'Cultural untouchables'

Writing for The Guardian (UK), The New Yorker’s Alex Ross revives an old question: Why do so many people who appreciate modern art and architecture despise modern art-music?

His answer: "[M]odern composers have fallen victim to a
long-smouldering indifference that is intimately linked to classical music’s idolatrous relationship with the past" . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/28/alex-ross-modern-classical-music?CMP=twt_gu

The Guardian’s Tom Service begs to differ, offering evidence that the classical audience has come to terms with modernism:

www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/nov/29/modern-classical-music-alex-ross

Seems to me that the correct answer hinges on performers: Audiences will tolerate, even enjoy, modern and contemporary music, and unfamiliar music in general, if it’s performed by soloists, chamber groups, conductors and orchestras whose artistry they already value.

’Twas ever thus, I'll bet.

Review: 'Così fan tutte'

Virginia Opera
Joseph Walsh conducting
Nov. 26, Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage

"Così fan tutte," last of the three great operatic collaborations of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, is a comedy of manners, mores and mistaken identities. To pull it off, performers need an unerring sense of comic timing and gesture, and the ability to blend voices and instruments in tightly and subtly woven ensembles.

The Virginia Opera’s current production of "Così" gets it half right. Stage director Lillian Groag paces and garnishes the comedy very effectively; but, in the first of two Richmond performances, the slowish tempos set by conductor Joseph Walsh sapped much of the score of its vivacious energy, and the voices of six young singers too rarely combined agreeably in ensembles of more than two.

Soprano Jan Cornelius (Fiordiligi), mezzo-soprano Katharine Tier (Dorabella), tenor David Portillo (Ferrando), baritone Timothy Kuhn (Guglielmo), bass Todd Robinson (Don Alfonso) and soprano Camille Zamora (Despina) made fine work of some solo numbers – Portillo’s caressing treatment of the great love aria "Un’ aura amorosa," for example, or Zamora’s playfully wry rendition of "Di pasta simile."

In ensembles, however, none sounded much inclined to rein in tone or timbre to balance and complement other voices.

(Occasional raw tones and dropped notes suggested that several singers were suffering from the bronchial bug that had much of the audience coughing.)

The show delights the eye with a set (by Michael Yeargan) of elegant simplicity, as well as vivid costumes and sunny lighting (by Kenneth Steadman). Director Groag sprinkles every scene with broadly comic touches that enliven the show without bogging down its pace or interfering with characterization and interaction.

The orchestra, drawn from Hampton Roads’ Virginia Symphony, made fine work of Mozart’s score, especially his wind writing (oboist Sherie Lake-Aguirre was especially stellar), and played with more panache and sparkle than might have been expected, given the rather lumbering tempos.

The production repeats at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 28 at the Carpenter Theatre. Tickets: $29-$99. Details: (866) 673-7282; www.vaopera.org

Behind the furor

Teresa Annas of The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk) examines the artistry and personality of Peter Mark, the ousted maestro of the Virginia Opera:

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/11/ousted-opera-director-defends-exacting-methods

Opera taps artistic advisor

The Virginia Opera has named Robin Thompson, former director of artistic administration at the New York City Opera, as its artistic advisor. Alan D. Albert, president-elect of the opera board, says Thompson will work with the company "for a limited time," Teresa Annas reports in The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk):

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/11/virginia-opera-hires-artistic-adviser

The Washington Post's Anne Midgette quotes a statement from Thompson, saying his role with the Virginia Opera will be "to offer a sense of stability to the casting and season planning process during the transition" following the dismissal of Peter Mark, the company's longtime artistic director:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112306195.html

Post-Mark

Having dismissed Peter Mark, its founding artistic director, a year and a half before his contract was to expire, the Virginia Opera has shortened the time frame for making some decisions that will profoundly affect its future.

Will it appoint a new artistic director who is expected to conduct most performances, or engage conductors production by production? Alan D. Albert, the opera board’s president-elect, has hinted that the company may take the latter course, as it already does with stage directors and designers.

Who, then, would cast the productions, and how?

Mark has been the selector, and has made a practice of auditioning and engaging young singers of high promise, as well as some artists who have built careers outside the Euro-American opera mainstream. Will that practice continue, and with one or several auditors? Would the conductors on a rotating roster cast his or her own shows, or would an administrative staffer or some other resident figure(s) take charge of casting?

Might a post-Mark Virginia Opera reconfigure itself as an ensemble company, with a roster of singers filling principal roles in all of a season’s productions? (Singers in the company’s existing resident-artists program already rotate through subsidiary roles.) Hiring a group of complementary voices for a season’s work could be logistically simpler, and could be an artistic plus in operas, such as Mozart’s, with many ensemble scenes. Versatility would be an issue: A fine Mozart singer may be a deficient Verdi singer, and vice versa. So would timing: Ensemble opera companies, in this country at least, tend to work intensively for shorter seasons (usually summers) rather than on fall-to-spring calendars.

Artistic directors generally select, or at least have dominant influence in selecting, directors, designers and other creative production staff. A company without an artistic director would have to apportion those hiring decisions – bearing in mind, one hopes, that the choices an opera company makes on production values are at least as important as its choices of voices.

The absence of a resident artistic chief could further empower stage directors. "Director's opera" (Regieoper, as the Europeans call it) has a very checkered history, some of which has played out at the Virginia Opera. I doubt that a steady diet of it would prove palatable to this company's patrons and audiences.

Companies with non-performing or infrequently performing artistic chiefs often partially fill that void with music directors, conductors who run the orchestra and maintain musical standards generally but don’t lead all productions. George Manahan plays such a role at the New York City Opera. That model, however, may be more suitable for companies that, like City Opera and the Washington National Opera, maintain their own orchestras. The Virginia Opera hires groups of musicians from the Virginia and Richmond symphonies.

All those questions coalesce into one: Who, singular or plural, will have the last word on artistic matters?

The answer to that one will in large part determine the answer to the other big question: How will the Virginia Opera restore its fiscal health? Its has been seriously stressed financially for several years, forcing it to cut its operating budget, reduce its performance schedule, recycle sets, cut staff and otherwise economize.

