My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of pianist Alexander Paley, playing Chopin and Rachmaninoff at St. Luke Lutheran Church:
http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/article_a63442eb-2c98-5173-86dd-ff61ce75cb39.html
I’ll be sitting in for Jack Archie on Upbeat, his Sunday night classical show on WDCE-FM at the University of Richmond. American music in the first hour, French music in the second.
Jan. 31
7-9 p.m. EST
2400-0200 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org
Bernstein: “Candide” Overture
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/David Zinman (London)
Adams: “Grand Pianola Music”
John Alley & Shelagh Sutherland, pianos
London Sinfonietta/John Adams (Nonesuch)
Bryce Dessner: “Murder Ballades”
eighth blackbird (Cedille)
Blind Willie Johnson: “Dark Was the Night,
Cold Was the Ground”
(arranged by Stephen Prutsman)
Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch)
Berlioz: “Lélio” –
“Fantasia on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ ”
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/
Michael Tilson Thomas (SFS Media)
Saint-Saëns: Symphony
No. 3 in C minor (“Organ”)
Daniel Roth, organ
Orchestre les Siècles/François-Xaver Roth
(Actes Sud)
Ravel: “La Valse”
London Symphony Orchestra/Pierre Monteux (Philips)
Symphony Musicians of Richmond, members of the Richmond Symphony and Local 123, American Federation of Musicians, will present their annual 
Victor Yampolsky, director of orchestras at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and guest conductor of the Richmond Symphony’s Feb. 5-6 Casual Fridays and Masterworks programs, will conduct the Music Unites concert.
The program includes Brahms’ “Academic Festival” Overture, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, “Nimrod” from Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” and the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, in which the audience is invited to sing along (in German).
A reception follows the program.
Donations will benefit United Way of Greater Richmond and Petersburg.
For more information, call (804) 527-1037.
My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of eighth blackbird, performing in the musical-theatrical production “Hand Eye,” staged on Jan. 27 at the University of Richmond’s Modlin Arts Center:
http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/article_f1884066-4ede-5c27-9ce5-475fdae4a70b.html
Jaap van Zweden, the 55-year-old Dutch conductor currently leading the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic, has been named the next 
Appointed concertmaster of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the age of 19, turning to conducting in his mid-30s, Zweden will serve as music director-designate of the New York Philharmonic in the 2017-18 season, taking over the position full-time in 2018-19 after being released from his Dallas Symphony contract. His initial contract in New York runs through 2023.
He will lead the philharmonic through several years of itinerant concertizing while its home venue, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, is closed for renovations.
Credited with energizing and improving the performing standards of the Dallas Symphony, Zweden also was criticized for what The Dallas Morning News characterized as an “abrasive” relationship with the orchestra’s musicians, The New York Times’ Michael Cooper reports:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/arts/music/new-york-philharmonic-taps-jaap-van-zweden-as-its-next-maestro.html
The Times’ Anthony Tommasini, one of the most vocal advocates of recruiting the Finnish composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen as the New York Philharmonic’s music director, rates Zweden as “too predictable a choice — a solid, disciplined, middle-aged European maestro — to follow Mr. Gilbert, a youthful native New Yorker who has brought the orchestra vision and innovation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/arts/jaap-van-zweden-and-the-future-of-the-new-york-philharmonic.html
Jan. 28
10 a.m.-1 p.m. EST
1500-1800 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org
Ravel: “Alborada del gracioso”
London Symphony Orchestra/
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
(IMP Classics)
Dvořák:
Symphonic Variations
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop (Naxos)
Rimsky-Korsakov: “Fantasia on Russian Themes”
Lydia Mordkovitch, violin
Scottish National Orchestra/Neeme Järvi (Chandos)
Past Masters:
J.S. Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538 (“Dorian”)
Michel Chapuis, organ (United Archives)
(recorded 1967)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491
Alfred Brendel, piano
Scottish Chamber Orchestra/
Charles Mackerras
(Philips)
Vaughan Williams:
“The Lark Ascending”
Hilary Hahn, violin
London Symphony Orchestra/Colin Davis (Deutsche Grammophon)
Webern: Passacaglia
Cleveland Orchestra/Christoph von Dohnányi 
Brahms: Sextet No. 2
in G major, Op. 36
Isabelle Faust & Christian Tetzlaff, violins
Stefan Fehlandt &
Hanna Weinmesiter, violas
Gustav Rivinius &
Julian Steckel, cellos
(Avi-Music)
Dan Visconti: “Black Bend”
Scharoun Ensemble Berlin (Bridge)
Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Finnish composer-conductor and former Los Angeles Philharmonic maestro touted as a likely successor to Alan Gilbert as the next music director of the New York Philharmonic – Salonen is currently the orchestra’s composer-in-residence – tells The New York Times’ Michael Cooper that “a new conducting position would not be logistically possible with the demands of my composing schedule.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/arts/music/esa-pekka-salonen-says-being-new-york-philharmonics-maestro-still-isnt-a-goal.html
Meanwhile, Norman Lebrecht, on his Slipped Disc blog, directs readers to an interview with Manfred Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and another presumed New York Phil front-runner, in which Honeck tells Finnish journalist Vesa Siren that “I feel an obligation to stay in Pittsburgh” and that “I think Esa-Pekka would be the right person” for New York:
http://slippedisc.com/2016/01/exclusive-manfred-honeck-says-esa-pekkas-best-for-the-new-york-philharmonic/
