donors can access Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue for free. There is a $10 streaming fee for all others.

MUSIC/DANCE FESTIVAL: Whistleblower – Philip Glass’ Days and Nights Festival – Now Available

In a lead-up to their tenth annual Days and Nights Festival in Big Sur, they are holding a digital celebration beginning this week. Composer Philip Glass created the festival and many of his works will be available through at least May. Ten projects have been announced so far and the festival launches with a film of the 2017 performance of Whistleblower.

Inspired by Edward Snowden’s leak of classified information, Whistleblower has music by Glass with concept and text by performance poet Jerry Quickley. Glass appears in this film. Also performing are Miranda Cuckson, Matt Haimovitz, David Harding, Tara Hugo, Lavina Meijer, Alex Weil and Alex Weston.

Also debuting this weekend are The Pattern of the Surface from Molissa Fenley Dance Company in a performance also from 2017 and Heart Strings, a musical depiction of the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet created by Tenzin Choegyal and Glass.

Tickets to watch each performance are $5. You can buy each for $20. The Festival is also offering discounts or comps for those who don’t have the ability to pay. You can submit a request for that here.

PLAYS: All the Devils are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain – Shakespeare Theatre Company – Now – February 7th

Patrick Page may be best known for his menacing portrayals of some of the theatre’s great villains. He was Tony-nominated for his performance as Hades in Hadestown. He also appeared opposite Denzel Washington in a Broadway production of Julius Caesar, The Green Goblin in the ill-fated musical, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark and as Scar in The Lion King.

In this 80-minute film, the first-ever online production produced by Washington, D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, Page examines the many villains William Shakespeare created in his plays and how they progressed from simple stock characters in the playwright’s early works to fully-realized villains that set a new standard for the depiction of those characters we most love to hate.

Page has played his share of Shakespeare’s characters with STC including Claudius in Hamlet, the title character in Macbeth, Iago in Othello and Prospero in The Tempest.

Page wrote the script for All the Devils are Here. I’ve seen Page in multiple shows and can assure you that this is a perfect pairing of actor and material. And his voice…if you haven’t heard it (no doubt you have, even if you aren’t aware), you’re in for a real treat with his take on Shakespeare’s bad guys.

Tickets are $25

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Jupiter String Quartet – Kranner Center for the Performing Arts – February 5th – 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST

Violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel and cellist Daniel McDonough make up the classical music ensemble known as Jupiter String Quartet. It’s a family affair. Liz is Meg’s older sister and Daniel is Meg’s husband. This family, however, makes beautiful music together.

On Friday, February 5th they are releasing a new album with Jasper String Quartet that features works by Felix Mendelssohn, the world premiere recording of a work by Dan Visconti and Last Round by Osvaldo Golijov on Marquis Classics.

That same day they launch the first of four digital concerts in collaboration with the Kranner Center for the Performing Arts under the title Reflection and Renewal.

Each performance becomes available at 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST and is free to stream.

This week’s first concert features Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 95, “Serioso” and Kati Agócs’ Imprimatur (her second string quartet). Imprimatur was commissioned by The Aspen Music Festival and School, Harvard Musical Association, and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The link takes you to the full line-up which will include works by William Bolcom, Haydn, Mendelssohn and Schubert.

OPERA: Il trittico – Royal Opera House – Debuts February 5th – 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST

This weekend the Royal Opera House begins streaming (through March 7th) their 2011 production of Giacomo Puccini’s Il trittico.

Il trittico is a trilogy of one-act operas. The three operas are Il tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. The latter is the best-known of the three as it is the most commonly performed.

Jealousy and murder are on tap in Il tabarro involving the love triangle of Michele (Lucio Gallo), his wife Giorgetta (Eva-Maria Westbroek) and her lover Luigi.

Suor Angelica is the dramatic story of a nun (Ermonela Jaho) dealing with loss.

Gianni Schicchi (Gallo) depicts what happens when someone dies and the will goes missing. And you think your relatives were difficult?

Richard Jones directed this 2016 production (a revival of his 2011 production) and Antonio Pappano conducted.

