Directors' opera (con't.)

In the wake of the "Tosca" uproar at the Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, the Met's general director, and the stage directors of the two upcoming productions in the house, Patrice Chéreau (Janácek’s "From the House of the Dead") and Patrick Sher (Rossini's "The Barber of Seville"), discussed "cognitive theater" with Paul Holdengräber at the New York Public Library. Video and audio of their talk is available at the library's Web site:

www.nypl.org/research/chss/pep/pepdesc.cfm?id=5846

(via Alex Ross)

Review: 'La Bohème'

Virginia Opera, Peter Mark conducting
Oct. 23, Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage

The Virginia Opera gave Richmonders a taste of its production of Puccini’s "La Bohème" five weeks ago in the Richmond CenterStage opening gala, when the four principals sang the paired duets and quartet from Act 3. That first impression was largely reinforced in the first of two weekend performances that close the opera’s run.

Derek Taylor (as Rodolfo), Veronica Mitina (Mimi), Eugene Brancoveanu (Marcello) and Elizabeth Andrews Roberts (Musetta) looked and acted the parts of young bohemians in late 19th-century Paris; but at times they sounded mismatched, with their roles and with one another.

Brancoveanu’s robust baritone tended to make other voices sound small, although he reined in his tone in ensembles. Roberts sang with a rather steely edge, not inappropriate for her street-wise, flirtatious character; but "Quando me’n vo soletta per la via," Musetta’s Act 2 aria (and "Bohème’s" best-known tune), needs more voluptuous treatment than Roberts gave it.

Mitina started out projecting more like a Tosca, or even a Turandot, but captured the physical and emotional fragility of Mimi where it really counted, in her Act 3 parting with Rodolfo and her death scene in Act 4. Taylor’s voice sounded decidedly under-powered in the early going, but grew and warmed as the performance progressed.

Michael Redding (Schaunard) and Nathan Stark (Colline) brought big tone and fine characterization to their substantial supporting roles. Terry Hodges reveled in the comic roles of the landlord Benoit and Alcindoro, Musetta’s befuddled sugar-daddy.

The chorus of adults and children, prepared by Joseph Walsh, sang energetically and nicely fleshed out the Act 2 street scene.

Julia Pevzner’s unfussy stage direction kept the drama focused on its main characters and their tangled emotions, physically underlining the conversational quality of this opera, and never stumbled in its sudden shifts from broad comedy to intimacy and tragedy. No fussing with the locale and time frame, either, in stereotypically Latin Quarter Parisian sets (by Allen Charles Klein) and costumes (from Opera Theatre of St. Louis).

Peter Mark’s energetic conducting was distractingly visible, at least from the vantage of those in orchestra seats; does his podium need to be as high as it was for this performance? Mark obtained expressive and colorful, if not very well-padded, playing from members of the Virginia Symphony.

The final performance of the Virginia Opera’s "La Bohème" begins at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 25 at the Carpenter Theatre, Sixth and Grace streets. Tickets: $29-$99. Details: (866) 673-7282 (Ticketmaster); www.vaopera.org

Surprise symphony

When violist Steven Fisher joined the UMW-Community Symphony at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, conductor Kevin Bartram got a pleasant surprise: Fisher also is a musicologist, and has unearthed a long-overlooked symphony by Joseph Haydn.

The work, dating from the early 1770s – around the same time that Haydn composed his familiar "Farewell" Symphony (No. 45) – will be performed in an Oct. 23 concert by the orchestra, Jennifer Strobel reports in The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg:

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/102009/10222009/501393/index_html?page=1

The University of Mary Washington-Community Symphony Orchestra, Kevin Bartram conducting, performs at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 23 in UMW's Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall. Admission is free. Details: (540) 654-1012; http://www.umw.edu/events/

Steinway via the Beltway?

On her "Classical Beat" blog for The Washington Post, Anne Midgette notes the opening of Steinway "piano galleries" recently at Tyson’s Corner and early next year in Falls Church, following Steinway and Sons’ decision to end its longtime distribution arrangement in the Washington area with Jordan Kitt's Music. Jordan Kitt's has been the Steinway dealer in Richmond and Virginia Beach for years.

Does this mean that downstate Virginia purchasers of new Steinways now must endure Northern Virginia traffic?

No, says Paul King, regional vice president of Jordan Kitt's. The firm continues to sell Steinways in Richmond and Virginia Beach (and Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere), and continues to provide Steinway-authorized service and to honor Steinway warranties.

Institutional buyers – orchestras, schools and colleges, churches – often go to Steinway Hall in New York to sample instruments before purchasing concert grands. No local dealer can offer as many instruments to try out and compare. "If someone told me they were going to spend $100,000 on a piano," says Charles Staples, the concert pianist and head of music ministry at Richmond's Trinity United Methodist Church, "I would say that's a good excuse for a trip to New York."

King notes, however, that Jordan Kitt's offers local customers a choice of several Steinway grands, shipping them in from other locations if necessary.

UPDATE: David Slan, president of the Steinway Piano Gallery, Tyson's Corner, writes: "When an institution wants to select a concert grand piano, they purchase it through their local Steinway dealership. The dealer then arranges a date at the Selection Room at the Steinway factory in Long Island City, New York. The local dealer travels with the institutional purchaser who selects from five Steinway Model D concert grand pianos (more if they are selecting a larger number of instruments). After the choice is made, the piano is boxed and delivered to the local Steinway dealership. The local dealer then preps and delivers the piano to the institutional purchaser – and handles future service needs."

Review: Thomas Hampson

Oct. 21, University of Richmond

Few singers have devoted as much time to American art-song as the baritone Thomas Hampson. So it was natural for him to devise the "Song of America Project" in partnership with the Library of Congress, which possesses the largest collection of songs made in the U.S.A. (and the colonies before it).

Hampson now is touring with the project’s second recital program, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the first art-song known to be written in this country: “My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free,” written in 1759 to a text of Thomas Parnell by Francis Hopkinson, a merchant-turned-lawyer who as a delegate from New Jersey would be among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The tune, in the Anglo-American song style that nourished the shape-note singing tradition and lives on in Protestant hymnody, opened Hampson’s program. It was neatly framed by his encore piece, the less venerable folk song “Shenandoah.”

Between the two, Hampson ranged from a relatively obscure bit of Stephen Foster, “Open Thy Lattice, Love,” through pieces by the late 19th-century composers Edward MacDowell, Amy Beach and Arthur Farwell to songs of the modern masters Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson and the still-living Michael Daugherty. None of this music, other than “Shenandoah,” is familiar to most listeners – although some texts, such as “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven” (Vachel Lindsay’s ode to the founder of the Salvation Army, set to music by Sidney Homer) and William Blake’s “The Tyger” (set by Thomson), resonate from literature classes long ago.

The program leaned decidedly toward a declamatory, going on exclamatory, style of delivery, the musical equivalent of stem-winding political oratory and evangelical sermonizing, with some well-lubricated stag-night storytelling on the side. Hampson, who boasts a big voice (even for an operatic baritone) and effortlessly exudes a hail-fellow-well-met vibe, used both to winning effect in Copland’s “The Dodger,” Charles Ives’ “Circus Band” and “Charlie Rutlage,” and Walter Damrosch’s setting of Rudyard Kipling’s “Danny Deever.”

Less expected, and more gratifying for it, were the singer’s subdued passion and dreaminess in more lyrical and impressionistic pieces, notably the Foster song, Beach’s “Twilight,” Jean Berger’s setting of Langston Hughes’ “Lonely People” and Charles Naginski’s setting of Walt Whitman’s “Look Down, Fair Moon.”

The program’s most pleasing surprises were “Blue Mountain Ballads,” Paul Bowles’ settings of four verses by Tennessee Williams, and Daugherty’s “Letter to Mrs. Bixby,” which transforms Abraham Lincoln’s letter to the mother of five sons killed in the Civil War into something akin to a Kaddish prayer.

Pianist Wolfram Rieger gave Hampson accompaniment that was both spirited and sensitive.

Thomas Hampson will conduct a master class for University of Richmond students, open free to the public, at 11 a.m. Oct. 22 at UR’s Modlin Arts Center. Details: (804) 289-8980.

eighth blackbird prized in Dallas

eighth blackbird, the new-music sextet in its sixth year of residency at the University of Richmond, has been awarded the first Meadows Prize, which will support a residency at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The prize, named for philanthropists Algur H. and Virginia Meadows, comes with "a substantial prize/stipend" and will finance a one- to three-month residency, during which eighth blackbird "will be expected to interact in a substantive way with Meadows students and to leave a lasting legacy in Dallas," according to a statement from SMU.

