Fleisher revisits Mozart

Leon Fleisher's new disc of Mozart piano concertos reviewed, in print in Style Weekly, online at:

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=0481AA80166A473489E2A2113E44F238&AudID=C3A7C1EDE4E54E24AF4637F9AAFFD1B6

'Colorful and puckish'

The San Francisco Chronicle's Joshua Kosman reviews the premiere of "The B-Sides" by Mason Bates, the Richmond-bred composer now based in Northern California, in a concert of the San Francisco Symphony:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/21/DDIQ17OMA0.DTL

'We're moving laterally, and backwards, and forwards'

Philip Glass, master of minimalism, says (among many other things) that he's rediscovering classical music, in an interview with Nico Mulhy in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/22/philip-glass-nico-muhly

Old made new

Stephen Pettitt, writing for Britain's Spectator, reviews the shortish history of the period instruments and performance-practice (aka historically informed) movement, and observes its growing influence on modern conductors and instrumentalists.

Authentic? Maybe. An "entirely fresh approach to very familiar music?" Definitely:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/arts/3634293/capturing-a-moment.thtml

I would add that because of the vagaries of pitch and sonority these instruments are prone to in live performances, historically informed music-making is likely to be at its best (and most listener-friendly) on recordings.

That said, it's still an ear-opening experience to hear these instruments pushed to their technical and expressive limits, as violinist Florian Deuter did last month during James Wilson's Richmond Festival of Music, or as groups such as William Christie's Les Arts Florissants and Jordi Savall's Les Concert des Nations have done at the University of Richmond's Modlin Center. The Modlin Center's Camp Concert Hall puts a resonant bloom on period-instrument sound, and is small enough that even a solo lute projects to all parts of the room.

Against the wall in Charlotte

I've been remiss in posting about recent cutbacks by orchestras, including salary cuts for musicians in Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Baltimore, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and a number of smaller cities. Those, however, may pale alongside what's happening in North Carolina.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Arts and Science Council has approved a grant of $900,000 for the Charlotte Symphony next season. That's down from nearly $2 million in 2008-09. And most of the reduced grant will be held back until the orchestra, which has run operating deficits for the past seven years, presents a restructuring plan that satisfies the council, Steven Brown reports in the Charlotte Observer:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/735991.html

Zimmerman to Fairfax

Christopher Zimmerman, the last of six finalists auditioning to become music director of the Fairfax Symphony, has been named to the position. The 51-year-old conductor, currently music director of the Hartt Symphony at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, signed a three-year contract in Fairfax, Mark J. Estren reports in The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052102775.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Nicholas Maw (1935-2009)

Nicholas Maw, the English composer best known for his opera "Sophie's Choice" and orchestral epic "Odyssey," died May 19 in Washington. He was 73. An obituary by Emily Langer in The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051903481.html

Smith's Richmond decade

Mark Russell Smith probably secured his appointment, in 1999, as music director of the Richmond Symphony with a compelling interpretation of Brahms’ First Symphony. That first impression was underscored in his subsequent work here. He has proved to be a conductor most keenly attuned to the Austro-German, Bach-to-Richard Strauss, traditional "core" of the classical orchestral repertory. Few American conductors of his generation – none of the better-known ones – are more fluent than Smith in this repertory.

In that, he contrasted sharply with his predecessor, George Manahan. Manahan built his reputation on modern and contemporary music and opera (he’s now music director of the New York City Opera). He thrives on rhythmic complexity and polished, vivid tone color; his orchestral sound is tinted with silver. Smith, son of a choral director, schooled in the German symphonic tradition by Max Rudolf and Otto-Werner Mueller, favors a darker, more bronzed orchestral sonority and a warmer, more high-calorie string sound. The two conductors also had different personalities, rehearsal styles, ways of interacting with the musicians.

Not long after Smith took over the orchestra, an anonymous donor financed a retirement buyout that produced large-scale turnover of musicians. Concertmaster Karen Johnson and most of the current roster’s violinists, and several of the key woodwind players, including oboist Gustav Highstein and clarinetist Ralph Skiano, were hired on Smith’s watch. The symphony he leaves behind is, more than figuratively, his orchestra.

Interestingly, none of the six music-director candidates who’ve performed with the symphony to date – three more appear in the fall – has drawn a markedly new sound from the orchestra, even though most have tried out with repertory that Smith didn’t emphasize. Turnover among musicians continues at a pretty steady clip, though, so it won’t be too long before the next music director will own the sound of the symphony.

For most of Smith’s tenure, the symphony has been exiled from its downtown hall, performing in a variety of church sanctuaries and school venues. These smaller rooms (seating 600 to 1,000) with small stages precluded a lot of repertory – no piano concertos, no scores with extensive percussion, no "Heldenlebens" or "Rites of Spring." The extra expense of moving from place to place, and bargain-priced tickets (a top scale of $50, compared with $80+ in Norfolk and Washington), have imposed financial constraints on artistic aspirations. (In fact, economizing on programming began before the symphony left the Carpenter Center.)

