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    How California Became America’s Contemporary Music Capital

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    On the eve of a sprawling new festival, John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel and others recount how the state reinvigorated classical music.Nobody will be able to take in the entire California Festival, a statewide series of classical music events spanning 650 miles with such density that some nights will have 10 or more performances happening at once.The festival, Nov. 3 -19, was conceived by the music directors of the state’s three largest orchestras: Esa-Pekka Salonen of the San Francisco Symphony, Gustavo Dudamel of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Rafael Payare of the San Diego Symphony. But it grew to contain nearly 100 partnering organizations, who are presenting a host of world premieres and programs of contemporary music under the festival’s banner.It’s an overdue pat on the back for a state that has long encouraged new music, providing freedom and a sense of possibility that has made it the center of gravity for composers who work with a spirit of innovation, a long list that includes Harry Partch, Lou Harrison and Pauline Oliveros in the past, and Terry Riley and John Adams today.Much has centered around distinct communities in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. “Those of us who make music in San Francisco,” wrote Michael Tilson Thomas, who led the city’s orchestra’s for 25 years, “are blessed with an audience that comes to the concert hall more to discover the world than to escape it.” That was one reason he championed what he called American mavericks.Further south, Los Angeles became a microcosm of the California spirit, with sky-high ambition and musical curiosity that was cultivated by power players like the commission-happy philanthropist Betty Freeman and the strong-willed Philharmonic leader Ernest Fleischmann. And Dudamel brought pop-star power to the orchestra before, in a jolt to the city, he announced this year that he would leave for the New York Philharmonic in 2026.Ara Guzelimian, who grew up in Los Angeles and now leads the Ojai Music Festival nearby, described California’s classical music culture as “the lingering positive presence of the pioneers heading West and looking to escape a kind of conformity” before adding: “That’s sort of romanticized, but I think the reality is that a lot of good work has been done by individuals and institutions to develop that.”Here are edited interviews with some of those people, who shared their ideas about the diffuse histories and beliefs that brought about the California Festival.Far From EuropeMATTHEW SPIVEY (chief executive of the San Francisco Symphony) This goes back to the émigré composers, what Stravinsky and Schoenberg were doing in Los Angeles. You have this European tradition that felt like it was being evolved into a new, American version.ARA GUZELIMIAN The East Coast has historically been weighed down by facing the Atlantic and Europe. But here, there hasn’t been the same glare of the spotlight of everything having this kind of weight of being on the record. So, there’s just been a lot more freedom to experiment and move away from any sense of orthodoxy.JOHN ADAMS (composer who lives in Berkeley) When I arrived, there was a far out community mostly centered around Mills College [in Oakland]. Robert Ashley was the guru. There was a lingering scene of academia composers, sort of the last echoes of the Schoenberg-Sessions influence. But at the same time, there was this very romantic myth about San Francisco, and when I got there, I felt it was very open and gave me the freedom to experiment, which I just didn’t feel in the East.From left, Rafael Payare, Gustavo Dudamel and Michael Tilson Thomas.A Hungry AudienceMARTHA GILMER (chief executive of the San Diego Symphony) People are always looking for the next and the new, so it is a canvas in which to create.JEREMY GEFFEN (executive and artistic director of Cal Performances) This is an enormous state. There’s a whole part of life outside the metropolitan areas, which is what attracted Lou Harrison and others. And there are smaller orchestras that are just as adventurous, because that is the standard.GUZELIMIAN As a teenager, I saw Julius Eastman not in some isolated, alternative venue, but with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta. I saw Stravinsky at a concert of “Les Noces.” I saw Lawrence Morton’s Monday Evening Concerts. And I saw Xenakis because that was a completely normal thing to do. Here’s the great secret of arts management: Organizations create their own audience expectations. You can’t blame a so-called conservative audience.Why CaliforniaGUZELIMIAN I’ve rarely experienced the arts here as having a critical mass as they do in New York City, in which randomly on a subway or walking down the sidewalk you overhear people talking about an opera they’ve seen, or a play, or whatever show at MoMA that’s “unmissable.” That has incredible virtues, but in a funny way it can create a constraint. Whereas on the West Coast, it’s not as pervasive, not as self-conscious. So, there’s room for an imaginative venture to kind of make