Tickets are £3 which equates to roughly $4.10 (as of press time).

PLAYS/CONVERSATION: TCG Books’ First Friday with Michael R. Jackson – February 5th – 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST

This year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to playwright Michael R. Jackson for his musical A Strange Loop. TCG Books, a publisher who releases plays and musicals in book form, is hosting a conversation with Jackson on the occasion of their publishing A Strange Loop.

The leader character in A Strange Loop, Usher, offers perhaps the most succinct description of the show. “It’s about a black, queer man writing a musical about a black, queer man who’s writing a musical about a black queer man who’s writing a musical about a black queer man, etc.”

Jackson told the New York Times in a 2019 interview about his experience seeing Brian Dennehy in a production of Death of a Salesman. As a black, gay, young man he felt innate sadness and that Arthur Miller’s play revealed that in “America you’re worth more dead than alive.” But he also asked himself the question that would lead to A Strange Loop.

“What if I can make an old white man empathize with what it might be like to be a young, black, gay man and suffer — and not because he’s being killed by the police or destroyed in some way like that, but it’s actually an emotional journey from the inside?”

This conversation will take place on TCG’s Facebook Page. Those interested in buying the book can purchase it here.

JAZZ: Christian McBride’s New Jawn – SFJAZZ – February 5th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

When jazz bassist Christian appeared at SFJAZZ in 2016 for this concert, he was certainly working out the material that ended up on his 2018 album Christian McBride’s New Jawn. The line-up on the album and this concert are the same: trumpeter Josh Evans, saxophonist Marcus Strickland, and drummer Nasheet Waits.

By the time the album was released, McBride and his ensemble coalesced their work into a Grammy-nominated work that garnered this praise from Hilary Brown in Downbeat Magazine, “The word ‘jawn’— a fresh new phenomenon—is familiar argot to Christian McBride, a Philadelphia native. And when it comes to trailblazing new, cool jazz concepts in eponymous trios or big bands, the venerable bassist always delivers. Enter his latest jawn—a pianoless quartet, born of a New York scene that sates East Coast soul-seekers and purists alike. Christian McBride’s New Jawn faithfully salutes its forebears—Gerry Mulligan, Ornette Coleman and the like—but leave it to this next-gen assimilation of bandleaders to take musical liberties.”

Hearing these four amazing musicians work on this material live well before putting it to vinyl is going to be a great way to launch your weekend.

Tickets are $5 which allows for one month of Fridays at Five performances or $60 for a complete year of them.

TOP PICK: JAZZ: Tyshawn Sorey – Village Vanguard – February 5th and 6th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

February is a busy month of drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey. Next week Opera Philadelphia will unveil the world premiere of his Save the Boys, a composition written for and performed by countertenor John Holiday. But before that happens, he’s taking to the stage at the Village Vanguard in New York.

Sorey was recently profiled in the New York Times Magazine where writer Adam Schatz wrote, “Sorey who turned 40 over the summer, would be worth writing about for his drumming alone. The power, precision and inventiveness of his playing often draw comparisons with masters like Max Roach, Elvin Jones and Tony Williams. But Sorey refuses to play conventionally virtuosic drum solos — he prefers to play delicately and sparely, if at all — and he avoids being photographed with his sticks in the athletic poses that have defined the image of most jazz drummers. He is also a brilliant trombonist and pianist, and in the last few years he has become as arresting a figure in contemporary classical and experimental new music as he is in jazz..”

Joining Sorey for these two performances are saxophonist Joe Lovano (who just released a new album, Garden of Expression, on ECM Records last week) and guitarist Bill Frisell.

Tickets are $10 for each performance.

OPERA: Lohengrin – San Francisco Opera – February 6th – February 7th

Conducted by Nicola Luisotti; starring Brandon Jovanovich, Camilla Nylund, Petra Lang and Gerd Grochowski. This Daniel Slater production is from the 2012-2013 season.

Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin had its world premiere in 1850 in Weimar. It is one of his few romantic operas.