"The Meadows Prize is also intended to help spark a local, sustainable contemporary and fringe arts scene in Dallas," the statement continues. "As part of this goal, eighth blackbird will curate a new music series in partnership with the Dallas Arts District," a recently completed complex of performance and exhibition venues in the central city.

More from Tim Munro on the eighth blackbird blog:

http://www.eighthblackbird.com/blog/2009/10/15/8bb-wins-new-meadows-prize/

Review: Shanghai Quartet

with Lynn Harrell, cello
Oct. 19, University of Richmond

The Shanghai Quartet plays to its strengths when it plays Schubert. This composer’s combination of lyricism and passion, the classicism in his ordering of string voices and the romanticism of his expressive language, the sweetness and storminess, might have been made for these musicians’ techniques and interpretive spirit.

So a program beginning and ending in Schubert – the "Quartettsatz" in C minor of 1820 and the String Quintet in C major, his last work, completed a few weeks before his death in 1828 – made for some of the most memorable, deeply communicative performances in the Shanghai’s 20-year history at the University of Richmond.

The veteran cellist Lynn Harrell joined violinists Weigang Li and Yi-Wen Jiang, violist Honggang Li and cellist Nicholas Tzavaras in the Schubert Quintet, as well as the rarely heard Cello Quintet in A major (1892) of Alexander Glazunov.

Tzavaras and Harrell are both cellists of robust sonority and strong projection. Together, they gave the Schubert bass lines of orchestral scale, almost overpowering the violins and viola in the more extroverted passages of the quintet’s opening movement. Better balances prevailed in the rest of the piece. The musicians played with intense concentration and to mesmerizing effect in the bittersweet adagio, and with both refinement and rustic energy in the scherzo and finale.

Their playing and collective sensibility were at a comparably high level in the Glazunov. The work itself sounds destined to remain a curiosity, an intermittently cloying momento of lyrical late romanticism that takes its sweet time before suggesting its origin. The first movement sounds more like Grieg than like any Russian music of the time; the closest Glazunov gets to sounding Russian – and then, really, more generically Slavic – is in the main theme of the final movement.

Schubert’s "Quartettsatz" is a fitting companion, stylistically and spiritually, to his String Quintet, and the Shanghai played it with the same intense focus and dynamism that the foursome and Harrell would bring to the quintet.

Points to ponder

The Boston Globe's Jeremy Eichler revisits the recent debuts of two new music directors, Alan Gilbert at the New York Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who could represent "compelling models for coaxing the traditional symphony orchestra - essentially a creation of the 19th century - into the future."

Successful 21st-century orchestras must "resist the temptation to cocoon themselves in the narcotic sublimity of their own sound. The fear is always that concert halls in America are becoming citadels isolated from the modern-day intellectual and artistic life of the society at large," Eichler writes:

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2009/10/18/new_conductors_in_la_ny_pose_a_challenge_to_the_bsos_agenda/?page=1

(Eichler also might have noted the initiatives of an older-school maestro, Riccardo Muti, to nudge the Chicago Symphony into this century with the appointments of Mason Bates and Anna Clyne as resident composers and the launching of several projects aimed at audiences rarely seen in symphony halls.)

How the futures of orchestras and other "high art" institutions will differ from their pasts should be essential points to ponder for the Richmond Symphony committee that will be selecting a new music director around the first of the year, and for the folks in charge of Richmond CenterStage, a venue that has been derided by its critics as a citadel of art forms oblivious to contemporary culture.

Well-medicated

Jeremy Denk's performances here this weekend remind me to link to his proposed healthcare bill for piano players. Better late (by a month and change) than never:

http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2009/09/10/legislating-from-my-bench/

Dudamel on PBS

Gustavo Dudamel's Disney Hall debut concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, including the premiere of John Adams' "City Noir" and a performance of Mahler's First Symphony, will be broadcast on PBS' "Great Performances" at 8 p.m. (Eastern time) Oct. 21, locally on WCVE (Channel 23 [HD1 & 2]).

Pacifica profiled

In The New York Times, Steve Smith profiles the Pacifica Quartet, which is performing on Nov. 7 at Virginia Commonwealth University:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/arts/music/18smit.html?ref=music

Review: Richmond Symphony

Oct. 17, Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage

Among young musicians generally, and Russian émigrés especially, all roads led to Paris in the early decades of the 20th century. So it’s not too surprising to find the Richmond Symphony presenting a French-accented program with Prokofiev as its centerpiece, or to hear his Piano Concerto No. 3 fit so comfortably between Debussy’s "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and Berlioz’s "Symphonie fantastique."

Prokofiev sketched this work during an odyssey that took him out of revolutionary Russia, via Siberia and Japan, to the United States; he introduced the concerto in Chicago in 1921. By that time, though, he had settled in Paris, and had absorbed the coloristic and atmospheric language of the French school. (Several generations of it: One hears echoes of Saint-Saëns as well as Ravel.)

In the first of two weekend concerts, pianist Jeremy Denk and conductor Christian Knapp played up the Frenchness of the Prokofiev, emphasizing its wealth of tone colors, bringing a lithe quality to its rhythmic energies and generally giving it a light touch – at least in comparison with the heavy hitting approach so many musicians take with this composer.

Denk played the piano’s many, mostly closely packed notes virtuosically and with nervy energy, but not too loudly, and with ears keenly attuned to the piano’s almost constant interaction with the orchestra. This give-and-take proved especially fruitful in the concerto’s central andantino, but also enhanced the finale, which, for a change, did not sound like a crowd rushing the exit.

Knapp, the eighth of nine candidates auditioning to become the symphony’s next music director, led a "Symphonie fantastique" whose parts often were more impressive than its sum. The performance was not lacking in passion or drama; but the conductor and orchestra seemed intent on rendering its details of orchestration and color as vividly as possible. Digging as deeply into the piece as they did, often moderating tempos to give finer points space and time to be heard, took some of the wildness and headlong momentum out of the piece, but also gave a sharper-than-usual focus to its weirder sound effects.

The long-distance call-and-response of oboist Gustav Highstein in the upper balcony and English horn player Shawn Welk onstage produced the appropriate spatial effect in the early going of "In the Country," and the bass strings sounded prominently, if not lushly, at that movement's lyrical peak. Knapp quite effectively brought out the Beethovenesque soulfulness of this music.

The brass choirs sounded big and brash without overwhelming strings in the "March to the Scaffold" and "Witches’ Sabbath." Berlioz was profligate with percussion in those last two movements of "Symphonie fantastique" – during "March to the Scaffold," he has four players manning two sets of kettle drums, plus bass and snare drummers – and these forces, at their loudest, did overwhelm the rest of the orchestra. The offstage bells in the "Witches’ Sabbath" tended to lag the beat, as well.

Mary Boodell’s beguiling flute solos highlighted the Debussy, which otherwise felt rather brisk. That impression may be due more to Knapp’s energetic conducting than to the tempo he adopted.

More about the acoustics of the renovated Carpenter Theatre (my perspective is from the first row of balcony seats): In this first go at a piano concerto, the instrument, placed near the lip of the stage extension – thus, well into the auditorium – was a strong but not domineering presence. (Denk, though, wasn't playing in alpha-virtuoso mode.) This was a cool evening and many patrons arrived in overcoats, which took some of the edge off the newly brightened sound of the hall, as the acousticians predicted. The space directly under the proscenium arch is indeed an acoustical sweet spot, occupied in these concerts by second violins and violas. Very loud volume does indeed sound congested, and loud percussion effectively blots out everything else.

The program repeats at 3 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Carpenter Theatre, Sixth and Grace streets. Tickets: $17-$72. Details: (800) 927-2787 (Ticketmaster); www.richmondsymphony.com

POSTSCRIPT: French music seems to compel writers to resort to sensory analogy. We’ve all read about the colorful, painterly qualities of Debussy and Ravel (impressionism and all that), and maybe descriptions of music from the preceding generation (Chausson, especially) as fragrant or perfumed. Aside from stray references to tartness (cue the oboe and E-flat clarinet), taste – as in flavor – isn’t normally on this analogy menu. I think it should be, and offer the Prokofiev Third Concerto, at least as Denk played it, as an exemplary dish of what I’ll call foodie French music.

Trying the visual analogy, I don’t hear Prokofiev selecting colors and and ordering them into a coherent composition. (A tidier and more angular version of Jackson Pollack, maybe.) I sense no aroma to speak of in this music. But I sure can taste it. I hear the sound equivalents of the classic five flavors – sweet, sour, salty, bitter and pungent – clearly differentiated ingredients in proper proportions, and courses that let each flavor stand out at some point in the meal.