a go of it. Now, L.A. is bursting with new music groups and series, and to me the height of that spirit in New York is more historical. It doesn’t feel that its bursting at the seams.ADAMS I was really struggling, because back East [he grew up and was educated in New England] there was enormous prestige granted to the sort of Elliott Carter brand of composition back in the ’70s, and I had absolutely no interest in it. But the composers I knew of in California gave me more of a sense of freedom and permission to experiment.ESA-PEKKA SALONEN Many composers came here to find themselves, to find their language. And, as opposed to the East Coast and Europe, there has never been a sense of mainstream modernism, of what new music should be.The Bay AreaDEBORAH BORDA (longtime chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who worked earlier with the San Francisco Symphony) I got to the San Francisco Symphony when I was 27 [in the mid-1970s], and there was almost no contemporary music. But then came Edo de Waart, and he was really a devotee of new music. We brought John Adams, who was doing New and Unusual Music concerts, we brought in Diamanda Galás, you name it. We did a lot of Louis Andriessen music, like “De Staat.” Sometimes the audiences would boo and hiss his music, but he would come out and laugh in his ripped jeans.ADAMS There was a lot of talk about a West Coast aesthetic, and I suppose that included composers like Daniel Lentz and Terry Riley, and for sure Lou Harrison. I made my own synthesizer, which was a really West Coast thing at the time, and I think the person that did most creatively was Ingram Marshall. He made this amazing amalgam of Balinese influences and these wonderful rich drones and himself singing at what we called performance sites, which were usually just someone’s garage; we didn’t have the term “pop-up.”PAMELA Z (composer and performer) I moved to San Francisco in 1984, and I distinctly remember being excited by the broad range of new music and performance scenes. There were all these different factions: the improvisers, the instrument-builders, the avant-garde contemporary music, people who were doing performance art and people who were doing live performance with electronics, like Diamanda Galás. I was interested in all those different scenes, and I wanted them to be in the same room with each other. I started doing these events called Z Programs, that were almost like an avant-garde variety show. And when Michael Tilson Thomas was at the San Francisco Symphony, he was always interested in opening up things more. So there were connective tissues across the city.From left, Claire Chase, the Rady Shell in San Diego and the composer John Adams.San DiegoCLAIRE CHASE (flutist) I grew up in north San Diego County, and went to public schools where there was no music program. A lot of my musical education happened instead at the San Diego Youth Symphony, which is, I think, a really important cultural organization. It has this storied and really progressive history. California is this maze of contradictions. It has this D.I.Y. fervor — and I don’t mean in the corporate, Silicon Valley co-opting of that word — that gave birth to and sustains every artistic organization: Asian Improv Arts, the Tape Music Center and Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley’s “In C” being a totally D.I.Y. concert.I have these beautiful memories of Pauline barefoot with her accordion embodying this you-can-be-whatever-you-want-to-be feeling that’s so typically Californian and beautiful and true. She was this queer iconoclast doing her thing but also community building.GILMER When I was going to move out here, someone told me, “Whatever you can dream, it’s possible.” I really think that’s true. I don’t know where else I could have opened the Rady Shell [an open-air stage on the San Diego Bay] and started a hall renovation within five years.RAFAEL PAYARE And anyone can see us at the Shell because it’s outside in the park. We are rehearsing, and there’s someone walking their dog.Building in Los AngelesSALONEN When I did my debut with the L.A. Philharmonic [in 1984], I’d never been to this country. They put me up in the Biltmore, which in those days had a suite with a grand piano. I tried to go for a walk, and the doorman said, “Shall I call you cab?” I said I’d just stroll around a bit, and he said, “I don’t recommend that.” Anyway, there was an older cellist who came up to me after the second rehearsal and said, “Welcome to your new home.” I started coming back every season, and when André Previn stepped down, there was this letter from the board that modestly said they would like to develop the L.A. Phil into the world’s best orchestra, would I like to be a part of that process?One morning much later, when I was living in Santa Monica, I got up really early, and my kids were still asleep. I sat in the kitchen, made myself a coffee and thought, What is this weird feeling? And I realized: I’m happy. I feel free, not straight-jacketed by some kind of European, dusty modernist discourse.BORDA There was a real community around music in Los Angeles. In the audience you’d see composers. You’d see Annie Philbin, who runs the Hammer Museum. You’d see politicians.SALONEN Somebody who has