Opera companies are rarely flush – "the human mind has not yet conceived a way to spend money faster than sponsoring a season of opera," as Harold Schonberg remarked in "The Great Conductors" – and they have been especially hard hit in this economic downturn. Some big ones, with longer histories than the Virginia Opera’s, have gone under.

Whatever the future state of the economy, this and other regional companies still will have to cope with new competition: Movie-theater screenings of productions from the Metropolitan Opera and other first-tier houses; tickets for these shows are much cheaper than a good seat at a live performance. (This could be an over-hyped challenge, though. DVDs are generally cheaper, too, and they haven't killed live opera.)

Most of the money that sustains U.S. performing-arts troupes comes from fund-raising, which can be more difficult if the organization lacks a "face," an artistically authoritative, persuasive, ideally charismatic, figure who represents the company and its art form to the community. (Communities, in this case: The Virginia Opera performs and raises funds in Hampton Roads, Richmond and Northern Virginia.) Who will speak at club luncheons and public hearings, mingle and chat constructively at fund-raisers, interact with media, and so on?

Whether cutting the cost of an artistic director – Mark was paid about $185,000 in the Virginia Opera’s most recently disclosed accounting – would make an appreciable dent in expenditures, or whether as much or more would be parceled out to a roster of conductors, is one money consideration. Another is how the absence of a public artistic face would affect fund-raising, audience loyalty and other development and marketing issues.

Big questions, all of those – and especially challenging ones for a company that has looked to one man for artistic decision-making for its entire history. Having to pick one or more new decision-makers, sooner rather than later, compounds the challenge.

ADDENDUM: Virginia Opera CEO Gus Stuhlreyer says all options are on the table and will remain so for some time. The company’s deadline: May 31, 2012, when Mark’s contract would have expired.

Virginia Opera fires Peter Mark

UPDATED NOV. 19

Peter Mark’s 35-year tenure as artistic director of the Virginia Opera comes to an abrupt end, as the company announces his immediate termination, Teresa Annas reports in The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk):

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/11/virginia-opera-terminates-artistic-director-peter-mark

The Washington Post’s Anne Midgette quotes Alan D. Albert, president-elect of the opera board, as saying the termination follows "violations of obligations arising under Peter Mark’s employment agreement and the Virginia Opera Association’s employment policies," which Albert declined to specify:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/18/AR2010111805961.html

Midgette quotes a statement issued by Mark: "This termination is not justified either on moral or legal grounds – or by common sense. It is not in the best interests of Virginia Opera and its audiences. . . . If it is not promptly reversed then my attorneys will take the appropriate legal actions."

Mark was hired to run the Norfolk-based company in 1975, shortly after it was founded. He gave up non-artistic administrative duties after general director and CEO Paul A. "Gus" Stuhlreyer III was hired in 2003.

Mark’s firing follows a battle among opera board members that went public last month in a campaign, led by the company’s founding president, Edythe C. Harrison, to retain him. The board’s executive committee had already voted not to renew Mark's current contract, which was to expire at the end of the 2011-12 season.

In deciding not to renew the contract, the board’s leaders said the conductor had a "history of difficulties in working relations with staff, musicians and board leadership," an assertion that Mark denied.

A guest conductor will be brought in for January-February performances of "The Valkyrie" (a shortened version of Wagner’s "Die Walküre"), which Mark was to have led. Joseph Walsh, the company's associate artistic director, is leading the currently running production of Mozart’s "Così fan tutte" and will conduct Puccini’s "Madame Butterfly" in March and April.

Albert has said the company is considering engaging several conductors rather than hiring a single artistic director to replace Mark.

Review: 'The Seasons Project'

Robert McDuffie, violin
Venice Baroque Orchestra
Nov. 15, University of Richmond

In recent years, instrumentalists inclined toward historically informed performance (HIP for short) of baroque music have produced a less thin, more robust sound, especially from fiddles, playing with greater expression, dynamism and spontaneity. These HIPsters haven’t discarded the rules on "authentic" performance practice devised in the 1960s and ’70s, but they have loosened some of the old constraints. They more freely employ vibrato, especially at slower tempos, and have become more flexible in phrasing and pacing, more attentive to emotional affect and representational effect, and altogether more vivid in their music-making.

Those tendencies came across thrillingly as violinist Robert McDuffie joined the period-instruments Venice Baroque Orchestra in an energized, expressively sizzling reading of Vivaldi’s "The Four Seasons." Their concert at the University of Richmond came in the final week of a month-long, 30-city tour of "The Seasons Project," in which the Vivaldi is paired with Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto No. 2, subtitled "The American Four Seasons."

Vivaldi’s set of four violin concertos is among the most familiar of baroque works; frequent performances and airings of recordings have conditioned many listeners to hear the set, especially in its opening "Spring" Concerto, as decorous background music. That crowd must have gotten quite a shock hearing McDuffie and the Venetians pounce on accents, shift abruptly from loudness to quiet, play up representational and evocative sections (especially stormy ones) and paint with every tone color that fiddles can produce.

Their high energy, and the way they pushed against the limits of technique and expression, recalled the musicianship of "hot jazz" bands of the 1920s or the more intense bebop and post-bop jazz players. That jazz vibe was most pronounced in the interplay of McDuffie, cellist Daniele Bovo and lutenist Ivano Zanenghi.

The "hot baroque" of the Vivaldi didn't cool much in the Glass concerto, and that proved to be almost as stiff a jolt to some sensibilities.

Glass’ minimalist style – he prefers the description "music with repetitive structures" – tends to lock listeners onto one wavelength for a long time, sending some into a meditative or trance-like state, giving others a case of tedium-induced heebie-jeebies. This piece is characteristically "steady state" in rhythm and structure, but quite varied in dynamics, colors and sound textures – more eventful, at times even surprising, than one might expect from this composer.