A lot of French music can be tasted as it’s heard. The later Ravel, such as the Piano Concerto in G major, strikes me as having foodie qualities. I could say the same of many pieces from Les Six, of the generation following Ravel’s, and of a variety of non-French composers who spent time in early 20th-century Paris, from Prokofiev and Bohuslav Martinů to Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson. (The Americans, though, tend to give you tastes of dust, dew and thin air.) French baroque music, notably Rameau, can be quite flavorful. So can Berlioz, though not in “Symphonie fantastique” unless you have a taste for raw meat.

Cross steps in at Va. Symphony

Robert Cross, the Virginia Symphony's principal percussionist and executive director of the Virginia Arts Festival, has been named interim executive director of the orchestra. The Hampton Roads-based Virginia Symphony hopes to name a permanent replacement for Carla Johnson in its top administrative post early next year, David Nicholson reports in The Daily Press of Newport News:

http://www.dailypress.com/features/family/dp-life_vasymphony_1014oct14,0,3043700.story

Migration

Alex Ross, The New Yorker music critic whose "The Rest Is Noise" has long led the pack in classical-music blogging, has launched a new blog, "Unquiet Thoughts," under the magazine's aegis.

"The Rest Is Noise" is still up (http://www.therestisnoise.com/) and Ross will continue to post there occasionally, he writes. Going forward, though, it appears that this will be his principal online outlet:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/alexross/

Chicago Symphony taps Bates

Mason Bates, the Richmond-bred composer and electronica artist, has been named one of the two new composers-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony. The other is Anna Clyne, an English-born New Yorker who has produced a number of electronic and multimedia works.

In a two-year term beginning in September 2010, Bates and Clyne will be the curators of "MusicNOW," the orchestra's contemporary music series, and "have committed to extending their art of composition to be inclusive of other art forms such as film, dance and the visual arts," according to a news release from the Chicago Symphony:

http://chicagopressrelease.com/press-releases/chicago-symphony-orchestra-association-and-maestro-muti-announce-major-cso-initiatives-for-2010

Wider seats for bigger bottoms

In an article for The Guardian on Dallas' new Winspear Opera House, Ed Pilkington notes that the theater seats just 2,300, compared with 3,300 at the city's old opera house. One motivator was to enhance the intimacy of performances. Another, more practical, reason: "People want wider seats, as basically they have bigger bottoms," says architect Spencer de Grey:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/oct/14/foster-winspear-opera-house-opens

Creating more leg room, especially in the upper balconies, was a priority in the renovation of the old Carpenter Center into Richmond CenterStage's Carpenter Theatre. Providing that leg room, and adding aisles, reduced the theater's capacity by about 250 seats, to 1,750.

Alt ist neu (and vice versa)

Alt-classical is a new-ish label for the new-ish breed of classical musicians who make music in unconventional places – nightclubs, galleries, ex-industrial structures and spaces – and those who draw instruments, repertory and performing vibes from pop, jazz and world music.

In The Washington Post and online, Anne Midgette surveys the alt-classical scene around D.C. and profiles several of its venturesome musicians:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/13/AR2009101303565.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat/

These sorts of performances and instrumental and stylistic interactions have been on the radar, if low on the horizon, for a decade or more. Pianist Christopher O’Riley did his first arrangements of tunes by the band Radiohead, in 2003. Cellist Matt Haimovitz began supplementing his conventional concert engagements with nightclub recitals in 2000; by now, his schedule revolves around the latter. Many chamber groups, especially those specializing in contemporary music, are as likely to be heard in an art gallery as in a concert hall.

Orchestras have been in the vanguard of the movement of classical music out of the concert hall, or at least out of the traditional concert-hall environment. In the early 1970s, Pierre Boulez launched his “rug concerts” with the New York Philharmonic; in subsequent decades, the notion of informal or casual concerticizing was adapted in all kinds of ways by orchestras all over the country. Over the past 30 years, the Richmond Symphony has played in three or four bars, several ballrooms, an old foundry, a former railroad shed and other nontraditional spaces, and has given some of its best performances to its most enthusiastic audiences in those places. (The orchestral shut down its old casual-concert series, Kicked Back Classics, last season; one hopes it’s contemplating a successor.)

The University of Richmond is this area’s alt-classical epicenter, thanks to eighth blackbird, now in its sixth season of residency. The sextet regularly plays with musicians outside the classical orbit (such as percussionist Glenn Kotche and puppeteer Blair Thomas), programs electroacoustic works and compositions using non-Western structures and instrumental timbres, sometimes performs in nontraditional settings, and makes audience feedback part of its presentation.

For about 20 years, encounters among classical, jazz, pop and folk/ethnic/world musicians have been fueled by recording companies craving “crossover” best-sellers. Some of the participants, such as double-bassist Edgar Meyer, fiddler/violinist Mark O’Connor, banjoist Béla Fleck and sitar player Anoushka Shankar, have played crossover music not for novelty value but as a way to craft genuinely multicultural genres. They have been enthuasiastically abetted by classical stars such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

Generations of capital-C classical composers beat them to it. Western composers have been influenced by non-Western musics since the Middle Ages – i.e., for all the time that a “West” has existed as a distinct cultural entity. Since Debussy was smitten by Indonesian gamelan at the 1889 Paris Exposition, European and North American composers have drawn inspiration (and instruments, and performing techniques) from Asia, and from indigenous and popular musics of Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and from African-American culture.

Today, most of the leading “establishment” composers in the U.S. – the ones scoring prestigious prizes, big grants and commissions, high-profile residencies – produce multicultural or cross-cultural music: John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Tan Dun, Steve Reich, Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, Terry Riley, David Lang, Michael Torke, Mason Bates, Wynton Marsalis . . . the list goes on.

Early music is very much part of this new scene. (Very old music, unperformed for centuries, is effectively new music.) Sample the offerings of in the Early Music America tour directory – http://earlymusic.org/rostersearch – and you’ll find a stylistically diverse, multicultural, sometimes multimedia brew that looks remarkably similar to – and in performance, often feels like – an eighth blackbird or Bang on a Can program.

Alt-classical’s ideal performance is one that engages an audience of traditional highbrows and followers of the new-art and alternative-pop cultures, in a space that all find comfortable and conducive to interaction between performers and listeners, preferably with something to drink and munch, not too long in duration (say, an hour of music and 20 minutes of talk about it) and not too expensive (say, $25 or less).

Getting that right is tricky. The New York Times has provided a running chronicle of recent dates by classical artists at Le Poisson Rouge and other nightspots, and its reviewers often comment as much about the settings and their environmental challenges (clinking glasses and other background noises, misadventures in amplified sound) as they do about the performances.

The “hook” that snares both over-40 highbrows and younger listeners from the new-art and pop cultures is elusive. The whole notion of alt-classical is rooted in wider accessibility and greater interactivity; so, naturally, it’s as much about personality as it is about programming. (Playing Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites well, and playing them convincingly in a bar, are two different skills, as Haimovitz can attest.)

They’re going to get it right. The best performers and composers, the most alert and savvy presenters, are committed to musical genres and modes of presentation that fall under the general heading of alt-classical. It is fast evolving from a subculture to an integral part of the classical mainstream.

As for drawing a crowd, it’s out there. A proliferation of media, such as YouTube, providing free and easy access to all kinds of music, have enabled more people to explore music, to listen for something new and different, and more listeners are exploring than at any time since the 1960s. For most of them, classical music, from Reich back to Bach, qualifies as new and different.

Code-breaker

"Keeping Score: revealing classical music"
Michael Tilson Thomas & San Francisco Symphony
beginning Oct. 15 on public television stations

Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony, returns for a second season of "Keeping Score," his public-television series exploring major symphonic works, this time delving into Hector Berlioz’s "Symphonie fantastique," the "Holidays" Symphony of Charles Ives and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

The series begins with the Berlioz episode. This should be of special interest locally, as the Richmond Symphony, with music-director candidate Christian Knapp, is playing the "Symphonie fantastique" over the weekend.

MTT, as he’s popularly known, devoted the first season of "Keeping Score" to Beethoven’s "Eroica" Symphony, Stravinsky’s "The Rite of Spring" and the "Americana" works of Aaron Copland, which broke old compositional molds and sent music in new directions. In this series, the conductor plays code-breaker, explaining how Berlioz, Ives and Shostakovich manipulated melodies and orchestrations to create musical autobiographies and sound sketches reflecting the societies in which they lived and worked.

Berlioz’s "Symphonie fantastique" is the most overtly autobiographical of the three works, a fevered dream of an artist’s romantic obsession. The artist, of course, is Berlioz. His obsession, and the symphony's idée fixe, was Harriet Smithson, an Irish actress whose Shakespeare productions were a sensation in Paris in the late 1820s. Smithson was not aware of Berlioz's infatuation as he wrote the symphony and premiered it in 1830; after she attended a performance of a revised version of the symphony and its sequel, "Lélio," in 1832, the two moved on to successful courtship and unsuccessful marriage.