to be mentioned in all this is Betty Freeman [who died in 2009 and was an influential donor behind the Los Angeles music scene]. She was quite spiky. She would call me and say: “I heard your new chamber piece. Utter rubbish. Would you like to come over for dinner?” But she did commission quite a lot of stuff, and was behind the scenes supporting composers when they fell on hard times.THOMAS ADÈS (composer) Betty picked me up from LAX my first time in L.A. She sped out to wow me with Los Angeles in those first hours. We were on our way to visit David Hockney, and we were driving past the Hollywood Bowl when I saw a sign that said, “Thomas Adès, Piano.” Then I stayed with her, and not only did she have these [Joseph] Cornell boxes that she got directly from Cornell, but I also knew that this was the house where she had salons with Nancarrow, or Stockhausen and Boulez. So, in a way, I had this impression of Los Angeles as avant-gardist more than any of the reasons other people go to live there.She had very strong taste. She used to put Post-it notes on everything; one on a CD said “BORING” and another said “I DON’T LIKE THIS.” She was bracing, but could get away with it because she was also so sweet. I came back, year after year, and bought a house there, and I would trace it all back to her.FRANK GEHRY (architect) Betty didn’t want me to do Walt Disney Concert Hall, but she did invite me to her house for dinner. The person who got me involved with that project was Ernest Fleischmann [who ran the Philharmonic from 1969-1998]. He asked me to do the competition, and of course I was excited to do it. There was a lot of anti-Frank sentiment, because I worked with plywood, chain link and corrugated metal. But we proved them all wrong.SALONEN (who inaugurated Disney Hall in 2003) The timing was a bit problematic, because the L.A. riots happened in ’92, and in the aftermath the idea of building a sensational concert hall in Downtown L.A. didn’t feel like a huge priority. But the hall changed everything. Now, if you ask people about any kind of visual idea of L.A., it’s the hall. Any action scene in L.A. in a movie, at least one car chase goes by the hall.And for me, I started to understand how much nonverbal messaging there is in a building. It was open from the street level, so it was warm and inviting, and it was complex but not incomprehensible. And there’s this kind of amazing feeling of unity; the geometry is such that everybody inside the hall sees a bunch of other people at all times. It also sounds pretty good. For me, it’s still the reference for balance and sound, and it will be so until the end of my days.From left, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pamela Z and Walt Disney Concert Hall on its opening night.Los Angeles TodayBORDA We started the Green Umbrella [free-form contemporary music concerts], and had Steven Stucky and John Adams as partners for contemporary music. Steve and Esa-Pekka were extraordinarily close; they spent hours eating together, and drinking together, and talking about music and life. It was very difficult for Esa-Pekka when Steve passed on [in 2016]. Now you have Wild Up and other small groups. And you have what Yuval Sharon has done with opera. The Green Umbrella concerts are still going. There’s an appetite for all this.YUVAL SHARON (founder of the Industry opera company in Los Angeles) What drew me to L.A. was the possibility of smaller, more nimble, freer, more entrepreneurial endeavors to move with some fluidity in and among the community. When I think of L.A., I think of this John Cage book, “Silence,” in which he talks about having an interaction with a European composer who was deriding him: “How could you write so much serious music away from the center?” And Cage [who came of age in Southern California] says, “How can you write such serious music so close to the center?” That was in the 1950s, but I think there’s an element of that ethos that’s still there today.GUSTAVO DUDAMEL (who succeeded Salonen at the Philharmonic in 2009) I was a huge admirer of this orchestra and of Esa-Pekka. Los Angeles is about new things. It’s a place that every day is getting built. It’s very open all the time to new things, and I’ve loved having a relationship with John Adams, who brings these very young composers to be part of the programming of this orchestra.ADAMS Well, I think Los Angeles is teeming with composers. I wish there was that level of creativity and activity in the Bay Area.And in San FranciscoSPIVEY Knowing that Michael Tilson Thomas was going to be stepping down after 25 years at the helm, and all that he had accomplished, there was a sense that those were going to be some difficult shoes to fill. We wanted someone who was not only a great conductor, but also a great orchestra builder. And Esa-Pekka is one of those people.SALONEN Honestly, the optics of a major U.S. orchestra hiring a 60-year-old Finnish guy who’s been around the block a few times, I thought: That in itself is not sensational news. But we talked about bringing in collaborative partners [eight artists who include Chase, the composer Nico Muhly, the computer scientist Carol Reiley and more], who would energize the thinking of the orchestra.ADAMS There are still some wonderful