Written for McDuffie and introduced last year, "The American Four Seasons" is in four movements; the season of each is left to the imagination. Glass writes that he and McDuffie hear different seasons in different places; he notes that "the mathematical possibilities, or permutations, of the puzzle are in the order of 24." For what it’s worth, I thought I heard
fall-winter-spring-summer, and thought I was experiencing the seasons in an urban setting, mostly in an overcast twilight or at night. (Vivaldi, by contrast, made his music mostly in daylight.)

The movements of the Glass concerto are connected by
solo-violin miniatures or detached cadenzas that echo the baroque (Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas sound to be the model). The orchestral writing is by no means quasi-baroque – some of it verges on the romantic – but it unexpectedly complements the style of the solos, in a kind of call-and-response between the early 18th and early 21st centuries.

McDuffie and the orchestra delivered an intensely concentrated, surging and nervy performance of the Glass, playing up the music’s cinematic colors and atmospherics, vividly upshifting as its energy levels accumulated.

The unbilled, easily overlooked co-star of the show was Camp Concert Hall. When UR converted the old Camp Theater into a music room in the construction of its Modlin Arts Center, the architects consulted members of the Shanghai Quartet (then in residence at the university) on acoustics. The result was a space that airs string sound with great presence, uncommon clarity and warm resonance; the acoustics and sound perspective are especially kind to period instruments. The room contributed almost as much as the musicians to the vividness and visceral impact of these performances.

Losing it

The Toronto Star's Cathal Kelly explores hard-to-understand episodes of string players forgetfully leaving their instruments in taxis and other public transport, likening the phenomenon to people mislaying their car keys:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/889046--why-do-so-many-violinists-lose-their-instruments

I have a bad habit of leaving umbrellas under seats in concert halls; but I've never owned an umbrella that would cost thousands or millions to replace. So I still don't get it.

Preview of coming attraction

I avoid reviewing non-public events; but today’s recital by Richmond-born tenor William Ferguson and classical guitarist David Leisner at The Woman’s Club was in effect a preview of a full-length program that the duo will give here next month. What I heard at the invitational concert warrants an enthusiastic recommendation of their public recital on Dec. 5 in the Upper School Chapel of St. Christopher’s School.

I’ll post details in the December calendar.

Review: Richmond Symphony

Steven Smith conducting
Nov. 13, Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage

This month’s Richmond Symphony Masterworks concerts feature the last in a series of introductory performances of "Jefferson, In His Own Words" by Judith Shatin, a University of Virginia professor whose office overlooks the lawn and Rotunda designed by Thomas Jefferson. This 20-minute work is for orchestra with narrator, suggesting several similarities with Aaron Copland’s
"A Lincoln Portrait.”

In fact, it’s a very different kind of piece. The Jefferson texts selected by Shatin are not the great man’s greatest words, but passages from his letters and diaries, some intimate, some mundane (at least on the surface). More importantly, Shatin, unlike Copland, thoroughly integrates words and music.

In the work’s performances to date, the narrator has been a public speaker: the television journalist Bill Kurtis in the Illinois Symphony’s premiere last March, former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles in subsequent performances by the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra and again in these Richmond Symphony concerts. (They and the Virginia Symphony of Hampton Roads commissioned the work; it is dedicated to Gerald Morgan, a longtime patron of Richmond’s musicians.)

Baliles speaks with the Virginia cadence, in an accent we might imagine to be not unlike Jefferson’s. This score’s treatment of its texts, however, sounds to need a narrator with expertise in speech-song (Sprechstimme, in the parlance), able to use rhythm and inflection to connect fragmented phrases to the music around them. With a "straight" reader, words and music seem to interrupt rather than amplify each other.

Shatin’s large-scale, impressionistically colorful orchestration evokes misty Blue Ridge vistas in its quieter and more contemplative moments, but more often enlarges, with some turbulence, on the text’s suggestions of Jefferson’s inner emotional life. The portrait that Shatin paints is far from the usual picture of an enigmatic and cerebral man.

This performance by conductor Steven Smith and the Richmond Symphony played up the color and drama of Shatin’s score. Baliles’ straightforward reading inevitably sounded monochromatic in contrast.

In this program, the Shatin follows Copand’s "Fanfare for the Common Man," a sonorous and punchy exercise for the symphony’s brass and percussion musicians, and in turn is followed by two rarely heard romantic scores, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 2 in D minor and Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6 in D major.

Neal Cary, the symphony’s principal cellist, played the Saint-Saëns with robust tone and high-romantic phrasing, to especially lyrical and loving effect in the andante sostenuto section concluding the concerto’s first movement. Cary, Smith and the orchestra nicely balanced the concerto’s romantic spirit and its almost Beethovenian classicism, rarely so neatly distilled.

Dvořák’s Sixth is the least played of his mature symphonies, probably because its treatment of classical structure tends toward the discursive. In its classicism and its warm string and brass tones, this is the most Brahmsian of the Dvořák symphonies; but in its tunes and rhythms, it is unmistakably Dvořák and idiomatically Czech. (Its scherzo may be the greatest of the composer’s Slavonic dances.)

Smith crafted a tonally luxuriant interpretation, with a gratifying balance of tautness and fluidity in its rhythms, deep lyricism in its adagio movement, energy and portent in its first movement and finale, and plenty of breathing room for solos, notably those of oboist Gustav Highstein, piccolo player Ann Choomack and French horn player Robert Johnson.

The program repeats at 3 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Carpenter Theatre. Tickets: $17-$72. Details: (800) 982-2787 (Ticketmaster); http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)

Henryk Górecki, the Polish composer most widely known for his Third Symphony ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"), has died at the age of 76. He had been in poor health for several years.

The symphony, written in 1977 in remembrance of the Holocaust, was one of the works that marked Górecki's turn from avant-garde composition to a religiously influenced style that many likened to American minimalism. It was recorded in 1992 by conductor David Zinman and the London Sinfonietta with soprano Dawn Upshaw. The disc, on the Nonesuch label, ultimately sold more than 1 million copies.

A 1992 performance of the symphony by conductor Fred Cohen, the University of Richmond Orchestra and soprano Michelle Harman-Gulick was one of the first U.S. performances of the work.