MTT tells this tale, on location in Paris and in the composer’s hometown, La Côte-Saint-André in the Alpine foothills of southeastern France, with his customary combination of conversational ease and sophisticated musical analysis. Tilson Thomas, who was a protégé of Leonard Bernstein, adapts the old master’s model of verbal presentation with a cooler on-screen persona and more frequent use of wry humor and irony. (His quip about Smithson "waltz[ing] by, her idée fixe trailing after her," is classic MTT.)

One imagines Bernstein making more of the intellectual-historical currents behind Berlioz and the "Symphonie fantastique" – the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era, the rise of romanticism in literature and the performing arts. MTT glosses over this background in a few sentences, keeping his idée mostly fixed on Berlioz, Smithson and the composition she inspired.

Members of the San Francisco Symphony join the conductor in explicating Berlioz’s score and orchestration, if not the back-story of the composition. The orchestra musicians have more to say, more pertinently, about the Ives and especially the Shostakovich symphonies. Russian-born members of the orchestra speak quite movingly about the shadow that Stalin and his henchmen cast over Shostakovich and Soviet society, although none appears to be old enough to remember the dictator, who died in 1953.

The Ives episode presents the most challenging music – this composer’s orchestral traffic was never heavier than in the "Holidays" Symphony – and yet the most accessible story, at least for American viewers. MTT emphasizes Ives’ fixation with New England’s landscape (lovingly pictured by the camera crew) and society in the post-Civil War era in which he grew up, and the radical changes the country went through as it became an urban, industrial power in the early 20th century. While this work is a sound picture of the 19th-century rural America of Ives’ childhood, its energy level and frequent overloads of stimuli – it may be the musical embodiment of "too much information" – are as modern as a big-city streetcorner.

The Shostakovich episode leans more heavily on historical film footage (of Shostakovich, Stalin and the mid-20th century Soviet Union); and, unlike the Berlioz and Ives programs, features Tilson Thomas speaking to a San Francisco Symphony audience during a performance at Davies Symphony Hall. This program also deals more extensively with historical-social background and relatively less so with musical explication – although, as with the Berlioz and Ives, MTT explains in some detail the coded signals within Shostakovich’s score.

The first episode of Michael Tilson Thomas’ "Keeping Score," exploring Berlioz’s "Symphonie fantastique," airs at 10 p.m. Oct. 15 on WCVE (Channel 23 [HD1]). The series continues with programs on Ives’ "Holidays" Symphony on Oct. 22 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 on Oct. 29, both at 10 p.m.

POSTSCRIPT: This series is a timely reminder that Dudamania in LA is not the only thing that classical music in California has going for it.

Bernstein Mass at Va. Arts Festival

JoAnn Falletta will conduct the Virginia Symphony and choruses in Leonard Bernstein's Mass on April 23 and 24 at Norfolk's Chrysler Hall, during the 2010 Virginia Arts Festival. The piece, written in 1971 for the opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington, was rarely heard for a generation thereafter, but has enjoyed a number of revivals in recent years.

Other classical artists and attractions announced for the spring festival in Hampton Roads:

* Pianist Maurizio Pollini, May 4 at Harrison Opera House, Norfolk.

* Cellst Alisa Weilerstein, May 27 at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church, and with the Virginia Symphony, May 30 at Williamsburg Lodge.

* Sitar player Anoushka Shankar, April 16 at Roper Performing Arts Center, Norfolk.

* Venice Baroque Orchestra, April 28 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Portsmouth.

* Orion String Quartet, May 20 at the American Theatre, Hampton, and with pianist André-Michael Schub, May 21 at the Sandler Arts Center in Virginia Beach and May 23 at Williamsburg Winery.

* Trio Mediaeval, April 19 at Old Dominion University, Norfolk.

* Classical guitarist David Russell, April 27 at Chrysler Museum Theater, Norfolk.

* Boston Brass, May 21 at Ferguson Arts Center, Newport News.

* Cavani String Quartet, May 4 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Portsmouth, and May 6 at Chrysler Museum Theater, Norfolk.

* Banjoist Bela Fleck with tabla player Zakir Hussain and double-bassist Edgar Meyer, May 28 at Williamsburg Lodge.

Other attractions include the Pilobolus Dance Theater, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Garth Fagan Dance, jazz trumpeter Chris Botti and the African Children's Choir. The festival's popular gathering of military bands, the Virginia International Tattoo, is scheduled for April 30-May 2 at the Norfolk Scope arena.

More on the 2010 festival from Teresa Annas in The Virginian Pilot:

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/10/virginia-arts-festival-brings-mass-spring

And on the Virginia Arts Festival website:

www.vafest.com/2010/index.php

Annals of unlikely music-making

Whatever possessed this guy to master the "Summer Storm" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" on his accordion? He's sure nailed it . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCfSiMB_2E&feature=player_embedded

(via Andrew Sullivan)

Gershwin's new co-author

The George Gershwin estate has tapped Brian Wilson, former leader and principal songwriter of The Beach Boys, to complete songs that Gershwin left unfinished when he died in 1937. Wilson says he hopes to finish "at least two" (out of about a dozen left incomplete, some little more than fragments) for inclusion on a Gershwin album that he plans to release next year, Randy Lewis reports in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-brian-wilson8-2009oct08,0,2518188.story

Walt Disney Records, for which Wilson will record the album, says he will "Brian-ize" the Gershwin material "with his trademark vocal stacks and unique arrangements” (via The New York Times' Dave Itzkoff):

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/the-boys-of-summer-brian-wilson-will-rework-george-gershwin-for-new-album/

"Is it just me, or does this sound like a terrible idea?" wonders the Baltimore Sun's Tim Smith:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/classicalmusic/

Early music menu planner

Early Music America, the professional association/advocacy group for performers of medieval, Renaissance and baroque music, has published "Touring Early Music Ensembles," a directory listing 33 U.S. and Canadian ensembles, their 2010-11 season programming and – purportedly for bookers, but also interestingly for onlookers – their fees.

For "$15,000 or more," the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, with its conductor, Harry Christophers, will perform Handel's "Messiah." For $15k or less, Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland-based chamber orchestra, offers the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610; "Fire and Folly: Myths of Love and Betrayal," with soprano Sophie Daneman; and "Come to the River: an Early American Gathering." Sarasa, a strings-with-continuo ensemble, with violin soloist Elizabeth Blumenstock, will do Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons" for less than $5,000.

Among the big names: Anonymous 4, offering 13th-century Spanish songs, a reprise of "A Medieval Ladymass: English chant and polyphony," and a Christmas-carol program (fee: "Ask for a quote"). . . . The Baltimore Consort, Scottish, Spanish and French programs, "Gut, Wind and Fire: Instrumental Music, 1500-1700," and Christmas carols and dances ($7,000-$9,999). . . . The Boston Camerata, seven programs ranging from "Carmina Burana" (the 13th-century original) to early Americana ($5,000-$15,000). . . . Piffaro: The Renaissance Band, music of Elizabethan England, 16th-century Spain and Flanders, and European Christmas tunes ($7,000-$9,999). . . . The ARTEK baroque ensemble, four different Monteverdi programs (including the Vespers) and "Graveyard Music (multimedia baroque program on themes of death and sorcery)" ("$15,000 or more"). . . . The string quartet I Furiosi, "Crazy: From Venice to Bedlam, the sounds of madness unleashed," "Intro to the Body: Playing doctor with I Furiosi," and "Addicted to Love: When you can’t get enough of a good thing" ($3,000-$4,999).

I Furiosi wins the prize for frisky program themes and titles. More typical are snapshots of musical history, related to a specific manuscript or music of century-X in locale-Y; song-lyric thematic programs (love, death, hunting, carousing, etc.); music from the time and place of some famous non-musician (Dante, Boccaccio, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Gainsborough); explorations of forgotten musics (many pre-modern Jewish, one early Yiddish; several Euro-Arab and Euro-Turkish; even one Hawaiian); a dusting of greatest hits, usually of the Renaissance; a Christmas program; and, often overlapping with Christmas, early American hymnody.

Glancing through this brochure is like grazing through a cookbook of an exotic, probably delicious cuisine. (One group calls itself Les Délices; another, the Repast Baroque Ensemble.) What’s not to want to like about outfits called Ciaramella, La Donna Musicale, Galileo’s Daughters, Gravitación or The Spirit of Gambo? Ensemble Lucidarium might seem a bit intimidating (lucidity can be); The Catacoustic Consort, a bit . . . what? . . . Goth?