The setting is Antwerp in the 10th century. Elsa is accused by Friedrich von Telramund of killing her brother in an effort to prevent Telramund from assuming the dukedom. The dispute is to be resolved by combat. In an answer to her prays a mysterious knight named Lohengrin appears. He agrees to help Elsa as long as she never asks who he is or where is from. When Lohengrin defeats Telramund in battle, but spares his life, revenge is foremost on Telramund’s mind.

Director Slater updated Wagner’s opera to take place in the mid-20th century in an unnamed Eastern European country.

Joshua Kosman, writing in the SF Chronicle, said of Jovanovich, “In his debut as the mysterious, nameless knight who shows up to defend Elsa of Brabant against the baseless charge of fratricide, Jovanovich combined sweet-toned lyricism and ardent heroism in just the proportions required by this tricky role. His singing was thrillingly pure and tireless, his stage presence simultaneously tender and aloof.”

OPERA RECITAL: Anna Netrebko – Met Stars Live in Concert – February 6th – 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST

Soprano Anna Netrebko is arguably one of the biggest opera stars in the world. She will be performing a recital from Vienna’s Spanish Riding School with pianist Pavel Nebolsin on Saturday as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s Stars Live in Concert Series.

The program is slated to include four works by Sergei Rachmaninoff; two by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; three by Richard Strauss; five by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky an one each by Frank Bridge, Gustave Charpentier, Claude Debussy, Antonín Dvořák, Gabriel Fauré, Ruggero Leoncavallo and Jacques Offenbach.

During the recital Mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova will join Netrebko for two duets.

Tickets are $20 and the performance will remain on demand for 14 days.

PLAYS: While Yet I Live – Play-Per-View – February 6th – February 10th

Tony Award-winner Billy Porter’s semi-autobiographical play, While Yet I Live, had its world premiere in the fall of 2014. The cast was Lillias White (The Life, Fela!), Emmy Award winner S. Epatha Merkerson(Come Back, Little Sheba), Elain Graham (Smash), Sheria Irving (Romeo & Juliet, Ethel Sings), Kevyn Morrow (Moulin Rouge! The Musical), Sharon Washington (The Scottsboro Boys) and Larry Powell (The Gaze…No Homo).

They are all reuniting with director Sheryl Kaller (Next Fall, Mothers and Sons) to do a reunion reading of the play. The live reading takes place on February 6th at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST. It will be available afterwards on demand through February 10th at 11:30 PM EST/8:30 PM PST.

At the time of the production, Porter said, “This play is a love letter to my mother, my sister, and the women who raised me. Reflecting on my own life experience as a gay, black, Christian man, and survivor of abuse, I wanted to write a play that was about family, faith and the healing power of forgiveness, three things very necessary to move forward and make change in your life. Change is possible, but it takes patience.”

Tickets for the live performance range from $5 – $50 based on your ability to pay. To watch the show afterwards, the price is $15. All proceeds will benefit the Actors Fund Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund​.

DANCE: Passage – Dance Theatre of Harlem YouTube Channel – February 6th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

Dance Theatre of Harlem launches a one-month Winter Series of virtual events and performances with Passage which begins streaming on the company’s YouTube Channel on Saturday, February 6th.

Choreographer Claudia Schreier created Passage for a commission from the Virginia Arts Festival and the State of Virginia’s 2019 Commemoration. Their event recognized the 400th anniversary of the arrival of slaves from Africa to Virginia.

Schreier told the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State that Passage, “addresses themes of struggle and aspiration and reflects, in abstract, the fortitude of the human spirit and an enduring will to prevail. There are several images throughout the ballet that suggest descent or ascent, as well as the presence of water. The movement is borne out of this ebb and flow, much of which is drawn from Jessie’s sweeping score.”

The Jessie is composer Jessie Montgomery. If her name sounds familiar, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has recently included her works in their In Concert at the Hollywood Bowl series. Her music will also be performed by the orchestra in their Icons on Inspiration concert on Saturday (see immediately below for details).

On Friday, February 5th, Schreier and Montgomery will have a conversation on Dance Theatre of Harlem’s YouTube channel and Facebook page at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Icons on Inspiration – Los Angeles Philharmonic – February 6th – 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PM PST

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has certainly figured out how to go big with their events during the pandemic. Icons on Inspiration, their gala on Saturday night is no exception. They have a starry line-up of artists and music lined-up.