composers from the Bay Area. So when Esa-Pekka came, and the symphony appointed their collaborative artists, and they were pretty much from New York or Europe — flying in and flying out — that was really an insult to California culture.SPIVEY Whether it’s successful or not, we’ll learn from what happens.A New FestivalPAYARE California has, all the time, been nurturing the music of the future. But everyone has been doing it on their own, which is why it was good to do the California Festival.SALONEN We are collectively proud of what has happened in California and what has kept happening, and the California Festival is a manifestation of that. And of how much there is. It’s interesting that there’s no real school. You could say that this is the birthplace of minimalism. I was talking with Terry Riley on Zoom, and I asked him if “In C” was a reaction against East Coast, European modernism. He said: “No, not really. It was more about psychedelic drugs.” I thought, Oh, he kind of nailed it, that lack of pretension here.Always ChangingGEFFEN Something that I worry about is that this state has become so expensive. We’ve already seen this in the Bay Area, that the freelance scene is not full because we’ve lost so many people to the cost of living.BORDA I think the most powerful force for good and innovation is Esa-Pekka. That gives me hope for the north. And for the south, I think what’s embedded there already won’t go away; the history of Los Angeles is reflected in that integration of different art forms and excitement at the new.ADÈS More than in London or New York, I still have a feeling that in California I’m just left to get on with things. A lot of that world of Ernest and Betty have moved on, but it’s evolved into something else. I don’t know if I’m a part of it or not, but whatever attracted me in the first place is still there, that expansion of my molecules that I instantly felt.SHARON This is a moment of real — if we want to put it euphemistically — transition. It’s not just California. Listening to my colleagues on a national level, I think that we have to redefine classical music’s role for contemporary society, and there are a lot of growing pains associated with that. Everyone has seen attendance down, and donations down, across the board. I do think that the ethos of Los Angeles will make things easier to adapt than elsewhere. The L.A. Phil is going through tremendous change in leadership. This is the moment for that attitude and perspective, the time for that push forward to show the way. It’s an opportunity for California to lead, but it’s not going to be easy. More

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      10 Classical Concerts to Stream in April

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      Bach two ways, the composer Tania León and a Philip Glass adaptation of Kafka are among the highlights.With a widespread return to indoor, in-person performances still a ways off, here are 10 highlights from the flood of online music content coming in April. (Times listed are Eastern.)‘St. John Passion’April 2 at 9 a.m.; dg-premium.com; available through April 4.This concert sells itself: John Eliot Gardiner, one of the finest Bach interpreters in the world, leading his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in the “St. John Passion” — on Good Friday, no less. Not always as popular, and always more controversial, than its sibling “St. Matthew Passion,” the “St. John” is nonetheless a work that Gardiner feels passionately about. As he wrote in his book “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven,” it is “as bold and complex an amalgam of storytelling and meditation, religion and politics, music and theology, as there has ever been.” JOSHUA BARONEAttacca QuartetApril 6 at 7 p.m.; millertheatre.com; available indefinitely.The Attacca players seem incapable of putting on a dull concert; one of the final live performances I heard before last year’s lockdown featured them in joyous mastery of Caroline Shaw’s string quartets. That was at the Miller Theater, which is hosting this livestream of selections from John Adams’s “John’s Book of Alleged Dances”; Gabriella Smith’s rhapsodic jam session “Carrot Revolution”; and “Benkei’s Standing Death,” a 2020 work by Paul Wiancko, whose “Lift” teems with understanding of and affection for the string-quartet tradition. JOSHUA BARONE‘Pelléas et Mélisande’April 9 at 1 p.m.; operavision.eu; available through Oct. 9.We usually associate the phrase “period instruments” with the Baroque era. But changes in musical technology have been continuous and profound through the ages, such that there can be revelatory performances of “period Beethoven” or “period Wagner” — or period Debussy! François-Xavier Roth and his ensemble, Les Siècles, have long tailored their interpretations — and the instruments they use — to different works they play. They have recorded Debussy as he might have sounded at the turn of the 20th century, and now take on his epochal 1902 “Pelléas” for Opéra de Lille, directed (and with starkly elegant sets designed) by Daniel Jeanneteau. ZACHARY WOOLFETania León’s glittering “Ácana,” from 2008, is among the works that The Orchestra Now will play in a streamed concert on April 10.Miranda Barnes for