Within these constraints, Smith and the orchestra have given some unforgettable performances: the conductor’s revelatory pairing of Wagner’s "Tristan und Isolde" Prelude with Debussy’s "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun;” a Dvořák “New World” Symphony that compared favorably with one I heard a week later from the Vienna Philharmonic (no kidding); monumental, engrossing performances of Bruckner’s Eighth and Ninth symphonies; a Sibelius Second Symphony that was Brucknerian in scale and scope; rich and sparkling readings of Richard Strauss; a deeply humane Brahms "German Requiem" and an almost otherworldly Verdi Requiem. (Another highlight of Smith’s years, performances of Britten’s "War Requiem," took place before the migratory years.)

Wind and string soloists, replacing the missing pianists, injected new repertory, different modes of interaction between soloist and orchestra. The symphony will carry back to the concert hall an unusual sensitivity to and chamber-scale collaboration with soloists.

Most rewardingly, at least from the listener’s perspective, all this has been happening at close range. Outside of a few European cities that are home to state-radio orchestras with studio/concert halls, it’s very rare to hear major symphonic works – Tchaikovsky and Brahms, let alone Bruckner and Mahler – in an 800-seat room. The performer-listener proximity of chamber music in symphonic music has become a habit in Richmond over the past five years, quite possibly a habit that will be hard to break.

Smith exploited the intimacy of the small venues and their potential to give music extra impact, at its softest as well as loudest. Many of my happiest memories of his performances with this orchestra are of felicitous details of orchestration that probably wouldn’t have made a comparable impression (assuming they were even audible) in a large concert hall.

Although he has been a central player amid these game-changing circumstances for the symphony, Smith has been a somewhat distant figure personally. Early in his tenure, he made some well-publicized gestures toward taking part in Richmond life; but in fact he was the symphony’s first commuter conductor. His home is Minneapolis, where his wife, Ellen Dinwiddie Smith, plays French horn in the Minnesota Orchestra. Their two sons have grown from toddlerhood to teen-age during the decade that Smith was music director here, and he was determined to be there for them in these key years of maturing.

Smith – and the symphony musicians, and the symphony audience – can’t help but be disappointed by events over the last 10 years. The delayed development of a downtown performing-arts center left the orchestra playing in makeshift spaces for years longer than it should have. Will the venue it will return to be a significant improvement over the old Carpenter Center for the performance of unamplified music? We won’t know until we hear it. The economic downturn is sure to have an effect on the symphony’s plans for growth, and the musicians’ hopes for better pay and a larger full-time core.

Almost as soon as he arrived here, Smith began living through the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." He recruited a fine young crop of musicians, who gelled as an ensemble more quickly than might be expected in a regional orchestra with a limited concert schedule. The conductor and musicians maintained a high performance standard while migrating among venues with wildly variable acoustics. Smith cut remarkably few corners in the quality and variety of the orchestra’s programming. He made big statements in small places.

Review: Richmond Symphony

May 16, First Baptist Church

To take his leave of the Richmond Symphony after 10 years as its music director, Mark Russell Smith chose perhaps the most explicit and emotionally complex leave-taking in orchestral music, Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. In the second of three performances of the work, Smith and the symphony delivered a finely detailed account whose greatest poignancy lay in the illumination of those details.

The Mahler Ninth is scored for a massive orchestra, with enlarged woodwind and French horn sections, and is rarely inhibited in its writing for brass and percussion. Strings commonly are hard-pressed to balance all that, and in this performance the church-sanctuary stage was too small to accommodate full-sized string sections. The sparsity of fiddles was evident when, for instance, five violas had to project an internal figuration that gives an ominous undercurrent to the main theme of the first movement, or when, in the finale, a motif is passed from a richly sonorous horn section to five cellos.

Smith, however, made a virtue of the strings’ necessarily lean sonority. Like the late works of many composers, the Mahler Ninth has a skeletal quality, with noticeably less sonic padding and musical connective tissue than one hears in the composer's earlier music. Ample numbers can make this work's string-centered themes, especially the finale’s extended farewell (or dying away), sound warmer and more lush than they really should. In this performance, the strings’ expression was high-romantic but their sound was austere, even stark.

This not only deepened the musical-emotional experience; it also clarified some of the qualities of this music – its frequent forays into Bachian counterpoint, for example – that listeners often miss.

The orchestra, with its permanent roster augmented by a number of substitute players among the winds, played with intense concentration and gratifying attention to unusual sonorities (how many different ways does this music rasp?) and precarious balances of voicing.

The seven second violinists deserve special praise for their ensemble and expression, which matter more here than in most orchestral scores. (Mahler, unusually, uses the seconds to introduce several of the work’s big lyrical themes.) French horn player Paul LaFollette delivered consistently fine solos, as did violist Molly Sharp, cellist Neal Cary and concertmaster Karen Johnson. Trumpeter Rolla Durham paced the brass section, whose production of muted tones was expert, and usually perfectly placed within Mahler’s dense orchestral texture.

The score’s one escape from introversion, poignancy and calculated tentativeness is its third movement, marked Burleske. Here, Smith and the orchestra pounced on the music’s energy, humor, vivid effects and full-throated climaxes, heightening the contrast of this movement with the rest of the symphony.

I’ll have more to say about Smith’s musical legacy in Richmond in a subsequent post. For now, I’ll remark that he couldn’t have chosen a more suitable work than the Mahler Ninth for his farewell performances, and that in this piece he makes one of the most distinctive and memorable artistic statements of his Richmond years.