An obituary by Maev Kennedy in The Guardian (UK):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/12/polish-composer-henryk-gorecki-dies

Shop talk

Julia Keller, the Chicago Tribune book critic, admits that she would rather write a positive review than a negative one, which "makes me sound like a wimp, a softie, a sap, a pushover." In deciding what to review, and how to phrase her critique, "I can . . . show you how fiendishly clever I am by a take-no-prisoners attack on a book I don't like, or I can tell you about a book that may move you, inform you, entertain you. If choosing the second option makes me sound like a weakling, then fine. Pick somebody else for your side in dodge ball:"

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ae-1107-lit-life-20101106,0,5123218.column

Anne Midgette, The Washington Post's music critic, sympathizes but begs to differ. Critics who accentuate the positive nourish "a school of thought that the arts, like cooking and travel, belong in the category of marvelous lifestyle enhancements: things that adorn our lives and make them nicer. The role of a critic, in this view, is simply to alert readers to the wealth of marvelous things that are out there, and act as a consumer advocate, preferably by recommending nice things, or writing about the nice things that have taken place:"

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

The late Edith Lindeman, longtime theater and movie critic of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and spare-time lyricist of popular songs ("Little Things Mean a Lot," "The Red-Headed Stranger"), liked to recall a faithful reader who rarely agreed with her reviews but still found them useful. If you don't like it, I expect I will, the reader told the critic.

That constructively adversarial relationship is surely common among critics (and opinion writers in general) and their readers. It's also fairly common among critics and the artists and organizations they cover, sometimes leading to exchanges of heated missives, occasionally to public confrontations.

Constructive adverseness, emphasizing the former, avoiding nastiness in the latter (grumpiness is OK, in moderation), strikes me as an efficacious arrangement. The critic can stick to a set of standards and opine honestly and freely. Readers can find their points on the artistic compass relative to the critic's and adjust their expectations accordingly. The review serves its purpose, albeit backhandedly.

And when the critic and reader agree, you can be sure that something special has occurred on the stage, screen or page.

Who gives, and how much

The most affluent Americans, with incomes above $200,000 and seven-figure or higher net worths, "devoted 7.5 cents out of their charitable dollar to the arts during 2009, compared to a penny for the population at large," reports Mike Boehm on the Los Angeles Times' Culture Monster blog.

Boehm cites a "Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy" by Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, which also found that the recession led to a 35 percent decline in philanthropic giving by high-income donors between 2007 and 2009:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/11/rich-arts-charity-merrill-lynch.html

Earthly delights (not)

Musicologists and instrument-makers at Oxford University set out to replicate the instruments pictured in Hieronymus Bosch's early 16th-century triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights," only to find that most were "either impossible to make or painful to hear," Sam Leith reports in The Guardian (UK):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/07/sam-leith-shocking-news-oxford

The Bosch is in the online gallery of the Prado museum of Madrid; most of the musical action, you'll notice, is in the hell panel on the right:

http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/zoom/2/obra/el-jardin-de-las-delicias-o-la-pintura-del-madrono/oimg/0/

Review: Richmond Symphony

Steven Smith conducting
Nov. 5, The Steward School, Richmond

Steven Smith, the Richmond Symphony’s new music director, leads his first pair of Metro Collection chamber-orchestra concerts this weekend, obtaining rhythmically alert, tonally refined performances of works by Brahms, Copland, Haydn and Michael Torke that draw inspiration from, or at least make reference to, popular and vernacular musics.

In the Nov. 5 performance, rich string and well-integrated wind sound and nuanced gradations of waltz tempo marked a performance of the orchestration of Brahms’ "Liebeslieder Waltzes," followed by a crisply pointed reading of Copland’s "Music for the Theater," a 1924-vintage pre-echo of the composer’s later "Americana" works, only with jolts of hot-jazz syncopations and voicings that Copland largely cast aside in his maturity. (Leonard Bernstein picked up where Copland left off.)

The second half of the program sets Torke’s "Lucent Variations" (1998) alongside Haydn’s Symphony No. 82 in C major ("The Bear"), first of the six symphonies written for performances in Paris in the mid-1780s. A canny pairing: Torke’s "post-minimalist" style sets musical figures and rhythms from modern American pop in constructs that come straight out of the classical period; Haydn, who invented some of the classical style and perfected the rest, also drew liberally on popular and folk songs and dances of his time in works such as this symphony.

Torke describes "Lucent Variations" as an orchestral play on light. This performance emphasized its shifting tone colors, somewhat at the expense of rhythmic articulation. More of the crispness heard in the Copland would have greatly enhanced the Torke.

The Haydn was well-paced, not too fast, not too slow, tending slightly more to elegance than earthiness except in the finale, which earned the piece its nickname with its seeming evocation of a bear dancing to the drone of a bagpipe or hurdy-gurdy. Smith’s treatment struck me as a bit too metrical, needing more of the "skating" effect that Haydn produces rhythmically and dynamically.

If I were devising a program to introduce a newcomer to the symphony orchestra, I would be hard-pressed to come up with a better assortment of pieces than these four works. They cover all the stylistic bases from classical to post-modern, do so in reasonably bite-sized chunks (Torke’s 12-minute piece is the longest stretch of uninterrupted music); they’re all accessibly tonal, rhythmically active and largely upbeat.

If you were thinking of taking the kids to a non-kiddie symphony concert, this would be an excellent choice.

The program repeats at 3 p.m. Nov. 7 at Blackwell Auditorium, Randolph-Macon College, 205 Henry St., in Ashland. Tickets: $20. Details: (800) 982-2787 (Ticketmaster); http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

Shirley Verrett (1931-2010)

Shirley Verrett, the New Orleans-born soprano famed for her singing and acting in the title roles of Bizet's "Carmen" and Bellini's "Norma," has died at the age of 79.

Following an operatic career that reached its pinnacle in the 1960s and ’70s, Verrett taught at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she died.