I, for one, am now primed to spend evenings with "Stylus Phantasticus, the Fantastical Style of 17th-century Italy," "Macchine: Science and Music from the Age of Leonardo da Vinci," "Queen and Huntresse! English and French Renaissance songs about the game of courtship," "The Coal-Seller’s Concert Hall: Music from Purcell’s London," "Aery Entertainments," "Kehi Kinnor: a Jewish Wedding in the Renaissance," "The Gigg is Up: Music in Shakespeare’s England" – even "Graveyard Music," under the right moon.

The undead-tree version of the directory:

http://earlymusic.org/rostersearch

Peruse, then lobby your local impresario.

A new children's classic

On Oct. 31, the Richmond Symphony launches its new Lollipops series for children and families with a piece that's fast becoming the toast of kiddie concerts: "The Composer Is Dead," a "musical murder mystery" composed by Nathaniel Stookey to a text by Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket).

"The Composer Is Dead," which has been performed more than 50 times since its 2006 premiere by the San Francisco Symphony, scores both with audiences and musicians, Daniel J. Kushner writes at NewMusicBox:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=6135

Erin Freeman conducts the Richmond Symphony, with Nathaniel Stookey narrating, in "The Composer Is Dead," at 11 a.m. Oct. 31 at the Carpenter Theatre of Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets. (Pre-concert activities begin at 10 a.m.) Tickets: $17. Details: (800) 927-2787 (Ticketmaster); www.richmondsymphony.com

Oh G*D!

Gustavo Dudamel, the Wunderkind of conductors, launched his tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic over the weekend with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, in a free concert that drew 18,000 to the Hollywood Bowl.

The symphony followed sets by a wide-ranging roster of jazz, pop and gospel musicians – Herbie Hancock, Taj Mahal, David Hidalgo, Andraé Crouch – many of them leading youth and community groups. Dudamel, who came up through Venezuela's El Sistema program of music education for young people, conducted a troupe of beginners in an arrangement of the "Ode to Joy."

The 28-year-old conductor "goes by many names," the Los Angeles Times' Mark Swed writes. "Gustavo the Great. Gustavissimo. The Dude. Some have taken to referring to the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic by his initials, thus: G*D."

Swed swoons intermittently in his review of Dudamel at the Bowl:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/10/dudamel-bows-with-beethoven-for-all-the-ages-.html

"[T]here has never been a gala quite like this to celebrate the arrival of a conductor to a major American orchestra," notes The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini, who seemed pleasantly surprised not to hear "the Beethoven’s Ninth some might have expected from a young dynamo" . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/arts/music/05gustavo.html?ref=music

NPR's "Performance Today" will air Dudamel's opening-night program with the LA Phil at Disney Hall – Mahler's First Symphony and the premiere of John Adams' "City Noir" – in a live webcast at 10 p.m. (Eastern time) Oct. 8 on its site:

http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/

UPDATE: This G*D stuff is catching on. Daniel Nasaw, reporting for The Guardian, refers to Dudamel as "the 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor and saviour of classical music":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/09/gustavo-dudamel-los-angeles-philharmonic

The NY Times' Tommasini again hears unexpected maturity in Dudamel:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/arts/music/10dudamelcnd.html?hp

Dudamel led Adams' "City Noir" with "confidence and urgency," Swed writes in the LA Times. In the Mahler First, "he has found his way inside every note, and takes a listener with him":

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/10/dudamels-gala.html

REPRISE: Arthur Lubow's 2007 profile of Dudamel in The New York Times Magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28dudamel-t.html

Updating opera

At opening nights of Puccini's "Tosca" at the Metropolitan Opera and Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, audiences booed the directors and designers responsible for non-traditional productions.

The Guardian's Charlotte Higgins scolds the dissatisfied London patrons for being "boorish, callow and just plain rude" . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/oct/01/opera-classicalmusicandopera

"Updating has gotten a bad rap," writes The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini. "Shifting a story to another era can easily seem a glib and arbitrary maneuver. But done with imagination, an updated production can take today’s audiences to the core of a familiar work." He compares Luc Bondy's undecorous but "essentially traditional" staging of "Tosca" at the Met with Achim Freyer's "unabashedly avant-garde approach" to Wagner's "Ring" cycle at the Los Angeles Opera:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/arts/music/04tomm.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=music

Under the headline "Fiasco," The New Yorker's Alex Ross writes that the Bondy production "suck[s] the life out of 'Tosca' " in "an uneven, muddled, weirdly dull production that interferes fatally with the working of Puccini’s perfect contraption." Ross avoids (for now) lengthy rumination on Regieoper ("director's opera"), but observes that a new vision of a familiar work "needs to be good" . . .

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2009/10/05/091005crmu_music_ross?currentPage=1

Tommasini approaches, but doesn't quite get to, a key point about updating operas. "Tosca" is set in a particular place and time (Rome, 1800); its text refers to that environment, and its stage directions reflect period manners and behaviors. Puccini packs all kinds of cultural cues into his score. Update a show like this, and you're rewriting it – but only partly, since even the most avant-garde directors don't (yet) routinely splice historical references out of texts or doctor the scores.

Other music dramas are mythic fantasies, set in unspecific or theatrically malleable times and places. Tommasini cites the "Ring" cycle, the grandest example of this genre. Mozart's "Magic Flute" is another familiar fantasy. Operas set in such distant history that there's no real picture of the setting in the vernacular memory – I'm thinking here of Greek drama and other ancient storytelling – also can be manipulated successfully in chronology, costuming and the like. Baroque depictions of myth and legend respond especially well to modern, even abstract-expressionist, stagings.

There's an old actors' aphorism: "Dying is easy, comedy is hard." Reverse that and you've got good guidance for opera directors and designers.

Tragedy is tougher to update than comedy. Perhaps it's because tragic gestures and mourning rituals are so rooted in specific cultures and eras. It's comparatively easy to juggle times and places in comedy, especially a domestic comedy such as "Cosi fan tutte" or "The Elixir of Love." Comedic expression is pretty universal, physical comedy even more so – slapstick has been with us always. We have no trouble envisioning Bugs Bunny as Figaro and Elmer Fudd as Doctor Bartolo in "The Rabbit of Seville."

Opera combines many arts and crafts, but the dominant one is music. (How many "innovative" directors could say that and mean it? Show of hands, please.)

When a master composer addresses a specific theatrical style – when Verdi takes on 19th-century Italian melodrama – no staging intervention will change the piece into something else. Directors and designers can either work with what they've got, or against it. Wagner invites more creative direction and stagecraft; so do Mozart, Handel, Monteverdi, Richard Strauss (but not, please, "Rosenkavalier"). Before envisioning, let alone re-envisioning, an opera, listen to it.

Review: Richmond Symphony

Oct. 2, Oates Theater, Collegiate School

After a first tryout in splashy orchestral-choral spectaculars, Alastair Willis, latest of the music-director candidates to conduct the Richmond Symphony, turns this weekend to a program of standards for chamber orchestra. The better attributes he brought to last weekend’s concerts – close attention to voicings, timbres and balances, pouncing on accents, emphasizing dynamics – came through in this program as well.

Karen Johnson, the symphony’s concertmaster, is the soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in D major, K. 211 – which, remarkably, had not been programmed by this orchestra until now. This is early-ish Mozart, dating from 1775, when the 19-year-old composer still adhered mostly to the tuneful and decorous rococo or early classical style. The concerto anticipates the comic and wistful operatic arias of the mature Mozart, and Johnson’s reading emphasized those hints of things to come.

In the second of three performances of the concerto, the violinist’s tone was sweet but with an expressive edge, rather like that of the young but self-possessed women of the operas – Susanna in “The Marriage of Figaro,” say, or Despina in “Così fan tutte.” As concertmasters-turned-soloists tend to be, Johnson was always attentive to the orchestra’s accompaniment and the soloist's relationship to it; but she was not reticent in taking the lead and fully exploiting the violin's moments. Her performances of the cadenzas of the first and second movements were virtuosic without flash, and came across as playful or lyrical ruminations on the music previously heard – what a cadenza is supposed to be, but too rarely succeeds in being, in a concerto performance.

Willis is one of just two of the nine music-director candidates to audition with a Beethoven symphony. (Evidence, if you needed it, that we are in the early 21st century, not the early 20th.) Arthur Post conducted the First Symphony last season; Willis is conducting the Fourth Symphony this weekend. A good choice, as this relatively under-performed work is a microcosm of symphonic Beethoven, with virtually all the expressive devices, techniques of thematic development and structural nuts-and-bolts that the composer employed in the larger, better-known symphonies.

Willis paced, phrased and accented the Fourth as a classical symphony, but acknowledged the romantic tradition of Beethoven interpretation as he broadened the tempo in the adagio and downshifted markedly in the trio sections of the scherzo. The violins played with a nice bloom balancing warmth and brilliance – no mean feat in this acoustically dry space – and the low strings sounded hefty and assertive.