Mark Russell Smith and the Richmond Symphony give their final performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony at 8 p.m. May 18 at St. Michael Catholic Church, 4491 Springfield Road in Glen Allen. Tickets: $28. Details: (804) 788-1212; www.richmondsymphony.com

The May 18 concert will be aired live on WCVE (88.9 FM) and its affiliated stations.

VCU Rennolds Concerts 2009-10

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Mary Anne Rennolds Chamber Concerts series will introduce Richmond to two of the leading younger American string quartets, the Pacifica and Jupiter, and to the trio of violinist Renaud Capuçon and cellist Gautier Capuçon (who are siblings) and pianist Nicholas Angelich in its 2009-10 season.

The series will open with the Chestnut Brass Company, performing on Oct. 10 and giving a master class the day before. Other dates include the Pacifica Quartet on Nov. 7, the Capuçon-Angelich Trio on Jan. 30, Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen on Feb. 20 (with a master class the day before), the Jupiter String Quartet on March 27, and cellist Peter Wispelwey on April 17.

Program information has not been announced by any of the artists.

All concerts will begin at 8 p.m. in Vlahcevic Concert Hall of VCU’s Singleton Arts Center, Park Avenue at Harrison Street in Richmond’s Fan District.

Series and single tickets are available at the VCU Music Department box office. Details: (804) 828-6776; www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/rennolds.html

Parting words

Mark Russell Smith, who concludes his decade as music director of the Richmond Symphony with performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony this weekend, looks back on his tenure's challenges and rewards in an interview with Walt Amacker in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/entertainment/music/article/W-SMIT14_20090513-192509/267502/

Happy music, happy faces

The Telegraph reports on a study, published in the journal Neuroscience Letters by researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London, indicating that exposure to cheerful music prompted listeners to see happiness in the faces of people around them.

"The researchers used 120 different excerpts of instrumental pop, classical and jazz. After each piece was played, the students were asked to rate the mood of the faces in the pictures.

"Results showed that happy music 'significantly enhanced the perceived happiness of a face.' Further studies of the volunteers' brain waves revealed that the effect of the music was almost instantaneous. It took just 50 milliseconds for changes to take place – too fast to be under our conscious control," the newspaper reports:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/5294435/Cheerful-music-can-make-everyone-around-you-look-happy.html

(via ArtsJournal)

On a conceivably related note, Alex Ross passes on whimsical translations, by MIT linguistics professor (and orchestral violinist) David Pesetsky, of Mahler's score markings:

http://medicine-opera.com/2009/04/08/mahlers-markings/

And a happy fifth anniversary to Ross, patriarch of classical-music bloggers (www.therestisnoise.com), from this blog, a mere toddler not quite 2½ years old.

Review: Richmond Symphony

May 8, Bon Air Baptist Church

In the final program of this season’s Haydn Festival, the Richmond Symphony begins gravitating away from focusing on a single composer – the format of its chamber-orchestra concerts over the last four years – and toward the more varied, entrée-with-sides programming that the series will present next season under the new name "Metro Connections."

Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 in D major, the "London," is this program's entrée, and Erin Freeman, the orchestra’s associate conductor, gives it red-meat treatment: measured tempos and big, rounded sonorities, with a few singular interpretive touches in extra emphasis (especially in the trio section of the third-movement menuet) on counter-rhythms and figures customarily consigned to the innards of the orchestration.

In the first of two weekend performances, Freeman and the orchestra delivered an account of the Haydn that played up its big tunes and some of its surprising gestures, but that never quite took off. Missing the pouncing attacks and whiplash accents that make this music sound adventurous, even precarious, the performance came across in the jovial, not too frisky voice of "Papa" Haydn.

The most adventurous selection of the program is "Postcards," a set of scenic miniatures written in 1997 by the Chinese-émigré composer Bright Sheng. The piece was commissioned, for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, by a Minnesota couple who fondly remembered a trip to China. Sheng obliged with a piece whose first two movements, "From the Mountains" and "From the River Valley," recall chinoiserie, the European evocations of Asia that were fashionable a century ago. A more authentically Chinese sound begins to emerge in the third section, "From the Savage Land," and really takes hold of the final "Wish You Were Here," in which Western strings, winds and percussion impersonate the sounds and expressive language of Chinese instruments.

The program opens with another contemporary work, "Voyage," John Corigliano’s reworking of a choral setting of Baudelaire’s poem "L’Invitation au Voyage" for flute and string orchestra. The featured artist, Mary Boodell, the symphony’s principal flutist, seems to hear the chaste romanticism of Samuel Barber in this piece; Freeman obtained a more lushly lyrical sound from the strings.

Molly Sharp, the orchestra’s principal violist, is featured in the rarely heard full orchestration of Hugo Wolf’s "Italian" Serenade, more commonly encountered in its original version for string quartet or in a string orchestration. Compared with those, this big-band version gilds the lily with picturesque but ultimately extraneous orchestral detail. Sharp, as a concertante soloist and in duets with cellist Neal Cary, summons the warmth and lyricism of Wolf’s original.