The New York TimesThe Orchestra NowApril 10 at 8 p.m.; theorchestranow.org; available on demand from April 15 through May 30.This impressive ensemble of graduate students at Bard College presents a characteristically adventurous program, conducted by Leon Botstein. It opens with Tania León’s glittering “Ácana,” from 2008, followed by Bernstein’s “Serenade”: a rumination on Plato’s “Symposium” that takes the form of an intense, episodic violin concerto, with Zongheng Zhang as soloist. The brilliant pianist Blair McMillen appears in Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, a terrific but seldom performed piece. The program ends with Mendelssohn’s spirited “Scottish” Symphony. ANTHONY TOMMASINIBenjamin ApplApril 12 at 8 a.m.; wigmore-hall.org.uk; available through May 12.When this German baritone sang Schubert’s “Die Schöne Müllerin” cycle at the Park Avenue Armory two years ago, Joshua Barone wrote in The New York Times that he “had the exacting attention to text of an actor, the charisma of a seasoned storyteller and an agile voice.” If you, like me, missed that performance, another opportunity beckons with this livestream from Wigmore Hall in London. Appl will have, in the pianist James Baillieu, the same partner as at the Armory, so we’ll see if he can cast the same spell over the screen. ZACHARY WOOLFE‘In the Penal Colony’April 15 at 12:01 a.m.; philipglasscenterpresents.org; available indefinitely.In the past, I’ve found the recording of this Philip Glass “pocket opera,” adapted from Kafka’s short story, to be a bit of a slog. But a staging can make all the difference, particularly when dealing (as here) with a talky libretto. This 2018 production by Opera Parallèle — presented as part of this year’s digital edition of Glass’s Days and Nights Festival — has turned me around on the work. Thanks to a strong pair of lead performances and a simple yet effective black-box set, Kafka’s bureaucratized dystopia shines through with a fresh lacquer of bleak humor. SETH COLTER WALLSSan Francisco SymphonyApril 15 at 1 p.m.; sfsymphonyplus.org; available indefinitely.The pandemic waylaid this orchestra’s splashy plans to welcome Esa-Pekka Salonen as its new music director. But with its own streaming service now up and running, San Francisco is giving Salonen a chance — however curtailed — to start defining his tenure. For this SoundBox program, he is focusing on ideas of musical patterning. While the program includes some well-worn Minimalist favorites by Steve Reich and Terry Riley, the most intriguing item is a premiere from Salonen himself: “Saltat sobrius,” a fantasy on Pérotin’s medieval “Sederunt Principes.” SETH COLTER WALLSJeremy Denk’s Bach concert, presented by Cal Performances, will be available starting April 15.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesJeremy DenkApril 15 at 10 p.m.; calperformances.org; available through July 14.The first book of Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” was to have dominated this pianist’s 2020 performance schedule. That, of course, was not to be, but last spring, he nevertheless produced a series of streams related to the capacious work. He returns to it in its totality for this concert, presented by Cal Performances. ZACHARY WOOLFEHallé OrchestraApril 29 at 7 a.m.; thehalle.vhx.tv; available through July 29.All three of the Hallé’s streams this month will be worth watching, including the premiere of Huw Watkins’s Symphony No. 2, available from April 15. But this last program of the season is the most ambitious: an account of Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” filmed on location across the orchestra’s hometown, Manchester, England. Composed amid the influenza pandemic of 1918, the Stravinsky asks for small forces: just seven instrumentalists backing three actors and a dancer. Mark Elder conducts, and Annabel Arden and Femi Elufowoju Jr. direct. DAVID ALLENChamber Music Society of Lincoln CenterApril 29 at 7:30 p.m.; chambermusicsociety.org; available through May 6.This program is billed as “Monumental Trios,” and that’s no exaggeration. Beethoven’s Trio in E-flat (Op. 70, No. 2) is a majestic, searching and, at times, alluringly quizzical work. The superb pianist Juho Pohjonen joins the violinist Paul Huang and the cellist Jakob Koranyi in a performance taped in 2015. Brahms’s Trio No. 1 in B, composed in 1854 and revised in 1889, offers music by this composer in his brash early days — then modulated some 35 years later, once he was a probing, mature master. The performance by the pianist Orion Weiss, the violinist Ani Kavafian and cellist Carter Brey is from 2017. ANTHONY TOMMASINI More

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      10 Classical Concerts to Stream in March

