On The Town .. With Chip Deffaa .. Dec 12, 2014
Its Only a Play marquee As the year winds down, I’d like to use today’s column to look back on [more]
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall’s mission is to present extraordinary music and musicians on the three stages of this legendary hall, to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience, to provide visionary education programs, and to foster the future of music through the cultivation of new works, artists and audiences. http://www.carnegiehall.org/
New York Pops: “By Special Request: An Evening with the Orchestra”
The New York Pops are the perfect antidote for those who suspect orchestral music to be dull or tedious. Proving again that celebrity performers are not needed to fill performance venues, Steven Reineke and his orchestra brought Carnegie Hall to life with their second installment in what is shaping into a rather exciting season. With adoring regard By Special Request: An Evening with the Orchestra truly had two stars, the orchestra itself and the music of seven time-honored composers. [more]
New York Pops: All You Need Is Love: The Music of The Beatles
Despite the sometimes-questionable song selection and orchestration choices, All You Need Is Love upheld the New York Pops' well-established standard of excellence. Reineke's unparalleled expertise and steady hand provide evenings of culture, history and entertainment time and time again. [more]
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus, Adams Harmonium and Dett The Ordering of Moses
When WQXR's Elliott Forrest joined James Conlon on the podium to engage in a brief conversation about the evening's program and its world-wide live broadcast, the audience cheered; shouts and ululations reverberated. [more]
R. Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses
The performance was superb both for its innate musical excellence a first rate piece of music was given a first rate presentation and for the explanation of the work's difficult, extended history in predominantly white concert venues. [more]
The Cecelia Chorus of New York with Orchestra
Mark Shapiro, music director and conductor of The Cecilia Chorus, explained in the program notes that the evening would present an exploratory voyage through the spiritual cosmos, searching out the individual's place in the universe. [more]
New York Choral Society and Orchestra: Holst and Higdon
An evening of passionate and dramatic music, including a New York City Jennifer Higdon premiere, gorgeously presented and happily received. [more]
Souvenir
Using Foster Jenkins' legacy as a jumping off point, the piece, subtitled a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins tells this brave character's story through the eyes of Cosme McMoon (Donald Corren), a frustrated composer who spent many years as her competent, long-suffering accompanist. Souvenir could also be subtitled, "A memory play." This two-character study opens in 1964, with McMoon performing in a Greenwich Village piano bar, on the anniversary of Jenkins' death 20 years before. Unable to concentrate on the keyboard, McMoon chats with his audience, digressing into memories of his collaboration with the infamous, improbable soprano. [more]
The Boy From Oz
But never fear, the show, as irrepressible as Allen himself, delivers an eleventh hour number, and the song everyone is waiting for, "I Go To Rio", borrows every show biz cliché, a staircase that lights up, chorus girls in huge headdresses, come down, and Jackman, heretofore often tethered to a piano, finally explodes onstage like an exultant puppy let off the leash in this bonanza of a finale. Truly irresistible! [more]