The program repeats at 3 p.m. May 10 at Blackwell Auditorium, Randolph-Macon College, 205 Henry St. in Ashland. Tickets: $25. Details: (804) 788-1212; www.richmondsymphony.com

Rating tenors

With Rolando Villazon canceling engagements for the rest of the year as he nurses a cyst on his vocal cords and Plácido Domingo showing signs that he's not indestructible, Norman Lebrecht surveys the current field of tenors. He finds "just two lyric tenors still standing": the Peruvian Juan Diego Florez and the German Jonas Kaufmann:

http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/090506-NL-Tenor.html

The vinyl revival

Vinyl records never went away; they just receded temporarily into the realm of record collectors and nostalgia buffs. Now LPs are making a comeback, thanks (surprisingly?) to the generation supposedly wedded to mp3s. A look at the new market for vinyl, in print in Style Weekly, online at:

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=347443A2AE144C69AE744D2061257439&AudID=C3A7C1EDE4E54E24AF4637F9AAFFD1B6

Choir auditions

The Greater Richmond Children's Choir, directed by Hope Armstrong Erb, will hold placement auditions for its 2009-10 season on May 26 and 30 and June 6 at Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 8 N. Laurel St., next to Richmond's Landmark Theater.

GRCC maintains five choirs for boys and girls from 8 to 18 years old, including high-school tenors and basses. Its entry-level Treble Choir is open without audition. Financial aid is available for choir membership.

To schedule an appointment, call (804) 201-1894. More information about the choir can be found at www.grcchoir.org

Arts in recession

In The Washington Post, Paul Fahri and Jacqueline Trescott survey a dismal landscape of arts groups hit hard by the economic downturn and likely to continue suffering even after the economy improves.

"I have never seen a situation like this in my 25 years in the business," says Michael M. Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center, whose Arts in Crisis program has advised about 350 struggling groups since its inception in February:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050100218.html?sub=AR

The art of Zwilich

Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, whose Septet for piano trio and string quartet was introduced last week in New York and will be performed tonight at Washington's Kennedy Center and tomorrow in a Virginia Arts Festival program in Portsmouth by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and Miami String Quartet, is profiled by Barrymore Laurence Scherer in The Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124147972431985133.html

Mendelssohn via Wagner

As Mendelssohn's 200th anniversary year continues, Tom Service wonders why the composer has been underrated for so long. Answer: Perceptions were filtered through Richard Wagner, who vented his anti-Semitism against Mendelssohn, a Christian convert from a prominent German Jewish family, in hopes of undermining the stature of of a rival.

"Mendelssohn's influence made him the most important figure in German musical culture. Before Wagner could launch his musical and social revolutions, he needed to destroy Mendelssohn," Service writes in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/05/felix-mendelssohn-richard-wagner-classical-music

Milestone

Pete Seeger is 90:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/arts/music/05seeg.html?ref=music

The trouble with competitions

Instrumental and singing competitions are prime launching pads for young musicians – starting their careers with a burst of publicity, and often a nice nest egg to boot; but they are rife with "nepotism, sexual coercion, financial greed and downright megalomania that has gone unchecked for decades," Jessica Duchen writes in The Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/the-murky-music-prize-1671566.html

May 2009 calendar

Classical performances in and around Richmond, with selected events elsewhere in Virginia and the Washington area. Program information, provided by presenters, is updated as details become available. Adult single-ticket prices are listed; senior, student, group and other discounts may be offered.

SCOUTING REPORT

* In and around Richmond: The month’s main events are the farewell concerts of Richmond Symphony Music Director Mark Russell Smith, conducting Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, May 15 at Second Baptist Church, May 16 at First Baptist Church, May 18 at St. Michael Catholic Church. . . . Erin Freeman conducts the final program of the symphony’s Haydn Festival, May 8 at Bon Air Baptist Church, May 10 at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland. . . . The area’s four leading concert choirs present their spring programs: The James River Singers, May 2 at First Presbyterian Church, May 3 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church; the Richmond Concert Chorale, May 10 at the Church of the Holy Comforter (Episcopal); the Greater Richmond Children’s Choir, May 17 at St. James’s Episcopal Church; and the Richmond Choral Society, May 31 at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Singleton Arts Center.

* New and/or different: A diverse and concentrated showcase of contemporary composition at Washington’s Kennedy Center early this month, including chamber programs devoted to works by Lera Auerbach on May 1, Bruce Adolphe on May 2 and Joan Tower on May 4; the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and Miami Quartet in Ellen Taffee Zwilich’s Piano Septet on May 5; The Nash Ensemble of London and guests in a program of Knussen, George Benjamin, Elliott Carter, Harrison Birtwistle, Colin Matthews and Nicholas Maw on May 6; Oliver Knussen conducting the National Symphony in his Violin Concerto, with Leila Josefowicz as soloist, and works by Augusta Read Thomas, Julian Anderson and Gunther Schuller, May 7-9; and Knussen joining NSO musicians and guests in chamber works by Thomas, Anderson, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Sean Shepherd and himself, May 10. . . . Violinist Chee-Yun joins the Fairfax Symphony for "Concerto dei Fiori" by the Czech composer Sylvie Bodorova, May 2 at the Center for the Arts, George Mason University, in Fairfax. . . . The Ethos Percussion Group and guests juxtapose traditional music from Ghana with works by Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis and Robert Levin, May 8 at the Library of Congress in Washington. . . . The Virginia Symphony plays Aaron Jay Kernis’ "Musica Celestis," along with music of Mozart, Poulenc and Prokofiev, May 14 at St. Bede Catholic Church in Williamsburg, May 15 at Regent University Theater in Virginia Beach, May 17 at the Ferguson Arts Center of Christopher Newport University in Newport News. . . . The Hampden-Sydney Music Features features the rarely heard Piano Quintet of Erno von Dohnányi, songs of Joseph Schwantner and Shostakovich’s last work, his Viola Sonata of 1975, in opening concerts, May 22-23, and a weekend showcasing the Fine Arts Quartet, May 29-30, at Crawley Forum of Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville. . . . Soprano Carole Farley and pianist John Constable perform in a semi-staged version of Poulenc’s "La Voix Humaine," May 29 at the Library of Congress.