An obituary by Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/arts/music/06verrett.html?ref=obituaries

Symphony concertmaster leaving

Karen Johnson, concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony since 2002, will leave the orchestra at the end of the year to join the U.S. Marine Band ("The President’s Own") in Washington.

Her husband, Karl Johnson, is a bass trombonist with the band.

Although the ensemble is best-known as a wind-and-brass band (led by John Philip Sousa from 1880 to 1892), it is also the resident orchestra of the White House. Its string complement, which the violinist is joining, performs in chamber-orchestra and chamber-music programs, usually in conjunction with social events.

In joining the Marine Band, Johnson also will join the U.S. Marine Corps. "But I won’t have to go through boot camp," she says. "That would’ve been a deal-breaker for a mother of three."

Johnson was to have been the soloist in Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in the symphony’s May 2011 Masterworks program. That performance will be rescheduled in a future season, she said.

The orchestra has scheduled auditions early next year to fill the concertmaster vacancy.

'Porgy and Bess,' revised

"Porgy and Bess," the opera by George and Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward, will be recast as a musical in a shortened version devised by playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, director Diane Paulus and composer Diedre Murray. The "updated" version will be introduced by Paulus' American Repertory Theater in September 2011, Laura Collins-Hughes reports in the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/11/05/updated_porgy_and_bess_to_open_arts_season/

Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010)

Rudolf Barshai, the Russian-émigré violist and conductor for whom Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his last work, the Viola Sonata (1975), has died in Switzerland at the age of 86.

Barshai was perhaps best-known for his string-orchestra version of Shostakovich's Quartet No. 8, known as the Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a. Barshai also produced a highly regarded completion of Mahler's Tenth Symphony and an arrangement of Bach's "Art of the Fugue," finished shortly before his death.

He was a founding member of the Borodin Quartet in 1945, and in 1955 founded the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. After leaving the old Soviet Union in 1975, he conducted widely in Western Europe.

An obituary by Tully Potter in The Guardian (UK):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/04/rudolf-barshai-obituary

November 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/youth, group and other discounts may be offered.

SCOUTING REPORT

* Not dead: The notion that classical groups and presenters only "curate" the music of DWEMs (dead white European males) takes a beating this month. The Virginia Symphony premieres Lowell Lieberman’s Third Symphony, Nov. 5-7 at three venues in Hampton Roads. . . . The University of Richmond samples new and recent electroacoustic music in its Third Practice festival, Nov. 5-6. . . . The Bang on a Can All-Stars give first U.S. performances of Steve Reich’s
"2 x 5" on Nov. 11 at Strathmore in the Maryland suburbs of DC and Nov. 12 at the American Theatre in Hampton. . . . The Richmond Symphony continues the round of first performances of Judith Shatin’s "Jefferson, in His Own Words," Nov. 13-14 at Richmond CenterStage. . . . More Reich, juxtaposed with Bach, as Nicolas Kitchen and Borromeo String Quartet present "Man, Music and Machine: 1710-2010," Nov. 13 at the Library of Congress in Washington. . . . Violinist Robert McDuffie and the Venice Baroque Orchestra pair Philip Glass’ "American Four Seasons" with Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons," Nov. 15 at UR. . . . The Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Music and mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle premiere William Bolcom’s "The Hawthorn Tree," Nov. 17 at Washington’s Kennedy Center. . . . James Madison University’s Monticello Quartet plays Jennifer Higdon’s "Impressions" (alongside Mozart and Mendelssohn), Nov. 19 at the Kennedy Center. . . . The Fairfax Symphony plays John Adams’ Violin Concerto with Tim Fain as soloist, Nov. 20 at George Mason University.

* Living dead: To be sure, the month offers DWEMs aplenty, from an all-Mozart program by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (Nov. 3 at Strathmore, Nov. 5 at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, Nov. 7 at UR [sold out]), Brahms and Schumann with the Staatskapelle Dresden and pianist Rudolf Buchbinder (Nov. 3 at the Kennedy Center) and the three Brahms violin sonatas played by Anne-Sophie Mutter (Nov. 13 at the Kennedy Center) to a Schubert-and-Chopin program by pianist Emanuel Ax (Nov. 10 at Strathmore), a mostly Beethoven-and-Schubert program by pianist Stephen Kovacevich (Nov. 30 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville) and the Virginia Opera’s production of Mozart’s "Così fan tutte" (Nov. 13-21 at Norfolk’s Harrison Opera House, Nov. 26 and 28 at Richmond CenterStage). Not to mention samples of the earliest notated music (c. 3400 BC) from Ugarit in Syria, as arranged by pianist Malek Jandali, Nov. 14 at the Kennedy Center.


Nov. 1 (7 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Fall Choral Classic
program TBA
Free
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 3 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
Staatskapelle Dresden
Daniel Harding conducting
Schumann: "Manfred" Overture
Schumann: Piano Concerto
Rudolf Buchbinder, piano
Brahms: Symphony No. 2
$35-$97
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
http://www.wpas.org/

Nov. 3 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Kenneth Silllito directing
Mozart: Symphony in D major, K. 121 ("La finta giandiniera")
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K. 271
Jonathan Biss, piano
Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201
$25-$65
(301) 581-5100
http://www.strathmore.org/

Nov. 4 (7 p.m.)
Nov. 6 (8 p.m.)
Nov. 7 (1:30 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Xian Zhang conducting
Debussy: "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun"
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Gil Shaham, violin
Stravinsky: "Le Chant du rossignol"
Bartók: "The Miraculous Mandarin" Suite
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 4 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Vocal Arts DC:
Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano
Bradley Moore, piano
program TBA
$45
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 5 (2 and 7:30 p.m.)
Nov. 6 (1, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival
Benjamin Broening directing
artists & programs TBA
Free
(804) 289-8980
http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/

Nov. 5 (7:30 p.m.)
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Grove Avenue at Three Chopt Road, Richmond
American Guild of Organists:
Daniel Sullivan, organ
program TBA
Donation requested
(804) 288-2867
http://www.richmondago.org/