The opening piece, Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” showcased a wind section in excellent form and drew a more brilliant, primary-colored collective tone from the fiddles. The conductor opted for a brisk, sunny reading of the piece.

This program, opening the symphony’s new Metro Collection series, repeats at 3 p.m. Oct. 4 at Blackwell Auditorium, Randolph-Macon College, 205 Henry St. in Ashland. Tickets: $20. Details: (800) 927-2787 (Ticketmaster); http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

October 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: Two more candidates for music director of the Richmond Symphony audition this month: Alastair Willis, after conducting the season-opening Masterworks program, returns to launch the new Metro Collection series, Oct. 2 at Collegiate School and Oct. 4 at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland; Christian Knapp conducts the opening Symphony Pops program on Oct. 10 and Masterworks concerts featuring pianist Jeremy Denk, Oct. 17-18, all at the Carpenter Theatre of Richmond CenterStage. . . . Virginia Commonwealth University’s renovated James W. Black Music Center Recital Hall (the old church building at Grove Avenue at Harrison Street) gets a chamber-music tryout with the University of Iowa’s Maia String Quartet, in an Oct. 10 matinee. . . . The Chestnut Brass Quintet launches this season’s Rennolds Chamber Concerts with "American Voices" on the evening of Oct. 10 at VCU’s Singleton Arts Center. . . . Cellist Lynn Harrell joins the Shanghai Quartet in string quintets by Schubert and Glazunov, Oct. 19 at the University of Richmond. . . . Christopher Marks opens the American Guild of Organists’ Repertoire Recital Series with a program of Mendelssohn and Americana, Oct. 18 at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. . . . Baritone Thomas Hampson visits UR with his "Song of America Project" on Oct. 21. . . . The Virginia Opera opens its season with Puccini’s "La Bohème," Oct. 23 and 25 at the Carpenter Theatre (following runs in Norfolk and Fairfax). . . . Erin Freeman conducts the debut of the Richmond Symphony Lollipops series for children and familes, "The Composer Is Dead," with Nathaniel Stookey narrating, Oct. 31 at the Carpenter Theatre.

* New and/or different: Matt Albert, the violinist of eighth blackbird, and fellow fiddler Andrew McCann play rarely heard duos by Leclair and Prokofiev and contemporary music by Stephen Hartke, Oct. 5 at the University of Richmond. . . . The Greek ensemble Spiza presents an "Ecoacoustic Chamber Music Concert," combining music with "environmental soundscapes," Oct. 16 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. . . . Pianist Christopher O’Riley brings his arrangements of songs by the pop bands Radiohead and Nirvana to The Barns at Wolf Trap in Northern Virginia on Oct. 17. . . . Opera Lafayette continues its revivals of 18th-century operas with Charpentier’s "Les Arts Florissants," Oct. 19 at the Kennedy Center. . . . The Virginia Symphony introduces Behzad Ranjbaran’s Concerto for violin, viola and orchestra, Oct. 22 at St. Bede Catholic Church in Williamsburg and Oct. 24 at Regent University Theater in Virginia Beach. . . . Soprano Judith Cline and pianist Clara Ellen Modisett perform Alan Smith’s "Vignettes: Ellis Island," based on oral histories of immigrants who passed through New York’s gateway to America, Oct. 25 at UR. . . . John Winn, the Richmond jazz musician who crosses over into classical composition, introduces a new work with the Oberon Quartet, Oct. 27 at St. Christopher’s Upper School Chapel.

* Star turns: Richmond visits by Jeremy Denk, Lynn Harrell and Thomas Hampson (see In and Around Richmond, above). . . . Mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina and bass Ildar Abrazakov perform in a recital sponsored by the Washington National Opera, Oct. 3 at the Kennedy Center in Washington. . . . Nelson Friere, the great Brazilian pianist, plays Brahms’ D minor Concerto with the National Symphony, Oct. 8, 10 and 11 at the Kennedy Center. . . . The Takács Quartet plays Beethoven and Schumann, Oct. 13 at U.Va. in Charlottesville. . . . Pianist Murray Perahia plays Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin, Oct. 17 at the Kennedy Center. . . . Richard Stoltzman plays two standards of the clarinet repertory, the Mozart and Copland concertos, plus bits of Gershwin, with the National Philharmonic, Oct. 17 at Strathmore in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. . . . Lorin Maazel conducts the National Symphony, with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg playing Barber’s Violin Concerto and Dietlinde Turban-Maazel, the conductor’s wife, narrating his composition "The Giving Tree," Oct. 17-19 at the Kennedy Center. . . . Percussionist Evelyn Glennie performs with Orquestra de Sao Paulo, Oct. 21 at Strathmore. . . . Soprano Dawn Upshaw returns to the region for a recital, Oct. 23 at Strathmore. . . . Pianist Simon Dinnerstein plays Mozart and Louis Langrée conducts Haydn and Beethoven with the Baltimore Symphony, Oct. 24 at Strathmore.

* Wild card: Christopher Taylor plays Bach’s "Goldberg Variations" on a Steinway Double-Register Moór Concert Grand, an instrument said to combine the tonal qualities of a harpsichord and a modern piano, Oct. 14 at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

* Bargain of the month: The Oberon Quartet playing John Winn’s new Quartet and pieces by Mendelssohn and Piotr Szewczyk, Oct. 27 at St. Christopher’s School. (Free)

* My picks: The Virginia Opera’s "La Bohème," four dates between Oct. 3 and 11 at Norfolk’s Harrison Opera House, Oct. 16 and 18 at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Oct. 23 and 25 at the Carpenter Theatre in Richmond. . . . Nelson Friere with the National Symphony, Oct. 8, 10 and 11 at the Kennedy Center. . . . The Washington National Opera’s production of Verdi’s "Falstaff," with Alan Opie in the title role, seven dates between Oct. 10 and 30 at the Kennedy Center. . . . The Takács Quartet, Oct. 13 at U.Va. . . The Richmond Symphony, with conductor Christian Knapp and pianist Jeremy Denk, in Debussy, Prokofiev and Berlioz, Oct. 17-18 at the Carpenter Theatre. . . . The Shanghai Quartet with Lynn Harrell, Oct. 19 at the University of Richmond. . . . Thomas Hampson’s "Song of America" program, Oct. 21 at UR.


Oct. 1 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 2 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 3 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Iván Fischer conducting
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral")
Bartók: "The Wooden Prince"
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 1 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Marin Alsop conducting
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
James Ehnes, violin
$25-$80
(877) 276-1444 (Baltimore Symphony box office)
www.strathmore.org

Oct. 2 (8 p.m.)
Collegiate School, North Mooreland Road, Richmond
Oct. 4 (3 p.m.)
Blackwell Auditorium, Randolph-Macon College, 205 Henry St., Ashland
Richmond Symphony
Alastair Willis conducting
Ravel: "Le Tombeau de Couperin"
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 2
Karen Johnson, violin
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4
$20
(800) 927-2787 (Ticketmaster)
www.richmondsymphony.com

Oct. 2 (8 p.m.)
Harris Theater, George Mason University, Fairfax
Washington Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble
Program TBA
Free
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.gmu.edu/cfa/

Oct. 3 (7:30 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Marta Puig, piano
Program TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 3 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 7 (7:30 p.m.)
Oct. 9 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 11 (2:30 p.m.)
Harrison Opera House, 160 E. Virginia Beach Boulevard, Norfolk
Virginia Opera
Peter Mark conducting
Puccini: "La Bohème"
Veronica Mitina (Mimi)
Derek Taylor (Rodolfo)
Elizabeth Andrews Roberts (Musetta)
Eugene Brancoveanu (Marcello)
Nathan Stark (Colline)
Michael Redding (Schaunard)
Julia Pevzner, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$25-$114
(866) 673-7282
www.vaopera.org

Oct. 3 (8 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Fairfax Symphony
Christopher Zimmerman conducting
Mendelssohn: "The Fair Melusine" Overture
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Jon Manasee, clarinet
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4
$35-$55
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.gmu.edu/cfa/

Oct. 3 (7 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington
Olga Borodina, mezzo-soprano
Ildar Abrazakov, bass
Program TBA
$30-$140
(800) 876-7372
www.dc-opera.org

Oct. 3 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 4 (3 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
National Philharmonic
Piotr Gajewski conducting
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2
Misha Dichter, piano
Beethoven: "Choral Fantasy"
Misha Dichter, piano
National Philharmonic Chorus
$29-$79
(301) 581-5100
www.strathmore.org