* Star turns: Ravi & Anoushka Shankar continue their progression through the region with a performance at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville on May 1. . . . The Canadian pianist Louis Lortie returns to the region to play Chopin’s 24 préludes, May 2 at the Kennedy Center. . . . Nelson Freire, the eminent Brazilian pianist, plays Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto with the Baltimore Symphony, May 2 at Strathmore in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. . . . Manfred Honeck conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony in Richard Strauss and Beethoven, and cellist Alisa Weilerstein plays Haydn, May 4 at the Kennedy Center. . . The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and Miami Quartet visit the Virginia Arts Festival for a program of Boccherini, Zwilich and Dvořák, May 6 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Portsmouth. . . . . Pianist Garrick Ohlsson joins the National Symphony for Mozart, bracketed by orchestral works of Schumann, May 14-16 at the Kennedy Center. . . . Percussionist Evelyn Glennie performs in the Virginia Arts Festival, May 15 at Virginia Beach’s Sandler Arts Center.

* Bargain of the month: The Richmond Philharmonic, Robert Mirakian conducting, in a program of Saint-Saëns, Brahms and Dvořák, May 3 at VCU’s Singleton Center, May 4 at Deep Run High School in Glen Allen. ($5 per person, $10 per family)

* My picks: The Pittsburgh Symphony, May 4 at the Kennedy Center. . . . The Kalichstein-Laredo Robinson Trio and Miami Quartet, May 5 at the Kennedy Center, May 6 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Portsmouth. . . . Smith conducting the Richmond Symphony in Mahler’s Ninth, May 15, 16 and 18 at three area churches. . . . Evelyn Glennie, May 15 at the Sandler Center in Virginia Beach. . . . . Hampden-Sydney Music Festival programs, May 23-24 and May 29-30.


May 1 (7:30 p.m.)
Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 8 N. Laurel St., Richmond
American Guild of Organists Repertoire Recital Series:
Dong-Ill Shin, organ
Program TBA
Free
(804) 228-6243
www.richmondago.org

May 1 (8 p.m.)
Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Charlottesville
Ravi & Anoushka Shankar, sitars
Indian classical ragas
$39.50-$59.50
(434) 979-1333
www.theparamount.net

May 1 (8 p.m.)
May 3 (2:30 p.m.)
Shaftman Performance Hall, Jefferson Center, 541 Luck Ave., Roanoke
Opera Roanoke
Steven White conducting
Verdi: "Otello"
Allan Glassman (Otello)
Other casting TBA
$15-$85
(540) 982-2742
www.operaroanoke.org

May 1 (7:30 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Family Theater, Washington
Composer Spotlight: Lera Auerbach
Lera Auerbach, piano
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano
Auerbach: "The Last Letter"
Auerbach: Sonata for cello and piano
Auerbach: 24 cello preludes
$25
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 1 (8 p.m.)
May 2 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Helmuth Rilling conducting
Haydn: "The Creation"
Klara Ek, soprano
James Taylor, tenor
Nathan Berg, bass-baritone
University of Maryland Concert Choir
Edward Maclary directing
$20-$80
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 1 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First Street at Independence Avenue S.E., Washington
Ludwig Sémerjian, fortepiano
Mozart: Sonata in C major, K. 330
Mozart: Sonata in B flat major, K. 333
Haydn: Sonata in E flat major
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0809-schedule.html

May 2 (7 p.m.)
First Presbyterian Church, 4602 Cary Street Road, Richmond
May 3 (4 p.m.)
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 520 N. Boulevard, Richmond
James River Singers
Christopher Lindbloom directing
Works by Purcell, Bach, Poulenc, Stanford, Randall Thompson
$15
www.jamesriversingers.org

May 2 (8 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Fairfax Symphony
Christopher Zimmerman conducting
Haydn: Symphony No. 39
Sylvie Bodorova: "Concerto dei Fiori"
Chee-Yun, violin
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10
$35-$55
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
www.gmu.edu/cfa/calendar/

May 2 (4 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
Louis Lortie, piano
Chopin: études (complete)
$42-$77
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
www.wpas.org