Nov. 5 (7:30 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Flamengo Festival II:
Miguelito (Michael Prez), flamenco guitar
other performers TBA
program TBA
$15
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 5 (8 p.m.)
The Steward School, 11600 Gayton Road, Richmond
Nov. 7 (3 p.m.)
Blackwell Auditorium, Randolph-Macon College, 205 Henry St., Ashland
Richmond Symphony
Steven Smith conducting
Brahms: "Liebeslieder Waltzes"
Copland: "Music for the Theater"
Michael Torke: "Lucent Variations"
Haydn: Symphony No. 82 ("The Bear")
$20
(800) 982-2787 (Ticketmaster)
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

Nov. 5 (8 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
Nov. 6 (8 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 201 E. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Nov. 7 (2:30 p.m.)
Sandler Arts Center, 201 S. Market St., Virginia Beach
Virginia Symphony
JoAnn Falletta conducting
Lowell Lieberman: Symphony No. 3 (premiere)
Haydn: Cello Concerto in C major
Julian Schwarz, cello
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral")
$20-$85
(757) 892-6366
http://www.virginiasymphony.org/

Nov. 5 (8 p.m.)
Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Charlottesville
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Kenneth Sillito directing
Mozart: Symphony in D major, K. 121 ("La finta giandiniera")
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K. 271
Inon Barnatan, piano
Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201
$41.50-$56.50
(434) 979-1333
http://www.theparamount.net/

Nov. 6 (2 p.m.)
Gellman Room, Richmond Public Library, First and Franklin streets
Deborah Saidel, flute
Timothy Crawford, piano
Jacquelin Spears, cello
works by Gaubert, Aubert, Reinecke, Farrenc
Free
(804) 646-7223
http://www.richmondpubliclibrary.org/

Nov. 6 (7 p.m.)
First Presbyterian Church, 4602 Cary Street Road, Richmond
Nov. 7 (5 p.m.)
River Road Church, Baptist, 8000 River Road, Richmond
James River Singers
Jeffrey Riehl directing
Duruflé: Requiem
Poulenc: "Un soir de neige"
Henk Badings: "Trois chansons bretonnes"
Lili Boulanger: "Psaume 24"
$15
(804) 289-8982
http://www.jamesriversingers.org/

Nov. 6 (8 p.m.)
American Theatre, 125 E. Mellen St., Hampton
Christopher O’Riley, piano
"Out of My Hands," works TBA
$25-$30
(757) 722-2787
http://www.hamptonarts.net/

Nov. 6 (8 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
BBC Concert Orchestra
Keith Lockhart conducting
Balakirev: "Overture on Three Russian Folk Songs"
Prokofiev: "Classical" Symphony
Stravinsky: "The Firebird" Suite
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Ilya Yakushev, piano
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.cfa.gmu.edu/

Nov. 6 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
National Philharmonic & Chorus
Stan Engebretson conducting
Robert Breault, tenor
Berlioz: Requiem
$32-$79
(301) 581-5100
http://www.strathmore.org/

Nov. 7 (2 p.m.)
Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Laurel Street at Floyd Avenue, Richmond
Commonwealth Singers
Choral Arts Society
VCU Women's Chorus
Vocal Chamber Ensemble
"Songs for a Sacred Space," works by Palestrina, Kodaly, Holst, Barber, others
Free
(804) 359-5651
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 7 (4 p.m.)
Hermitage High School auditorium, 8301 Hungary Spring Road, Richmond
Richmond Philharmonic
Robert Mirakian conducting
Mendelssohn: "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" Overture
Ravel: "Mother Goose" Suite
Brahms: Symphony No. 4
$8 in advance, $10 at door
(804) 673-7400
http://www.richmondphilharmonic.org/

Nov. 7 (4 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Flamenco Festival II:
VCU Guitar Ensemble
VCU Community Guitar Ensemble
other performers TBA
program TBA
$10
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 7 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Kenneth Sillito directing
Mozart: Symphony in D major, K. 121 ("La finta giandiniera")
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K. 271
Inon Barnatan, piano
Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201
sold out
(804) 289-8980
http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/

Nov. 7 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Michelle Harman-Gulick, soprano
Christopher Ahart, tenor
E. Carl Freeman, piano
works by Bach, Rossini, Donizetti, others
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 7 (4 p.m.)
Green Acres Presbyterian Church, 3135 Hanley Ave., Portsmouth
Virginia Virtuosi
works by Gershwin, Piston, Schubert, Dohnanyi, Antes, others
Free
(757) 484-5125
http://www.virginiavirtuosi.com/

Nov. 7 (2:30 p.m.)
Shaftman Performance Hall, Jefferson Center, 541 Luck Ave., Roanoke
Opera Roanoke:
Richard Zeller, baritone
accompanist TBA
program TBA
$20-$50
(540) 982-2742
http://www.operaroanoke.org/

Nov. 7 (2 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Jeffrey Siegel, piano
"Keyboard Conversations: Robert Schumann: Fantasies Forbidden and Fulfilled"
$19-$38
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.cfa.gmu.edu/

Nov. 7 (2 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Korean Concert Society:
Jonah Kim, cello
Sean Kenard, piano
works by Chaminade, Debussy, Grieg, Lee, Barber, Piazzolla
$30
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 9 (7:30 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
BBC Concert Orchestra
Keith Lockhart conducting
Balakirev: "Overture on Three Russian Folk Songs"
Prokofiev: "Classical" Symphony
Stravinsky: "The Firebird" Suite
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Ilya Yakushev, piano
$42-$72
(757) 594-8752
http://www.fergusoncenter.cnu.edu/

Nov. 9 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First and Independence streets SE, Washington
Gautier Capuçon, cello
Gabriela Montero, piano
Prokofiev Sonata in C major, Op. 119
Mendelssohn: Cello Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 58
Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonata
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/1011-schedule.html

Nov. 10 (7 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Symphonic Wind Ensemble
Terry Austin directing
program TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 10 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Emanuel Ax, piano
Schubert: impromptus, Op. 142
Schubert: Sonata in A major, Op. 120
Chopin: "Polonaise-Fantasie," Op. 61
Chopin: three mazurkas
Chopin: "Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise"
$28-$80
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
http://www.wpas.org/