Lead by Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, their special guests are long-time Board member and Oscar-winner Julie Andrews, Oscar-winner Common, 13-time Grammy nominee Katy Perry, Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, soprano Liv Redpath, Colombian singer/songwriter and 2-time Grammy Award winner Carlos Vives and classical pianist and 4-time Grammy Award-nominee Yuja Wang.

The program will include Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst; Duke Ellington’s Martin Luther King from The Three Black Kings (arranged by Terence Blanchard); Tchaikovsky’s Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato; Stravinsky’s Berceuse from The Firebird; Arturo Márquez’s Danzon No. 2; Romero’s Fuga can Pajarillo and Mahler’s Das himmlische Leben (arranged by Erwin Stein).

This event is a fundraiser, but you don’t have to make a donation to watch it (though donations are strongly encouraged).

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Schoenberg & Bach – Bard College’s The Orchestra Now – February 7th – 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST

Works by Bach, Lutoslawski, Carreño and Schoenberg are featured in Bard College’s TŌN (The Orchestra Now) first concert of their 2021 season. Leon Botstein leads the orchestra through performances of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3; Lutoslawski’s Funeral Music; Carreño’s Serenade for Strings and closes with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night).

There is no fee to watch the concert (scheduled to run approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes); however reservations are required. Donations, of course, are accepted with a suggested donation of $15-$35.

Those are my official Best Bets: February 5th – February 7th, but you know I’ll always offer a few reminders of shows that might be ending, or only have one upcoming airdate. Here they are:

MUSICALS: This is your last weekend to catch You I Like the loving tribute to Jerry Herman from the Pasadena Playhouse. Fans of musical theatre – do not miss it! For more information about this show, check out my interview with creator Andy Einhorn here.

CLASSICAL MUSIC/POP MUSIC: For the second week in a row, there are back-to-back episodes of In Concert at the Hollywood Bowl on PBS stations nationwide. The two episodes are Fireworks and Gustavo and Friends. Check your local listings

OPERA: The first week of Black History Month at the Metropolitan Opera concludes this weekend with performances of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro from the 1985-1986 season on Friday; Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos from the 1987-1988 season on Saturday and the 1978-1979 production of Puccini’s Tosca on Sunday.

That should keep you busy this weekend. Whatever you choose to watch from amongst my Best Bets: February 5th – February 7th, I hope you enjoy yourselves!

Photo: Tyshawn Sorey (Courtesy TyshawnSorey.com)

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This weekend I have a great mix of classical music, jazz, plays and a new musical revue celebrating composer Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!). Once you catch up on my reminders you can add opera and musicals to the list!

So let’s get right to it. Here are the Best Bets at Home: January 8th – January 10th:

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Close Quarters #5 – Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra – Available Now

LACO continues their series of unique films that include performances of chamber music works. In Close Quarters #5, the music of Juan Pablo Contreras, Jimmy López and Jessie Montgomery is performed. Surrounding the performances is the story of a young woman on New Year’s Eve who finds herself alone after leaving a party and unsure of how she’s going to get home.

Contreras, whose work Pueblos Mágicos is the last piece performed in the film, curated the program. López’s Ccantu for solo piano opens the film. Montgomery’s Voodoo Dolls is between the two. All three pieces are terrific. I took particular joy in Pueblos Mágicos.

James Darrah directed the 42-minute film. The script was written by Christopher Oscar Peña and beautifully captures that emotional roller coaster that one experiences when left alone and is having to find acceptance and strength to move beyond. Note that there is strong language in the film.

AUDIO PLAY: The Nomad Project – Coeurage Ensemble – Available Now

Los Angeles-based Coeurage Ensemble has launched a very interesting series called The Nomad Project. The project consists of 10 stories based in Los Angeles and runs approximately 10-12 minutes.

Each of the stories is written to reflect a specific area of the city. By specific I mean down to GPS coordinates. This allows listeners to either listen from the comfort of their home or travel to those coordinates to hear the stories played out. Amongst the locations are Hollywood Boulevard & Western Avenue; the Walt Disney Concert Hall; outside the Faultline Bar; Sun Valley and more.