May 2 (6 p.m.)
May 5 (6 p.m.)
May 9 (6 p.m.)
May 14 (6 p.m.)
May 17 (2 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington
Washington National Opera
Michael Güttler conducting
Wagner: "Siegfried"
Pär Lindskog (Siegfried)
Andreas Conrad (Mime)
Alan Held (The Wanderer)
Gordon Hawkins (Alberich)
Iréne Theorin (Brünnhilde)
Gidon Saks (Fafner)
Nancy Maultsby (Erda)
Francesca Zambello, stage direction
in German, English captions
$25-$300
(800) 876-7372
www.dc-opera.org

May 2 (7:30 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Family Theater, Washington
Composer Spotlight: Bruce Adolphe
Apollo Trio
Lauren Skuce, soprano
Adolphe: "Three Secret Stories"
Adolphe: "Wind Across the Sky"
Adolphe: "The Tiger’s Ear: Listening to Abstract Expressionist Paintings"
$25
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 2 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Mario Venzago conducting
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4
Nelson Freire, piano
Bruckner: Symphony No. 3
$25-$80
(877) 276-1444 (Baltimore Symphony)
www.strathmore.org

May 3 (4 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
May 4 (7:30 p.m.)
Deep Run High School, 4801 Twin Hickory Road, Glen Allen
Richmond Philharmonic
Robert Mirakian conducting
Saint-Saëns: Bacchanale from "Samson et Delila"
Brahms: "Variations on a Theme by Haydn"
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”)
$5 per person, $10 per family
(804) 673-7400
www.richmondphilharmonic.org

May 3 (3 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Washington Bach Consort
Handel: "Water Music"
Handel: "Coronation Anthems" (excerpts)
Handel: "Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day"
Handel: Gloria
$20-$55
(877) 376-1444
www.strathmore.org

May 4 (7:30 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Family Theater, Washington
Composer Spotlight: Joan Tower
Muir Quartet
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Tower: "Night Fields"
Tower: "Big Sky"
Tower: "Dumbarton" Quintet
Tower: "Icandescent"
Tower: "Simply Purple"
Tower: "For Daniel"
$25
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 4 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Manfred Honeck conducting
Richard Strauss: "Death and Transfiguration"
Haydn: Cello Concerto in C major
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
$42-$87
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
www.wpas.org

May 5 (8 p.m.)
May 6 (8 p.m.)
Kimball Theatre, Duke of Gloucester Street, Williamsburg
Williamsburg Symphonia
Janna Hymes conducting
Corelli: Concert Grosso in AC major, Op. 10, No. 6
Mozart: Divertimento in D major, K. 136
Respighi: "Ancient Airs and Dances" Suite No. 3
Pēteris Vasks: “Canabile” for strings
Piazzolla: "The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires"
$30-$42
(757) 229-9857
www.williamsburgsymphonia.org

May 5 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Miami Quartet
Boccherini: Cello Quintet in E major
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Septet for piano trio and string quartet
Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81
$38
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 6 (7:30 p.m.)
Trinity Episcopal Church, 500 Court St., Portsmouth
Virginia Arts Festival:
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Miami String Quartet
Boccherini: String Quintet in E major
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Septet for piano trio and string quartet
Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81
$30
(866) 448-7849 (Ticketmaster)
www.virginiaartsfest.com

May 6 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Nash Ensemble of London
Lionel Friend conducting
Valdine Anderson, soprano
Oliver Knussen: "Songs without Voices"
George Benjamin: "Piano Figures"
Elliott Carter: "Mosaic"
Harrison Birtwistle: "Crowd"
Colin Matthews: "The Island"
Nicholas Maw: "Ghost Dances"
$38
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 7 (7 p.m.)
May 8 (8 p.m.)
May 9 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Oliver Knussen conducting
Augusta Read Thomas: "Helios Choros I"
Knussen: Violin Concerto
Leila Josefowicz, violin
Julian Anderson: "Imagin’d Corners"
Gunther Schuller: "Of Reminiscences and Reflections"
$20-$80
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 8 (8 p.m.)
Bon Air Baptist Church, Forest Hill Avenue at Buford Road, Richmond
May 10 (3 p.m.)
Blackwell Auditorium, Randolph-Macon College, 205 Henry St., Ashland
Richmond Symphony
Erin Freeman conducting
Corigliano: "Voyage" for flute and string orchestra
Mary Boodell, flute
Wolf: "Italian" Serenade
Bright Sheng: "Postcards"
Molly Sharp, viola
Haydn: Symphony No. 104 ("London")
$20-$38
(804) 788-1212
www.richmondsymphony.com

May 8 (7:15 p.m.)
Short Pump Town Center, 11800 W. Broad St., Richmond
May 10 (3 p.m.)
Stony Point Fashion Park, 9200 Stony Point Parkway, Richmond
Central Virginia Wind Symphony
Mike Goldberg directing
Reineke: "Sedona"
Smith: "By Loch and Mountain"
Ticheli: "An American Elegy"
Buckley: "An American Portrait"
Nicholas Rischoff, euphonium
Rodgers & Hammerstein: medley from “Oklahoma!”
Wilson: medley from “The Music Man”
Sondheim: "Send In the Clowns"
Gershwin: "They Can’t Take That Away From Me"
Al Regni, saxophone
Sousa: "The Stars & Stripes Forever"
Free
(804) 342-8797
www.thewindsymphony.com