Nov. 11 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Bang on a Can All-Stars
Steve Reich: "2 x 5"
Reich: "Music for Pieces of Wood"
Reich: "Piano Phase/Video Phase"
Reich: "Electric Counterpoint"
Reich: Double Sextet
$15-$35
(301) 581-5100
http://www.strathmore.org/

Nov. 12 (8 p.m.)
American Theatre, 125 E. Mellen St., Hampton
Bang on a Can All-Stars
Steve Reich: "2 x 5"
Reich: "Music for Pieces of Wood"
Reich: "Piano Phase/Video Phase"
Reich: "Electric Counterpoint"
Reich: Double Sextet
$25-$30
(757) 722-2787
http://www.hamptonarts.net/

Nov. 12 (8 p.m.)
The Barns at Wolf Trap, Trap Road, Vienna
Trio Cavatina
Clara Schumann: Piano Trio
Torres: "Trifolium"
Thomas: "Moon Gig"
Robert Schumann: Piano Trio in G minor
$35
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.wolftrap.org/

Nov. 13 (8 p.m.)
Nov. 14 (3 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Richmond Symphony
Steven Smith conducting
Copland: "Fanfare for the Common Man"
Judith Shatin: "Jefferson, in His Own Words"
Gerald L. Baliles, narrator
Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 2
Neal Cary, cello
Dvořák: Symphony No. 6
$17-$72
(800) 982-2787 (Ticketmaster)
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

Nov. 13 (8 p.m.)
Nov. 17 (7:30 p.m.)
Nov. 19 (8 p.m.)
Nov. 21 (2:30 p.m.)
Harrison Opera House, Norfolk
Virginia Opera
Joseph Walsh conducting
Mozart: "Così fan tutte"
Jan Cornelius (Fiordiligi)
Katharine Tier (Dorabella)
David Portillo (Ferrando)
Timothy Kuhn (Guglielmo)
Todd Robinson (Don Alfonso)
Camille Zamora (Despina)
Lillian Groag, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$25-$114
(757) 623-1223
http://www.vaopera.org/

Nov. 13 (4 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin
Lambert Orkis, piano
Brahms: violin sonatas Nos. 1-3
$35-$107
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
http://www.wpas.org/

Nov. 13 (2 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First and Independence streets SE, Washington
Nicolas Kitchen & Borromeo String Quartet
"Man, Music and Machine: 1710-2010," works by Bach, Steve Reich
Free
www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/1011-schedule.html

Nov. 14 (4 p.m.)
Bon Air Presbyterian Church, 9201 W. Huguenot Road, Richmond
Second Sunday South of the James:
Jeff Prillaman, tenor
Charles Staples, piano
Heidi Thurmond, flute
"Sacred Home," works by Handel, Mendelssohn, Bernstein, others
Donation requested
(804) 272-7514

Nov. 14 (5 p.m.)
All Saints Episcopal Church, River and Parham roads, Richmond
Richmond Concert Chorale
Grant Hellmers directing
Crystal Jonkman, organ
Dvořák: Mass in D major
works by Parsons, Britten, Howells, Parry, Warlock, others
Donation requested
(804) 353-5236

Nov. 14 (7 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Richmond Symphony Youth Concert Orchestra
Camerata Strings
String Sinfonietta
program TBA
Free
(804) 788-4717
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

Nov. 14 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
UR Wind Ensemble
David Niethamer directing
Holst: Suite No. 2 in F major
other works TBA
Free
(804) 289-8980
http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/

Nov. 14 (3:30 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
UVa Wind Ensemble
William Pease directing
Al Chez, trumpet
75th anniversary concert, works by Leroy Anderson, Richard Rodgers, John Williams, others
$10
(434) 924-3376
http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/music/concertsevents/index.html

Nov. 14 (3 p.m.)
Nov. 15 (8 p.m.)
Shaftman Performance Hall, Jefferson Center, 541 Luck Ave., Roanoke
Roanoke Symphony
David Stewart Wiley conducting
Beethoven: "Coriolan" Overture
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2
Norman Krieger, piano
Poulenc: Concerto for two pianos
Gershwin: " 'Porgy and Bess' Fantasy" for two pianos
Norman Krieger & David Stewart Wiley, pianos
$21-$49
(540) 343-9127
http://www.rso.com/

Nov. 14 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Malek Jandali, piano
"Echoes from Ugarit," piano arrangement of selections from ancient Syria (4th century BC)
Jandali: work TBA
$29-$45
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 15 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Robert McDuffie, violin
Venice Baroque Orchestra
"The Seasons Project"
Vivaldi: "The Four Seasons"
Philip Glass: Violin Concerto No. 2 ("The American Four Seasons")
$36
(804) 289-8980
http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/

Nov. 15 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Opera Lafayette Orchestra
Ryan Brown conducting
Judith van Wanroij, soprano
Clérambault: "La Muse de l’Opéra"
Rameau: "Tristes apprêts" from "Castor et Pollux"
other works TBA
$60
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 16 (8 p.m.)
Williamsburg Regional Library Arts Center Theater, 515 Scotland St.
Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg:
Trio Pacifica
program TBA
$15 (waiting list)
(757) 258-4814
http://www.chambermusicwilliamsburg.org/

Nov. 17 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Music
William Bolcom: "The Hawthorn Tree" (premiere)
Joyce Castle, mezzo-soprano
Beethoven: Septet in E flat major
$42
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 18 (8 p.m.)
St. Bede Catholic Church, 3686 Ironbound Road, Williamsburg
Nov. 20 (8 p.m.)
Regent University Theater, Virginia Beach
Virginia Symphony
Benjamin Rous conducting
Sibelius: "Pelléas and Mélisande"
Bottesini: "Grand Duo Concertante"
Pavel Ilyashov, violin
Chris White, double-bass
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4
$20-$50
(757) 892-6366
http://www.virginiasymphony.org/

