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Martin T:son Engström, the Verbier Festival director in high spirits
"If you want to make a career, you have to find a family who will adopt you." ResMusica: Last year, the Verbier Festival celebrated its 20th anniversary. What does the Festival ...
Turandot Bangs a Gong in Montréal
The Opéra de Montréal closed its 34th season with Puccini's unfinished opera Turandot. Graeme Murphy’s production of Turandot, which originated in Australia twenty years ago (and which is also available on DVD), ...
The 2014 edition of the ResMusica Summer Festivals Guide
The 2014 edition of the ResMusica Summer Festivals Guide The third edition of the ResMusica Summer Festivals Guide offers a selection of 60 European festivals of classical music and dance . ...
Thaïs at Los Angeles with Domingo and Fournillier
Plácido Domingo offers American audiences his first Athanaël, already successfully honed in Europe, and about which there really is nothing to say or write…or very little. At 72, the General Director ...
Hartmut Haenchen conducts the Helsinki Philharmonic
Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 may be one of the most performed pieces of orchestral music, and the first 2-4 measures of this work could be the most recognized musical excerpt ...
Hannu Lintu, chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
"The audience understood that contemporary music is a natural thing, not something that you should escape from" ResMusica: You are about to finish your first full season as Chief Conductor of ...
Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts the Finnish RSO in Dutilleux, Strauss, and Brahms
Jukka-Pekka Saraste is a familiar presence to Helsinki audiences, regularly conducting both the Helsinki Philharmonic and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. His interpretive style generally focuses on clarity, balance and ...
A journey with quater tones, and death: Hannu Lintu conducts the Tapiola Sinfonietta
For both musicians and audiences only familiar with the Western chromatic scale of 12 pitches, listening to music which employs quarter tones can be a disorienting experience. If a composer ...
The Beethoven Festival 2014 in Warsaw
Founder Elżbieta Penderecka chose Beethoven and the ideal of freedom as a theme for this new edition, using the anniversary of the Fidelio's composition as a backdrop. For almost two ...
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The 2014 ICMA Gala in Warsaw
The 2014 ICMA Ceremony and Gala took place in Warsaw, during the Easter Beethoven Festival, one of the major cultural events of Central Europe. The Polish young orchestra (Sinfonia Juventus) ...
Rossini’s Otello at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
Parisian intellectuals have the habit of booing the direction at all openings, as if it were their only reason for buying a ticket in the first place. To walk in ...
Transiberian Festival
Deep in the heart of the Siberian forests, Novosibirsk is the third most populated city of all Russia. Situated on the legendary Trans-Siberian railway, Novosibirsk, capital of Siberia, is a ...
A glossy Manon Lescaut in Baden-Baden
The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and its conductor Simon Rattle chose Puccini's Manon Lescaut to represent the lyrical side of their second passage in Baden-Baden's Easter Festival. Compared to last year's ...
Boris Godunov at home at the Bolshoi
If there is an iconic opera at the Bolshoi Theatre, which is within walking distance of the Kremlin, it is Boris Godunov. By its size and cost, an opera house ...
John Storgårds talks about his new Sibelius symphony cycle with the BBC Philharmonic
ResMusica: Although this is not a new symphony cycle of Brahms, Beethoven, or even Mahler, now we have new symphony cycle of Sibelius. Many of your Finnish colleagues have already ...Ville Matvejeff leads the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra in Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass
Orchestral concerts in Finland during the Easter season are generally dominated by performances of Bach's Passions. In this concert, the rising conducting talent Ville Matvejeff provided a refreshing alternative, leading the ...
Rising from the abyss: Leif Segerstam with the Turku Philharmonic
Three cities often come to mind when discussing the Finnish orchestral scene: Helsinki, Lahti, and Tampere. Turku is usually left out of the discussion, but the recent appointment of Leif ...
The Pasta mystery
This new hefty tome by Kenneth Stern, like Opera In America, A Cultural History, by John Dizkes, reviewed here a few weeks ago, belongs to what one might call the ...Nikolai Alexeev conducts all-Shostakovich program with the Estonian National Symphony
According to the marketing materials for this concert, this program featured the “two faces” of Shostakovich. In the suite from Korzinkina’s Adventures we find Shostakovich at his most light-hearted and ...Sakari Oramo, conductor
ResMusica: You began your career as a violinist, as concertmaster of the Finnish RSO, and now you are conducting the top orchestras of the world. Did you always envision conducting ...Michael Francis conducts the Helsinki Philharmonic in an all-British Program
Although performances of British music are not entirely rare in Helsinki, an entire evening dedicated to mid-20th century British orchestral music is quite remarkable. Michael Francis, the current chief conductor ...
Kalevi Aho continues his world-music explorations
After Osmo Vänskä became music director of the Minnesota Orchestra in 2003, it was not unexpected that he would commission a work from Aho. The composer writes that he was ...
The Sommets Musicaux Festival in Gstaad
The Sommets Musicaux festival, held in Gstaad, Switzerland, and dedicated to chamber music, was founded in 2001. It takes place during the winter season in this posh ski resort located ...
The XXth-century US at the Folle Journée de Nantes
The audience’s rejuvenation is a direct consequence of the program, which was built around four axes: the musical roots of the new continent (traditional songs and the European legacy, with ...
The Ring in Geneva : a crescendo in aesthetics
With its perfect narration of the legend, the depth of its direction, and an aesthetic sometimes deliberately distressed by a Brechtian desire to expose the seams, the beautiful Die Walküre ...
Oslo Philharmonic plays Mahler’s sixth symphony in Helsinki
Jukka-Pekka Saraste is a familiar presence in the Helsinki music scene, regularly guest conducting both the Helsinki Philharmonic and Finnish RSO. On this evening's concert, however, Saraste was not on ...Interview with Philip Glass
ResMusica : In 1976, Einstein on the Beach, and in 2013, The Lost. Mr. Glass, when composing your first opera, did you know that twenty-four others would follow? Philip Glass: (Laughs.) ...