The playwrights who have created audio plays for The Nomad Project are Boni B. Alvarez, Kate Bailey, Mark Brown, Meghan Brown, June Carryl, Aaron Fullerton, Tom Jacobson, Ann Kimbrough, Roger Q. Mason, Shahrook Oomer and Yael Zinkow.

There’s no cost to listen to these audio plays. Donations, of course, are always welcomed.

MUSICAL: Closer Than Ever – MNM Theatre Company – Now – January 10th

When Closer Than Ever opened in 1989 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, it charmed critics and went on to be named the 1990 Outer Critics Circle Award Winner for Best New Off-Broadway Musical. The completely sung-through show features songs by Richard Maltby, Jr., and David Shire (Baby, Starting Here Starting Now).

Closer Than Ever examines adult life vis-a-vis songs about marriage, divorce and second marriages, mid-life crisis, growing old and more. Maltby and Shire based the songs on the lives of their friends.

Florida’s MNM Theatre Company has produced a streaming version of this musical that will be available through Sunday.  Aaron Bower, Johnbarry Green, Shelley Keelor and Elijah Word star. Jonathan Van Dyke directed.

Tickets are $20 and allow for 48 hours of streaming.

PLAY: Making Friends – IAMA Theatre Company – Now – January 18th

Seems like everyone is angry these days. Count amongst them Tom DeTrinis, who describes himself as a rage-aholic. In his one-man show, DeTrinis expunges some of that rage in very humorous was as he rants about transgressions from his childhood, his dislike of Rodgers & Hammerstein and particularly his disdain for New York City (rather ironic since he’s from NYC).

He portrays many of those who have offended him during this 67-minute show directed by Drew Droege. Note that this show contains adult material and language. Tickets start at $15 based on your ability to pay.

JAZZ: Chris Botti – SFJAZZ – January 8th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

This week’s Fridays at Five concert from SFJAZZ dates back almost exactly one year. On January 10th, 2020, trumpeter Chris Botti performed at the venue. That concert will be streamed only once at the time listed above.

Botti is a Grammy Award winner and best-selling artist who, in addition to his own albums, has collaborated with Joshua Bell, Tony Bennett, Michael Bublé, Lady Gaga, Yo-Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Sting, Barbra Streisand and more.

To view this concert you must have either a monthly membership ($5) or an annual membership ($60).

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Teatro alla Scala Orchestra – January 9th – 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST

The orchestra from Milan’s fabled La Scala has a streaming concert on Saturday. The program will feature performances of Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 and Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70. Leading the orchestra is conductor Lorenzo Viotti.

The concert will be available for viewing on the Teatro alla Scala website, their YouTube channel and their Facebook page.

If you can’t see the concert as it happens, they usually remain available for a few days afterwards.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Anne Akiko Meyers and Fabio Bidini – The Sorting Room Sessions at The Wallis – January 9th – 11:00 PM EST/8:00 PM PST

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and pianist Fabio Bidini team up for this intimate recital of music by French composers. On the program is Charles Gounod’s Ave Maria; Maurice Ravel’s Sonata No.2 in G Major and Jules Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs.

Meyers has released over 30 albums. Her most recent recording is Estonian Lullaby which features the music of Arvo Pärt and was released earlier this year.

Italian pianist Bidini has released 13 albums and in addition to his performance career, teaches at Los Angeles’ Colburn School

Tickets are $25 and allow for 24 hours of streaming.

JAZZ: Exploring Billie’s Influence – 92nd Street Y – January 10th – 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST

Grammy Award-winner Christian McBride hosts a conversation about the legendary Billie Holiday with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson.

All three women have recorded albums as tributes to Lady Day. Let’s be honest, what female jazz singer can ignore the enormous impact Holiday had on all singers?

Will there be any singing? It doesn’t appear so from the website, but given the enormous talent on stage, this will be a riveting conversation with our without performances.

Tickets are $15.