Oct. 4 (4 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Susanna Klein, violin
Dmitri Shteinberg, piano
Program TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 5 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Matt Albert & Andrew McCann, violins
Works by Leclair, Prokofiev, Stephen Hartke
Free
(804) 289-890
www.modlin.richmond.edu

Oct. 5 (8 p.m.)
Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre, Orange Avenue at Williamson Road
Roanoke Symphony
David Stewart Wiley conducting
Suppé: "Light Cavalry" Overture
Richard Strauss: "Don Juan"
Marquez: Danzon No. 2
Brahms: Violin Concerto
Nathasha Korsakova, violin
$21-$41
(866) 277-9127
www.rso.com

Oct. 5 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Young Concert Artists Series:
Hahn-Bin, violin
Pianist TBA
Kreisler: Praeludium and Allegro
Schnittke: Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano
Penderecki: Cadenza for solo violin
Cage: Nocturne
Chopin-Milstein: Nocturne in C sharp minor
Mozart: Sonata in E minor, K. 304
Lutoslawski: Partita
$30
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 6 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
American Brass Quintet
Lacerda: "Quintetto concertante"
Hillborg: Brass Quintet
Sampson: "Entrance"
Josquin des Préz-Mase: chansons
Tower: "Copperware"
canzoni by Widmann, Troilo & Brade
$32
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 7 (5:30 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Chamber Brass Ensembles
Program TBA
Free
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 8 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 10 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 11 (1:30 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Ludovic Morlot conducting
Martinů: “The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca”
Tchaikovsky: "Francesca da Rimini"
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1
Nelson Friere, piano
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 9 (7:30 p.m.)
American Theatre, 125 E. Mellen St., Hampton
Joan Kwuon, violin
Program TBA
$25-$30
(757) 722-2787
http://hamptonarts.net/american_theatre/onsalenow.php

Oct. 9 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First Street at Independence Avenue S.E., Washington
Ron Regev, piano
Frank Huang, violin
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Mendelssohn: Cello Sonata No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 45
John Adams: "Road Movies"
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-schedule.html

Oct. 10 (3 p.m.)
Black Music Center Recital Hall, Virginia Commonwealth University, Grove Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Maia String Quartet
Program TBA
$10
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 10 (4 p.m.)
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Ninth and Grace streets, Richmond
Fort Lee Army Band
"Concert for Caring"
Program TBA
Donation requested of food items, especially for diabetics and others with special dietary needs
(804) 545-5405
http://www.stpauls-episcopal.org/

Oct. 10 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Rennolds Chamber Concerts:
Chestnut Brass Quintet
"American Voices"
Kevin McKee: "Vuelta del Fuego" ("Ride of Fire")
Lois V. Vierk: "Sunbow"
Renaissance brass works by Speer, Gastoldi, Henry VIII
19th-century American brass-band works by Francis Johnson, Stephen Foster, others
arrangements of folk songs and pieces by Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington
$32
(Free master classes at 4 p.m. Oct. 9, 3 p.m. Oct. 10)
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 10 (8 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Richmond Symphony Pops
Christian Knapp conducting
"Hitchcock! A Symphonic Night at the Movies"
$17-$75
(800) 927-2787
www.richmondsymphony.com

Oct. 10 (8 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 201 Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Virginia Symphony
JoAnn Falleta conducting
John Adams: "Slonimsky’s Earbox"
Brahms: "A German Requiem"
Janice Chandler Eterne, soprano
Jason Grant, baritone
Virginia Symphony Chorus
Robert Shoup directing
$25-$85
(757) 892-6366
www.virginiasymphony.org

Oct. 10 (7:30 p.m.)
The Barns at Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
California Guitar Trio
Program TBA
$22
(703) 938-2404
www.wolftrap.org

Oct. 10 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 12 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 17 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 21 (7:30 p.m.)
Oct. 25 (2 p.m.)
Oct. 27 (7:30 p.m.)
Oct. 30 (7:30 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington
Washington National Opera
Sebastian Lang-Lessing conducting
Verdi: "Falstaff"
Alan Opie (Falstaff)
Tamara Wilson (Mrs. Ford)
Ji Young Lee/Micaëla Oeste (Nannetta)
Elizabeth Bishop (Mrs. Meg Page)
Timothy Mix (Ford)
Nancy Maultsby (Mistress Quickly)
Yinqxi Zhang (Fenton)
Christian Räth, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$25-$300
(800) 876-7372
www.dc-opera.org

Oct. 11 (4 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Sonia Vlahcevic, piano
Program TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 11 (4 p.m.)
Bon Air Presbyterian Church, 9201 W. Huguenot Road, Richmond
Second Sunday South of the James:
The Commonwealth Brass
Charles Hinson directing
Steve Henley, organ
Program TBA
Donation requested
(804) 272-7514

Oct. 13 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Myssyk conducting
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5
Other works TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 13 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 14 (8 p.m.)
Kimball Theatre, Merchants Square, Williamsburg
Williamsburg Symphonia
Janna Hymes conducting
Weber: "Der Freischütz" Overture
Arnold: Serenade
Brahms: Symphony No. 1
$30-$42
(757) 229-9857
www.williamsburgsymphonia.org

Oct. 13 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Tuesday Evening Concerts:
Takács Quartet
Beethoven: Quartet in F major, Op. 18, No. 1
Schumann: Quartet in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1
Beethoven: Quartet in F major, Op. 59, No. 1 ("Razumovsky")
$12-$28
(434) 924-3376
www.tecs.org

Oct. 14 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Christopher Taylor, piano
Bach: "Goldberg Variations"
$38
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 16 (8 p.m.)
Harrison Institute Auditorium, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Spiza
"Ecoacoustic Chamber Music Concert"
Program TBA
Free
(434) 924-3052 (U.Va. Music Department)
http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/music/performance/events/index.html

Oct. 16 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 18 (2 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Virginia Opera
Peter Mark conducting
Puccini: "La Bohème"
Veronica Mitina (Mimi)
Derek Taylor (Rodolfo)
Elizabeth Andrews Roberts (Musetta)
Eugene Brancoveanu (Marcello)
Nathan Stark (Colline)
Michael Redding (Schaunard)
Julia Pevzner, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$44-$98
(866) 673-7282
www.vaopera.org

Oct. 16 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First Street at Independence Avenue S.E., Washington
Carducci Quartet
Haydn: Quartet in E flat major, Op. 33, No. 2 ("Joke")
Moeran: Quartet No. 2 in E flat major
Beethoven: Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3 ("Razumovsky")
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-schedule.html

Oct. 16 (7:30 p.m.)
Mansion at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Chiara String Quartet
Works by Beethoven, Debussy, Prokofiev
$28
(301) 581-5100
www.strathmore.org

Oct. 17 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 18 (3 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Richmond Symphony
Christian Knapp conducting
Debussy: "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun"
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3
Jeremy Denk, piano
Berlioz: "Symphonie fantastique"
$17-$72
(800) 927-2787
www.richmondsymphony.com

Oct. 17 (8 p.m.)
Shaftman Performance Hall, Jefferson Center, 541 Luck Ave., Roanoke
Opera Roanoke
Stephen White directing and narrating
"Wagner in the Valley"
Introduction to the "Ring" cycle, other works
Singers from Wagner Society of Washington’s Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart Emerging Singers Program
$20-$90
(540) 982-2742
www.operaroanoke.org

Oct. 17 (7:30 p.m.)
The Barns at Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
Christopher O’Riley, piano
arrangements of songs by Radiohead and Nirvana
$25
(703) 938-2404
www.wolftrap.org

Oct. 17 (4 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
Murray Perahia, piano
Bach: Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830
Beethoven: Sonata in E major, Op. 109
Schumann: "Kinderszenen"
Chopin: Etude in A flat major, Op. 25 ("Aeolian Harp")
Chopin: mazurkas, Op. 59, Nos. 1-3
Chopin: Scherzo in E major, Op. 54
$35-$95
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
www.wpas.org

Oct. 17 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 18 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 19 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Lorin Maazel conducting
Mussorgsky-Rimsky-Korsakov: "Night on Bald Mountain"
Barber: Violin Concerto
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violin
Maazel: "The Giving Tree"
Dietlinde Turban-Maazel, narrator
David Hardy, cello
Franck: Symphony in D minor
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 17 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
National Philharmonic
Piotr Gajewski conducting
Richard Stoltzman, clarinet
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Gershwin: Promenade
Gershwin: "Bess" and "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess"
Gershwin: Lullaby
Copland: Clarinet Concerto
$29-$79
(301) 581-5100
www.strathmore.org