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeWatch: ‘WandaVision’Travel: More SustainablyFreeze: Homemade TreatsCheck Out: Podcasters’ Favorite PodcastsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story10 Classical Concerts to Stream in MarchMitsuko Uchida, the Louisiana Philharmonic and a performance organized by Teju Cole are among the highlights.The pianist Mitsuko Uchida will stream a Schubert program this month through Cal Performances.Credit…Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETAs the live performing arts continue to struggle through the coronavirus pandemic, here are 10 highlights from the flood of online music content coming in March. (Times listed are Eastern.)‘Die Tote Stadt’Feb. 28 at 1 p.m.; operavision.eu; available through March 28.Korngold’s breakthrough opera has not been well served on DVD. Some productions emphasize the plot’s salaciousness at the expense of its musical beauty. For others, the problem is the reverse. If anyone can achieve the delicate balance of the two elements, it’s the experienced director Robert Carsen, whose production of the rapturous, late Romantic score — a precursor to Korngold’s influential Hollywood work — appeared at the Komische Oper in Berlin in 2018, and is streaming now. The soprano Sara Jakubiak stars, and has made something of a specialty of Korngold in recent years, including appearing in another recent Berlin staging, at the Deutsche Oper, of “Das Wunder der Heliane.” SETH COLTER WALLSTeju Cole and Orchestra of St. Luke’sMarch 3 at 6:30 p.m.; oslmusic.org; available until March 10.This ensemble, which has responded robustly and creatively to the constraints of streamed performance, begins a new words-and-music series, “Sounds and Stories,” with a program organized by the writer Teju Cole and hosted by the actor David Hyde Pierce. Cole will read selections from his work alongside visual elements and pieces by an eclectic array of composers: Caroline Shaw, Yvette Janine Jackson, Henryk Gorecki, Unsuk Chin, Kaija Saariaho and Hildegard von Bingen. Oh, and Beethoven. ZACHARY WOOLFEAnthony McGill will collaborate with the Catalyst Quartet on a performance presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Credit…Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesAnthony McGillMarch 9 at 7 p.m.; Facebook and YouTube; available indefinitely.“Cadence: The Sounds of Justice, the Sounds of a Movement,” presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has been organized by Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinet and the latest winner of the Avery Fisher Prize. Inspired by the Great Migration and works in the museum’s collection, McGill is joined by the Catalyst Quartet, with whom he collaborated on the group’s album “Uncovered, Vol. 1: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.” They will play Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet in F sharp minor alongside Kerry James Marshall’s 2014 painting “Untitled (Studio),” and a premiere by Richard Danielpour, in front of Philip Guston’s “Stationary Figure” (1973). Closing the concert will be Adolphus Hailstork’s solo “Three Smiles for Tracey,” juxtaposed with Joel Shapiro’s sculpture “Untitled” (2000-01). JOSHUA BARONESteven BanksMarch 10 at 7:30 p.m.; Facebook and YouTube; available indefinitely.This adventurous saxophonist and composer presents his debut recital for the organization Young Concert Artists, which named him the winner of its prestigious international auditions competition in 2019. The program, with the pianist Xak Bjerken, includes premieres by Carlos Simon and Saad Haddad and Banks’s own new work “Come As You Are.” He will also perform Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F (with members of the Zorá Quartet) and Schumann’s “Fantasiestücke” for Clarinet and Piano — both arranged for saxophone. And why not? The sax, after all, is a latter-day cousin of both those instruments. ANTHONY TOMMASINILouisiana Philharmonic OrchestraMarch 12 at 8 p.m.; lpomusic.com; available through September.There are two Copland works on this program: “Appalachian Spring” and the Clarinet Concerto. But the bigger news is the performance of Courtney Bryan’s violin concerto “Syzygy,” featuring Jennifer Koh as soloist. The Louisiana players have a longstanding connection with Bryan’s music; having performed her orchestral work “Rejoice,” they’ve also named this composer-pianist a “creative partner.” So they may well have a feel for her take on Americana, which often includes elements of spirituals and the blues. (Bryan’s “Blessed,” a commission for Opera Philadelphia’s online channel, is also streaming from Feb. 26.) SETH COLTER WALLSThe mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey performs Kurt Weill at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.Credit…Victor Llorente for The New York TimesKate LindseyMarch 14 at 2 p.m.; teatroallascala.org, as well as YouTube and Facebook; available through March 21.One of my favorite albums in recent years has been “Thousands of Miles,” a program mostly of Kurt Weill songs performed by the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and the pianist Baptiste Trotignon with cabaret-like cool; Lindsey brings to these works both the radiant lyricism of Teresa Stratas and the raw Sprechstimme of Lotte Lenya, two iconic Weill interpreters. That album is the basis for this recital with Trotignon at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where Lindsey will also appear in March for a double bill of Weill’s “The Seven Deadly Sins” and “Mahagonny-Songspiel,” conducted by Riccardo Chailly and streaming on RaiPlay on March 18. JOSHUA BARONEMitsuko UchidaMarch 18 at 10 p.m.; calperformances.org; available through June 16.For Mitsuko Uchida, Schubert’s