Nov. 18 (7 p.m.)
Nov. 19 (8 p.m.)
Nov. 20 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki conducting
Lindberg: "Parada"
Mahler: Adagio from Symphony No. 10
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 ("Emperor")
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 18 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Pro Musica Hebraica
Simon Wynberg directing
Karel Berman: "Poupata"
Walter Braunfels: String Quintet
Paul Ben-Haim: "Melodies from the East"
Ben-Haim: Clarinet Quintet
$38
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 19 (7 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Richmond Symphony
Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra
"Side by Side," program TBA
Free
(804) 788-4717
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

Nov. 19 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
James Madison University series:
Monticello String Quartet
Mozart: Quartet in D minor, K. 421
Jennifer Higdon: "Impressions"
Mendelssohn: Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13
$25
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 19 (8 p.m.)
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, First and Independence streets SE, Washington
Doric String Quartet
Haydn: Quartet in A major, Op. 20, No. 6
Korngold: Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 34
Schumann: Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 41, No. 2
Free; tickets required
(703) 573-7328 (Ticketmaster)
www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/1011-schedule.html

Nov. 19 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra
Vladimir Spivakov, violin and conducting
Alexander Ghindin, piano
works by Mozart, Shostakovich, Schnittke
$29-$79
(301) 581-5100
http://www.strathmore.org/

Nov. 20 (7:30 p.m.)
Nov. 21 (4 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Opera
Melanie Kohn Day & Kenneth Wood directing
opera excerpts TBA
Free
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 20 (3:30 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
UVa Baroque Orchestra
David Sarti, violin & director
works by Albinoni, Pachelbel, Handel, others
Free
(434) 924-3376
http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/music/concertsevents/index.html

Nov. 20 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Nov. 21 (3:30 p.m.)
Monticello High School, 1400 Independence Way, Charlottesville
Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra
Kate Tamarkin conducting
Silvestre Revueltas: "Sensemayá"
Frank Porto: "Nine Variants on Paganini"
Astor Piazzolla: "Contrabajeando"
Jeffrey Bradetich, double-bass
Hindemith: "Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber"
$10-$35
(434) 924-3376
http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/music/concertsevents/index.htm

Nov. 20 (8 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
Eckart Preu conducting
Rossini: "La Cenerentola" Overture
John Adams: Violin Concerto
Tim Fain, violin
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 ("Scottish")
$25-$55
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.fairfaxsymphony.org/

Nov. 20 (8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Günther Herbig conducting
Ravel: "Mother Goose" Suite
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1
Tianwa Yang, violin
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10
$28-$88
(877) 276-1444 (Baltimore Symphony)
http://www.strathmore.org/

Nov. 21 (6 p.m.)
Siegel Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Broad and Harrison streets, Richmond
"Come and Play:"
Richmond Symphony
community musicians
Erin R. Freeman conducting
DJ Sparr: "St. John's on Church Hill" (premiere)
other works TBA
Free
(804) 788-4717
http://www.richmondsymphony.com/

Nov. 21 (5 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
The Washington Chorus
Julian Wachner directing
Rachmaninoff: "Vespers"
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances (two-piano arr.)
Grace Cho & Julian Wachner, pianos
Rachmaninoff: songs TBA
contralto & tenor TBA
$15-$65
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 21 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Kennedy Center Chamber Players
Loeffler: "Two Rhapsodies" for oboe, viola and piano
Hindemith: Sonata for double-bass and piano
Poulenc: Sonata for oboe and piano
Dvořák: String Quintet in G major
$35
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 21 (4 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Tokyo String Quartet
Jeremy Denk, piano
Mozart: Quartet in D major, K. 575
Barber: Quartet, Op. 11
Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81
$35-$85
(202) 785-9727 (Washington Performing Arts Society)
http://www.wpas.org/

Nov. 22 (8 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Percussion Ensemble
Peter Martin directing
program TBA
$5
(804) 828-6776
http://www.vcumusic.org/

Nov. 22 (8 p.m.)
Newcomb Hall Ballroom, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Palladian Chamber Orchestra
David Sarti, violin & director
Rossini: "Il Signor Bruschino" Overture
Fauré: "Masques et bergamasques"
Boccherini: Symphony No. 23
Free
(434) 924-3376
http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/music/concertsevents/index.html

Nov. 26 (8 p.m.)
Nov. 28 (2:30 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets
Virginia Opera
Joseph Walsh conducting
Mozart: "Così fan tutte"
Jan Cornelius (Fiordiligi)
Katharine Tier (Dorabella)
David Portillo (Ferrando)
Timothy Kuhn (Guglielmo)
Todd Robinson (Don Alfonso)
Camille Zamora (Despina)
Lillian Groag, stage director
in Italian, English captions
$29-$99
(866) 673-7282
http://www.vaopera.org/

Nov. 26 (1:30 and 8 p.m.)
Nov. 27 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra Pops
Marvin Hamlisch conducting
Jennifer Hollliday, guest star
$20-$85
(800) 444-1324
http://www.kennedy-center.org/

Nov. 27 (8 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Chanticleer
"A Chanticleer Christmas"
$24-$48
(888) 945-2468 (Tickets.com)
http://www.cfa.gmu.edu/

Nov. 27 (2 and 8 p.m.)
Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD
Mormon Orchestra of Washington, DC
Darrin Thiriot conducting
Mormon Choir of Washington, DC
Gary B. Clawsen directing
"O Come Let Us Adore Him," Christmas carol program
$21-$25
(301) 581-5100
http://www.strathmore.org/

Nov. 30 (7:30 p.m.)
Cannon Memorial Chapel, University of Richmond
The King’s Singers
holiday program TBA
$36
(804) 289-8980
http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/

Nov. 30 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Tuesday Evening Concerts:
Stephen Kovacevich, piano
Takemitsu: "Pause ininterrompue" ("Uninterrupted Rest")
Beethoven: Sonata in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1
Beethoven: Sonata in A flat major, Op. 110
Schubert: Sonata in B flat major, D. 960
$28-$30
(434) 924-3376
http://www.tecs.org/