My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of the Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia’s concerts on Feb. 28 and 29 at First Unitarian Universalist Church:
http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/article_83bc9f0e-0902-5695-b52b-8e08578da3f7.html
Mahan Esfahani, the Iranian-American harpsichordist giving a Sunday matinee performance with the period-instruments ensemble Concerto Köln in Cologne, 
In a missive to Norman Lebrecht’s Slipped Disc blog, Esfahani writes that he’s “fairly sure that the harpsichord has never been in a situation which has inspired total order breaking down in a concert hall. For me, that’s indescribably awesome. If this instrument can inspire opinions, then we are on to something. Of course, I wish people would express themselves in more respectful ways, but who am I to judge? My brain hurts to think what would have transpired had I played something really new.”
http://slippedisc.com/2016/02/noisy-dissent-disrupts-a-harpsichord-recital/
“The viola player Kim Kashkashian won a Grammy [Award] for Best Classical Instrumental Solo,” Norman Lebrecht writes on his Slipped Disc blog. “US mass media got excited,” mistaking Kashkashian, who describes herself as a “middle-aged mother and classical musician,” for pop celebrity Kim Kardashian, whose, um, instrument is not the viola.
The Richmond Symphony and its Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra, Virginia Repertory Theatre, Richmond Jazz Society, Ezibu Muntu African Dance, Elegba Folklore Society and the ART 180 youth art program will collaborate in Celebrate Jackson Ward: Past, Present and Future, a festival running from May 20-22 in Abner Clay Park, West Clay Street at Brook Road in the central city’s historic Jackson Ward neighborhood.
Performances will employ the symphony’s recently acquired “Big Tent” portable concert stage, which also is being used for the RVA East End Festival, May 6-8 in Chimborazo Park.
Events in the Jackson Ward festival include ART 180’s spring program celebration, “The Really BIG Show,” on May 20; performances for children and families by the symphony and youth orchestra, theatre and companies and community artists and groups on May 21; and an ecumenical service and performances by church choir and liturgical dancers from Jackson Ward churches on May 22.
All events are free. Food, beverage and other vendors will be open in the park.
Celebrate Jackson Ward sponsors include The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Genworth Financial, Richard and Caroline T. Gwathmey Memorial Trust, Beirne Carter Foundation and City of Richmond.
For more information on the festival, visit http://www.richmondsymphony.com/education-engagement/celebrate-jackson-ward/
A program guaranteed to make us all feel like under-achievers: Every one of these works was written by a composer in his teen-age.
Feb. 25
10 a.m.-1 p.m. EST
1500-1800 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://www.wdce.org
Mozart: “Exsultate, jubilate”
Emma Kirkby, soprano
Academy of Ancient Music/
Christopher Hogwood
(L’Oiseau Lyre)
Schubert: Symphony
No. 2 in B flat major
Orchestra of
the 18th Century/
Frans Brüggen (Philips)
Mahler: Piano Quartet
in A minor
Daniel Hope, violin
Paul Neubauer, viola
David Finckel, cello
Wu Han, piano
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto in E flat major, WoO 4
Ronald Brautigam, piano
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/
Andrew Parrott (BIS)
Mendelssohn: Double Concerto in D minor
Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano
Gottfried von der Goltz, violin & director
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (Harmonia Mundi)
Past Masters:
Richard Strauss: Horn Concerto No. 1 in E flat major
Dennis Brain, French horn
Wolfgang Sawallisch
(EMI Classics)
(recorded 1956)
Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga: Quartet No. 3
in E flat major
Guarneri Quartet
(Newton Classics)
Chopin:
“Rondo à la Krakowiak”
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/
Jerzy Maksymiuk (EMI Classics)
The late U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia was widely known to be an opera lover – he and his ideologically odd-couple friend, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, played silent walk-on roles in a 1994 Washington National Opera production of Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos,” and were the subjects of Derrick Wang’s comic opera “Scalia/Ginsburg,” introduced last year at Virginia’s Castleton Festival.
Bob Dylan was another of the justice’s musical inclinations – a much odder coupling ideologically, and perhaps a more resonant one.
Thanks in part to Scalia’s references to his lyrics in his writings, Dylan has become the most frequently quoted songwriter in judicial opinions, University of Tennessee law professor Alex B. Long wrote in his 2012 study “The Freewheelin’ Judiciary: A Bob Dylan Anthology.”
Long, however, tells The New York Times’ Adam Liptak that “[j]udges’ inclination to go to Dylan has actually increased in the past few years,” following Chief Justice John Roberts’ use of the phrase “when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose” from “Like a Rolling Stone,” in a 2008 opinion:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/us/politics/how-does-it-feel-chief-justice-roberts-to-hone-a-dylan-quote.html
Liptak also notes a 2015 study finding 213 references to Dylan’s lyrics in medical research literature.
My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of the Richmond Symphony and its principal oboist, Gustav Highstein, playing works by Richard Strauss, Beethoven and Stravinsky in a Metro Collections program at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland:
http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/article_97c38b5d-9fda-565d-915b-221003ba80c4.html