May 8 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First Street at Independence Avenue S.E., Washington
Ethos Percussion Group
Bernard Woma, Ghanian xylophone
M’Bembe Bangoura, Ghanian drums
Ghanian traditional music; works by Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis, Robert Levin
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0809-schedule.html

May 9 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Bach Sinfonia
Daniel Abraham conducting
Purcell: "King Arthur"
Yulia Van Doren, soprano
Barbara Hollinshead, alto
Craig Lemming, tenor
David Newman, bass
Karl Kippola, actor
in English
$21-$55
(877) 376-1444
www.strathmore.org

May 10 (5 p.m.)
Church of the Holy Comforter (Episcopal), Monument Avenue at Staples Mill Road, Richmond
Richmond Concert Chorale
Grant Hellmers directing
Mendelssohn: "Deutsche Liturgie"
Mendelssohn: "Nunc dimittis"
Hank Mechem: "Earth My Song"
Works by Stanford, Sullivan
Donation requested
(804) 643-3589, ext. 5406

May 10 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra members
Oliver Knussen & Brad Lubman conducting
Elizabeth Keusch, soprano
Sean Shepherd: "Metamorphoses"
Augusta Read Thomas: "Carillon Sky"
Knussen: "Requiem – Songs for Sue"
Mark-Anthony Turnage: "Dark Crossing"
Julian Anderson: "Alhambra Fantasy"
$25
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 12 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Vocal Arts Society:
Teddy Tahu Rhodes, baritone
Craig Rutenberg, piano
Program TBA
$45
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 14 (8 p.m.)
St. Bede Catholic Church, 3686 Ironbound Road, Williamsburg
May 15 (8 p.m.)
Regent University Theater, Virginia Beach
May 17 (7:30 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
Virginia Symphony
JoAnn Falletta conducting
Mozart: Symphony No. 31 ("Paris")
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1
Vahn Armstrong, violin
Aaron Jay Kernis: "Musica Celestis"
Poulenc: Gloria
Amy Pfrimmer, soprano
Virginia Symphony Chorus
Robert Shoup directing
$26-$46
(757) 892-6366
www.virginiasymphony.org

May 14 (7 p.m.)
May 15 (1:30 p.m.)
May 16 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Jun Märkl conducting
Schumann: "Konzertstück" for four horns and orchestra
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Schumann: Symphony No. 1 ("Spring")
$20-$80
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 15 (8 p.m.)
Second Baptist Church, River and Gaskins roads, Richmond
May 16 (8 p.m.)
First Baptist Church, Boulevard at Monument Avenue, Richmond
May 18 (8 p.m.)
St. Michael Catholic Church, 4491 Springfield Road, Glen Allen
Richmond Symphony
Mark Russell Smith conducting
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
$25-$50
(804) 788-1212
www.richmondsymphony.com

May 15 (8 p.m.)
Sandler Arts Center, 201 S. Market St., Virginia Beach
Virginia Arts Festival:
Evelyn Glennie, percussion
Program TBA
$27-$57
(866) 448-7849 (Ticketmaster)
www.virginiaartsfest.com

May 16 (7 p.m.)
May 19 (7:30 p.m.)
May 21 (7:30 p.m.)
May 24 (2 p.m.)
May 27 (7:30 p.m.)
May 30 (7 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington
Washington National Opera
Keri-Lynn Wilson/Plácido Domingo conducting
Puccini: "Turandot"
Maria Guleghina/Sylvie Valayre (Turandot)
Dario Volonté/Franco Farina (Calaf)
Sabina Cvilak/Maija Kovalevska (Liù)
Morris Robinson (Timur)
Nathan Herfindahl (Ping)
Norman Shankle (Pang)
Yingxi Zhang (Pong)
Andrei Serban, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$25-$300
(800) 876-7372
www.dc-opera.org

May 17 (3 p.m.)
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Grove Avenue at Boulevard, Richmond
Mary Boodell, flute
Lynette Wardle, harp
Kimberly Bushek, viola
Debussy: Sonata for flute, viola and harp
Satie: "Le Fils des Etoiles"
Ibert: "Deux Interludes"
Arthur Foote: Sarabande and Rigaudon
Toru Takemitsu: "Toward the Sea"
D.J. Sparr: "River Seine’s Open Air" (premiere)
Free; tickets required
(804) 340-1405
http://www.vmfa.museum/

May 17 (4 p.m.)
St. James’s Episcopal Church, 1201 W. Franklin St., Richmond
Greater Richmond Children’s Choir
Hope Armstrong Erb & Diana Greer directing
Works by Byrd, Handel, Brahms, Copland; theatrical, folk songs
Donation requested
(804) 355-1779
www.grcchoir.org

May 17 (4 p.m.)
Bon Air Presbyterian Church, 9201 W. Huguenot Road, Richmond
Crescendo: Mike Goldberg & Friends
Mike Goldberg, clarinet
Victoria Hamrick, oboe
Lynda Edwards, bassoon
Works by Handel, Milhaud, Ibert, Auric
Donation requested
(804) 272-7514

May 17 (6 p.m.)
Duncan Memorial United Methodist Church, 201 Henry St., Ashland
May 19 (7 p.m.)
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 520 N. Boulevard, Richmond
Central Virginia Masterworks Chorale
William Gorton directing
Beethoven: Mass in C major
Other works TBA
$15
(804) 798-3283