piano works have been a lifelong work in progress, which is why, years after she recorded the bulk of them, they are still well worth hearing anew — lately, in online recitals. From Wigmore Hall in London she recently streamed the Sonata in C (D. 840) for the Cleveland Orchestra. Next is this program for Cal Performances, featuring the forlorn yet tender Impromptu in A flat (D. 935); the famous Impromptu in C minor (D. 899), with its spare, enigmatic opening march embellished through chords and variations; and the Sonata in G (D. 894), a font of serenity that’s as good a spiritual balm as anything right now. JOSHUA BARONESarah CahillMarch 20 at 10:30 p.m.; YouTube; available indefinitely.A champion of American music and living composers, this pianist is also known as host of the popular program Revolutions Per Minutes on KALW in San Francisco. This recital, presented by the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, Calif., is a celebration of the 19th Amendment, and includes works by female composers from the 18th century to the present day, among them Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Margaret Bonds and Vitezslava Kapralova. ANTHONY TOMMASINICaramoor will stream a recital by the bass-baritone Dashon Burton, left.Credit…Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesDashon BurtonMarch 21 at 3 p.m.; caramoor.org; available until March 23.Known as a member of the contemporary vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth as much as for trumpeting performances in Handel’s “Messiah,” this burnished-tone bass-baritone appears in recital with the pianist David Fung under the auspices of Caramoor. The program includes Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” as well as spirituals and works by Dowland, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price and William Bolcom. ZACHARY WOOLFELouisville OrchestraMarch 27 at 7:30 p.m.; louisvilleorchestra.vhx.tv; available until May 23.The exuberance of this ensemble and its young music director, Teddy Abrams, is captured in its name for its streaming series: Louisville Orchestra Virtual Edition, or LOVE. Installments explore Classical and folk styles, and, on March 27, the legacy of Black traditions. Abrams conducts from the keyboard in Ravel’s jazz-influenced Piano Concerto in G, and the local rapper, activist, teacher and Louisville Metro Council member Jecorey Arthur performs. ZACHARY WOOLFEAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      10 Classical Concerts to Stream in January

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story10 Classical Concerts to Stream in JanuaryA Verdi opera from the Met and composers on the border of classical and pop are among the highlights.Luciano Pavarotti and Aprile Millo in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera,” which will be streamed by the Metropolitan Opera.Credit…Met Opera ArchivesDec. 31, 2020, 8:00 a.m. ETAs the live performing arts still reel from the coronavirus pandemic, here are 10 highlights from the flood of online music content coming in January. (Times listed are Eastern.)‘Lonely House’Available now until Jan. 22; operavision.eu and on YouTube.This winter, Katharine Merhling was scheduled to reprise her Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” at the Komische Oper in Berlin. The pandemic got in the way, but the company’s devoted audience need not spend the season without this singer’s gifts. This performance (first streamed live late in December) offers a fresh look at Kurt Weill, focusing on that composer’s years in Paris and New York. Devotees know many of these songs. But Ms. Mehrling’s energy — aided by Barrie Kosky, the Komische Oper’s artistic director, on piano — gives a saucy charge to a medley from the rarely staged “Lady in the Dark.” SETH COLTER WALLS‘Un Ballo in Maschera’Jan. 2 at 7:30 p.m.; metopera.org; available until Jan. 3 at 6:30 p.m.In case you missed it in August, this 1991 Metropolitan Opera performance of Verdi’s dark tale of love, betrayal, friendship and regicide returns to the company’s series of nightly streams from its archives. “Ballo” is part of a week centered on Luciano Pavarotti, Met star supreme, but is also a showcase for the passionate artistry of the soprano Aprile Millo, whose career burned bright in the 1980s and ’90s, a throwback to divas of yore. James Levine conducts a cast that also includes Leo Nucci, Florence Quivar and Harolyn Blackwell. ZACHARY WOOLFEThe soprano Julia Bullock’s recital will be streamed by Cal Perfomances.Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesJulia BullockJan. 14 at 10 p.m.; calperformances.org; available until April 14.Kurt Weill isn’t just coming from the Komische Oper. One of our most luminous singers has four Weill numbers of her own to offer in a recital for Cal Performances that swings, in characteristic Bullock style, from the classical canon to contemporary work by way of golden age musical theater. Pieces by William Grant Still and Margaret Bonds are at the core of a program that also includes songs by Wolf and Schumann (selections from “Dichterliebe”), a set from “The Sound of Music,” and material from John Adams’s recent opera “Girls of the Golden West,” composed with Ms. Bullock in mind. Laura Poe is the pianist. ZACHARY WOOLFEEve EgoyanJan. 