JAZZ: Neal Caine Quartet – Smalls Live – January 10th – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST and 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Jazz bassist Neal Caine is not only one of jazz music’s finest bass players, he’s also one of its most in-demand. Caine has performed and/or recorded with Jon Batiste and Stay Human; Brian Blade; Betty Carter; Harry Connick, Jr. Big Band; Benny Green; Dr. John; Elvin Jones Jazz Machine; Diana Krall, Branford Marsalis; Delfeayo Marsalis Quintet; Ellis Marsalis Trio; Wynton Marsalis;

If you haven’t heard his 2005 album Backstabber’s Ball, you should check it out.

Joining him for these two sets at New York’s Smalls are Donald Edwards on drums; Jerry Weldon on tenor sax and Anthony Wonsey on piano.

If you can afford to make a “reservation” for either performance, those funds go to the venue and the musicians. Otherwise, you can find the performances streaming live on Small’s website.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Piano Sonata by Philip Glass – CAP UCLA – January 10th – 6:00 PM EST/3:00 PM PST

The world premiere of composer Philip Glass‘ first piano sonata took place in 2019 in Germany. The piece was performed by pianist Maki Namekawa who asked the composer to write the sonata for her.

She returns to the work in this special filmed performance that was recorded live in Austria for CAP UCLA.

The sonata came into being after a conversation Namekawa and her husband, Dennis Russell Davies, had with the composer in the back of a restaurant in 2017.

Zachary Woolfe, in his New York Times review of the sonata’s first American performance by Namekawa in 2019, said, “For all the work’s switches of mood — between major and minor, churning and calm — the stakes feel low, though not unagreeably. Even when it’s headlong, as in the chugga-chugga perpetual motion of the third movement, the work is light, even superficial, a revue of Glassian riffs that’s pleasant and passing. While it’s imposing, at nearly 30 minutes, the sonata feels larky.”

MUSICAL: You I Like, A Musical Celebration Of Jerry Herman – Pasadena Playhouse/PlayhouseLive – January 10th – February 7th

Jerry Herman was the Tony Award-winning composer of such musicals as Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Mack and Mabel and La Cage aux Folles. He passed away in late 2019. This revue of his music was created by Andy Einhorn and had its first performance at New York’s 92nd Street Y early last year. Einhorn has reworked the show and it was filmed by Pasadena Playhouse for their Playhouse Live programming.

Starring in You I Like are Ashley Blanchet (Frozen), Nick Christopher (Hamilton), Olivier Award-winner Lesli Margherita (Matilda The Musical), Andrea Ross (The Sound of Music) and Ryan Vona (Once). Einhorn serves as music director and our guide through the show. (Next week look for my interview with Einhorn!)

Songs from all those musicals listed above are in the show as are some rarer songs from his early work like Parade and Milk and Honey. There are also songs from his lesser-known musicals such as The Grand Tour.

On the virtual opening night there will be a Q&A with Bernadette Peters (who appeared in the recently revival of Hello, Dolly! and also Mack and Mabel) and David Hyde Pierce (also in Hello, Dolly!) with Einhorn and Pasadena Playhouse’s Danny Feldman.

Tickets are $29.99 to watch the virtual opening. All other viewings will be $24.99.

That’s my list of the Best Bets at Home: January 8th – January 10th. But, of course, there are a few reminders:

David Bowie fans will not want to miss his musical Lazarus, which is being made available for three performances this weekend from DiceFM. For full details go to my preview here.

New York’s 9th annual Prototype Festival launches this weekend with an intriguing program of new works. My preview has full details.

The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival has begun and I have a full rundown of the programming available.

The operas available this weekend from the Metropolitan Opera from this week’s Epic Rivalries theme. They are Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo on Friday; Gaetano Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda on Saturday and Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore on Sunday. You can find full details here.

Here’s to taking a break, enjoying some great performances and recharging ourselves!

Enjoy the Best Bets at Home: January 8th – January 10th and enjoy your weekend.

Photo: Lesli Margherita, Andrea Ross, Ryan Vona, Nicholas Christopher, Ashley Blanchet, and Andy Einhorn in You I Like: A Musical Celebration of Jerry Herman (Photo by Jeff Lorch/Courtesy Playhouse Live)

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