May 17 (3 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
Master Chorale of Washington & orchestra
Donald McCullough directing
Orff: "Carmina Burana"
Lisa Eden, soprano
Robert Baker, tenor
Jon Bruno, baritone
Children’s Chorus of Washington
$25-$80
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 21 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First Street at Independence Avenue S.E., Washington
Trio Apollon
Schumann: Fairy Tales"
Siegfried Matthus: "Wasserspiele"
Bruch: three pieces from Op. 83
Jean Françaix: Trio for clarinet, viola and piano
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0809-schedule.html

May 22 (8 p.m.)
Crawley Forum, Hampden-Sydney College, 5 miles south of Farmville
Hampden-Sydney Music Festival:
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 49
Shmuel Ashkenasi, violin
Marc Johnson, cello
James Kidd, piano
Schumann: "Fairy Tales," Op. 132
Elizaveta Kopelman, piano
Michael Klotz, viola
Ethan Sloane, clarinet
Dohnányi: Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 1
Elizaveta Kopelman, piano
Shmuel Asheknasi & Misha Vitenson, violins
Michael Klotz, viola
Marc Johnson, cello
$18
(434) 233-6273
www.hsc.edu/musicfestival/2009/

May 23 (8 p.m.)
Crawley Forum, Hampden-Sydney College, 5 miles south of Farmville
Hampden-Sydney Music Festival:
Shostakovich: Sonata (1975) for viola and piano
Michael Klotz, viola
James Kidd, piano
Crusell: Quartet in E flat major for clarinet and strings
Ethan Sloane, clarinet
Misha Vitenson, violin
Michael Klotz, viola
Marc Johnson, cello
Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81
Elizaveta Kopelman, piano
Shnuel Askenasi & Misha Vitenson, violins
Michael Klotz, viola
Marc Johnson, cello
$18
(434) 233-6273
www.hsc.edu/musicfestival/2009/

May 24 ( 8 p.m.)
West Lawn, U.S. Capitol, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Erich Kunzel conducting
National Memorial Day Concert
Program TBA
Free
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

May 29 (7 p.m.)
Heritage Amphitheater, Pocahontas State Park, Chesterfield
Richmond Symphony
Erin Freeman conducting
Leroy Anderson: "Home Stretch," "Chicken Reel"
Harold Arlen: medley from "The Wizard of Oz"
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World") (excerpt)
Johann Strauss II: "On the Beautiful Blue Danube"
Tilzer: "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
P.D.Q. Bach: "New Horizons in Music Appreciation"
John Williams: "Flying Theme" from "E.T., the Extraterrestial"
Sousa: "The Stars and Stripes Forever"
Free
(804) 788-1212
www.richmondsymphony.com

May 29 (8 p.m.)
Crawley Forum, Hampden-Sydney College, 5 miles south of Farmville
Hampden-Sydney Music Festival:
Haydn: Quartet in C major, Op. 76, No. 3 ("Emperor")
Fine Arts Quartet
Schubert: "Shepherd on the Rock"
Nancy Allen Lundy, soprano
Ethan Sloane, clarinet
James Kidd, piano
Vaughan Williams: "Three Vocalises"
Nancy Allen Lundy, soprano
Ethan Sloane, clarinet
Mendelssohn: Quartet in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2
Fine Arts Quartet
$18
(434) 233-6273
www.hsc.edu/musicfestival/2009/

May 29 (8 p.m.)
May 30 (8 p.m.)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players
Gilbert & Sullivan: "The Pirates of Penzance"
Cast TBA
in English
$8-$48
(877) 965-3872 (Tickets.com)
www.wolftrap.org

May 29 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First Street at Independence Avenue S.E., Washington
Carole Farley, soprano
John Constable, piano
Poulenc: "La Voix Humaine"
Other works TBA
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0809-schedule.html

May 30 (8 p.m.)
Crawley Forum, Hampden-Sydney College, 5 miles south of Farmville
Hampden-Sydney Music Festival:
Wolf: "Italian" Serenade
Fine Arts Quartet
Ludwig Spohr: "German Songs" Nos. 1, 3, 4, 6
Nancy Allen Lundy, soprano
Ethan Sloane, clarinet
James Kidd, piano
Joseph Schwantner: two songs from "Magabunda"
Nancy Allen Lundy, soprano
James Kidd, piano
Dvořák: Quartet in F major, Op. 96 ("American")
Fine Arts Quartet
$18
(434) 233-6273
www.hsc.edu/musicfestival/2009/

May 30 (8 p.m.)
May 31 (3 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
National Philharmonic
Piotr Gajewski conducting
Wagner: "Die Meistersinger" Prelude, Act 1
Dvořák: Romance for violin and orchestra
Saint-Saëns: Introduction and Rondo capriccioso
Soovin Kim, violin
Mahler: Symphony No. 1
$29-$79
(877) 376-1444
www.strathmore.org

May 31 (5 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Richmond Choral Society
Thomas A. Williams directing
"I Won’t Grow Up," choral classics for children and families
$12 in advance, $15 at door
(804) 967-9878
www.richmondchoralsociety.org