16 at 5 p.m.; rcmusic.com; available until Jan. 23.This Canadian pianist, who specializes in contemporary music, will perform the premiere of her Seven Studies for Augmented Piano. This is a series of works she created for a Yamaha Disklavier — an acoustic piano with a computer interface, coupled with software that allows her “to augment and extend the sonic range of the piano,” as she writes in a program note. The program, part of the 21C Music Festival presented by the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, includes a short video exploring Ms. Egoyan’s creative process. ANTHONY TOMMASINIWild UpJan. 17 at 9:58 a.m.; patreon.com/wildup; available indefinitely.Artists from the Wild Up collective, including its conductor and artistic director, Christopher Rountree, are familiar to Los Angeles audiences. But for the group’s coming monthlong project, “Darkness Sounding,” listeners around the world are invited. Some concerts will be available as livestreams, then archived, through Wild Up’s Patreon page. At five dollars for the month, you can access shows like this one on Jan. 17, “simple lines/quiet music/silent songs,” featuring the pianist Richard Valitutto. A daylong “house concert,” it’s organized around largely soft, contemplative works by the likes of Ann Southam and Alvin Curran. SETH COLTER WALLS‘Soldier Songs’Jan. 22 at 8 p.m.; operaphila.org; available until May 31.David T. Little’s “Soldier Songs,” for baritone and small ensemble, was born of the American invasion of Iraq. But, based on interviews with veterans of five wars, it speaks to conflict more generally and abstractly. And like the most satisfying politically minded art, it’s rife with complication — not just in the score’s uninhibited blending of genres, but also in the treatment of its subject, defying stereotypes and hagiographies. “Soldier Songs” puts you off as it draws you in, and it will haunt audiences anew in a virtual production presented by Opera Philadelphia, directed by and starring the baritone Johnathan McCullough. JOSHUA BARONEThe baritone Christian Gerhaher, standing, and the pianist Gerold Huber performing in September at Wigmore Hall, which will stream their recital on Jan. 27.Credit…Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesChristian Gerhaher and Gerold HuberJan. 27 at 2:30 p.m.; wigmore-hall.org.uk; available until Feb. 26.As concerts have moved online during the pandemic, many have also gotten shorter. Thus “Schwanengesang,” the shattering collection of Schubert’s final songs, can more easily stand alone on a program — as it does in this Wigmore Hall stream from the baritone Christian Gerhaher and the pianist Gerold Huber, one of the great musical partnerships of our time. The duo also appear earlier in Wigmore’s richly scheduled January, presenting works by Schumann and Debussy (Jan. 25). Other hall highlights include the soprano Lise Davidsen, singing Grieg, Sibelius and more (Jan. 17), and the pianist Igor Levit, playing Hindemith, Schoenberg and Busoni (Jan. 29). JOSHUA BARONEBaltimore Symphony OrchestraJan. 27 at 8 p.m.; offstage.bsomusic.org; available until June 30.This ensemble has been offering a series of documentary-style, hourlong discussion and performance programs called BSO Sessions. “Twelve” looks at composers who have bridged contemporary classical music and pop. There will be performances of a suite by Jonny Greenwood, of Radiohead, from his score for the film “There Will Be Blood”; Bryce Dessner’s “Lachrimae”; and Caroline Shaw’s “Entr’acte.” Steve Hackman, a composer and arranger skilled at this crossover, discusses the music and the stylistic overlaps with musicians from the orchestra. Nicholas Hersh conducts. ANTHONY TOMMASINIThe pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason will appear with the Hallé Orchestra.Credit…Matt Crossick/PA Images, via Getty ImagesHallé OrchestraJan. 28 at 6 a.m.; halle.co.uk; available until April 28.This orchestra, which has been streaming performances filmed at its Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, England, has an intriguing program coming up featuring the pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, the eldest of the seven young, gifted members of a British musical family that has been gaining international attention. She plays Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 on the program, conducted by Mark Elder, which opens with Richard Strauss’s Serenade for winds (written when its composer was 17) and ends with Sibelius’s Third Symphony. ANTHONY TOMMASINIPeter Evans EnsembleJan. 28 at 8 p.m.; roulette.org; available indefinitely.The trumpeter Peter Evans is a reliable source of thrilling virtuosity. That’s true when he’s working with the Wet Ink Ensemble or International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as when he’s leading his own groups. This quartet, with the electronics and percussion specialist Levy Lorenzo, the violinist and vocalist Mazz Swift and the pianist Ron Stabinsky, recently celebrated the release of a blazing album, “Horizons.” But this livestream won’t be a victory lap; it promises a fresh slate of compositions by Mr. Evans. SETH COLTER WALLSAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More