Oct. 18 (4 p.m.)
Music Center Recital Hall, Virginia Commonwealth University, Grove Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU & Community Guitar Ensembles
John Patykula directing
Program TBA
Free
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 18 (3 p.m.)
Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, 1627 Monument Ave., Richmond
American Guild of Organists’ Repertoire Recital Series:
Christopher Marks, organ
Mendelssohn: Sonata in D major, Op. 65, No. 6
Rossini-Buck: "William Tell" Overture
N.H. Allen: "Spring Greeting"
Samuel B. Whitney: "Vesper Hymn"
Arthur Foote: "Night: a Meditation"
Dudley Buck: Allegro vivace non troppo from Sonata No. 2, Op. 77
Seth Bingham: "Watchman"
Bingham: "March of the Medici" from "Harmonies of Florence"
Bingham: Roulade fropm "Six Pieces," Op. 9
Bingham: Toccata from Suite (1926)
Free
(804) 359-2463
www.richmondago.org

Oct. 19 (7 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Russell Wilson, piano
Program TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 19 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Shanghai Quartet
Lynn Harrell, cello
Schubert: Quartet in C minor, D. 703
Glazunov: Cello Quintet in A major, Op. 39
Schubert: String Quintet in C major, D. 956
$34
(804) 289-890
www.modlin.richmond.edu

Oct. 19 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Opera Lafayette
Ryan Brown conducting
Charpentier: "Les Arts Florissants"
Nathalie Paulin (La Paix)
William Sharp (La Discorde)
Ah Young Hong (La Musique)
Stacey Mastrian (La Poésie)
Tony Boutté (La Peinture)
Monica Reinagel (L’Architecture)
François Loup (Un Guerrier)
in French, English captions
$60
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 19 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First Street at Independence Avenue S.E., Washington
Eroica Quartet & friends (TBA)
Mendelssohn: Octet
Spohr: Double String Quartet No. 3, Op. 87
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-schedule.html

Oct. 20 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Charles West, clarinet
Dmitri Shteinberg, piano
Dana Wilson: "Liquid Ebony" (2008)
works by Brahms, Babin, Alwyn
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 21 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Thomas Hampson, baritone
"The Song of America Project"
Program TBA
$34
(804) 289-890
www.modlin.richmond.edu

Oct. 21 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Orquestra de Sao Paulo
Kazeem Abdullah conducting
Evelyn Glennie, percussion
Program TBA
$21-$55
(301) 581-5100
www.strathmore.org

Oct. 22 (8 p.m.)
St. Bede Catholic Church, 3686 Ironbound Road, Williamsburg
Oct. 24 (8 p.m.)
Regent University Theater, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach
Virginia Symphony
JoAnn Falletta/Akiko Fujimoto conducting
Respighi: "Gli uccelli" ("The Birds")
Behzad Ranjbaran: Concerto for violin, viola and orchestra (premiere)
Vahn Armstrong, violin
Beverly Baker, viola
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 ("Scottish")
$26-$46
(757) 892-6366
www.virginiasymphony.org

Oct. 23 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 25 (2:30 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Virginia Opera
Peter Mark conducting
Puccini: "La Bohème"
Veronica Mitina (Mimi)
Derek Taylor (Rodolfo)
Elizabeth Andrews Roberts (Musetta)
Eugene Brancoveanu (Marcello)
Nathan Stark (Colline)
Michael Redding (Schaunard)
Julia Pevzner, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$29-$99
(866) 673-7282
www.vaopera.org

Oct. 23 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 24 (8 p.m.)
Harris Theater, George Mason University, Fairfax
GMU Opera Review
Menotti: "The Telephone"
Douglas Moore: "Gallentry"
Casts TBA
in English
$20
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.gmu.edu/cfa/

Oct. 23 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Pianist TBA
Program TBA
$25-$74
(301) 581-5100
www.strathmore.org

Oct. 24 (3:30 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Susan Starr, piano, in master class
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 24 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 28 (7:30 p.m.)
Oct. 31 (7 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington
Washington National Opera
Andreas Delfs conducting
Richard Strauss: "Ariadne auf Naxos"
Irène Theorin (Ariadne)
Pär Lindskog/Ian Storey (Bacchus)
Lyubov Petrova (Zerbinetta)
Kristine Jepson (The Composer)
Gidon Saks (Music Teacher)
Nathan Herfindahl (Harlequin)
Chris Alexander, stage director
in German, English captions
(800) 876-7372
www.dc-opera.org

Oct. 24 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Louis Langrée conducting
Haydn: Symphony No. 44 ("Funeral")
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488
Simone Dinnerstein, piano
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4
$28-$85
(877) 276-1444 (Baltimore Symphony box office)
www.strathmore.org

Oct. 25 (3 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Judith Cline, soprano
Clara Ellen Modisett, piano
Alan Smith: "Vignettes: Ellis Island"
Free
(804) 289-890
www.modlin.richmond.edu

Oct. 25 (4 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Guitar Series:
Torcuato Zamora, flamenco guitar
Maria, flamenco dancer
Program TBA
$10
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 25 (4 p.m.)
Grace Baptist Church, 4200 Dover Road, Richmond
American Youth Harp Ensemble
Original Elbe Musikanten German Band
Oktoberfest program TBA
German dinner served
$10
(804) 837-9355
http://www.harpensemble.org/

Oct. 25 (2 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Young Concert Artists Series:
Jeanine De Bique, soprano
Warren Jones, piano
Mozart: "Misera, dove son"
Debussy: "Quatre Chansons de Jeunesse"
Wolf: five Lieder
Richard Strauss: four Lieder
Trad.-Alan Smith: four British folk songs
$30
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 27 (7 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Fall Choral Classic, Richmond region high-school choristers led by VCU faculty
Free
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 27 (7 p.m.)
Recital Hall, Black Music Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Grove Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Wayla Chambo, flute
Linda Blondel, piano
Program TBA
Free
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Oct. 27 (7:30 p.m.)
St. Christopher’s Upper School Chapel, 711 St. Christopher Road, Richmond
Oberon Quartet
John Winn: Quartet (premiere)
Works by Mendelssohn, Piotr Szewczyk
Free
(804) 282-3185

Oct. 27 (8 p.m.)
Williamsburg Regional Library Arts Center Theater, 515 Scotland St.
Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg:
Stradivari String Quartet
Program TBA
$15 (waiting list)
(757) 273-1210
www.chambermusicwilliamsburg.org

Oct. 27 (7:30 p.m.)
American Theatre, 125 E. Mellen St., Hampton
Alissio Bax, piano
Program TBA
$25-$30
(757) 722-2787
http://hamptonarts.net/american_theatre/onsalenow.php

Oct. 27 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Tuesday Evening Concerts:
Amit Peled, cello
Eli Kalman, piano
Prokofiev: Sonata, Op. 119
Shostakovich: Sonata, Op. 40
Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonata
$12-$28
(434) 924-3376
www.tecs.org

Oct. 28 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Longwood Wind Symphony
Gordon Ring directing
University Wind Ensemble
David Niethamer directing
Ring: "Fanfare and Ceremonial Music"
Henri Rabaud: "Solo de Concours"
David Niethamer, clarinet
Other works TBA
Free
(804) 289-890
www.modlin.richmond.edu

Oct. 29 (7 p.m.)
Oct. 30 (8 p.m.)
Oct. 31 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Pops
Marvin Hamlisch conducting
Chris Botti, trumpet
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 30 (8 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
Oct. 31 (8 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 201 Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Virginia Symphony
Matthew Kraemer conducting
Vivaldi: "The Four Seasons"
Philippe Quint, violin
Richard Strauss: "Don Juan"
Stravinsky: "The Firebird" Suite
$25-$85
(757) 892-6366
www.virginiasymphony.org

Oct. 31 (11 a.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Richmond Symphony Lollipops
Erin Freeman conducting
"The Composer Is Dead"
Nathaniel Stookey, narrator
(Pre-concert activities at 10 a.m.)
$17
(800) 927-2787
www.richmondsymphony.com

Oct. 31 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Korean Concert Society:
Elizabeth Joy Roe, piano
Corigliano: Etude Fantasy
Smetana: Polka in G minor, Op. 8, No. 2
Smetana: "Czech Dances," Book 2 (excerpts)
Wagner-Liszt: "Liebestod" from "Tristan und Isolde"
Ravel: "La Valse"
Mussorgsky: "Pictures at an Exhibition"
$30
(800) 444-1324
www.kennedy-center.org

Oct. 31 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
National Philharmonic
Piotr Gajewski conducting
Bach: Klavier Concerto No. 5 in F minor
Brian Ganz, piano
Brahms: Double Concerto
Elena Urioste, violin
Zuill Bailey, cello
Beethoven: Triple Concerto
Brian Ganz, piano
Elena Urioste, violin
Zuill Bailey, cello
$29-$79
(301) 581-5100
www.strathmore.org