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    Jazz at Lincoln Center’s New Season Includes Tribute to Bayard Rustin

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    The civil rights activist’s life and legacy will be honored in a 2024-25 lineup that will also include spotlights on jazz history, and a rising star to warm up November.Jazz at Lincoln Center announced its 2024-25 concert season on Tuesday, which will include performances that celebrate the 20th anniversary of the center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, a tribute to the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and concerts by Grammy Award-winning artists.The season will run from Sept. 19, 2024, to June 14, 2025, and will begin with Hot Jazz and Swing, in which the music director Loren Schoenberg will guide the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra through revitalized arrangements of 1920s and ’30s tunes.On Oct. 18-19, Bryan Carter, a drummer and composer, will lead the Jazz at Pride Orchestra in honoring the life and legacy of Rustin.Other nods to the past will focus on the history of jazz. Led by Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the center’s orchestra will perform 10 concerts that will each pay homage to a decade of jazz history, from the 1920s to the present.Performances in February will honor the early years of jazz and its many inspirations by incorporating cuts from blues, gospel, country and bluegrass, as well as from recordings by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and others. On Nov. 8-9, a pair of concerts will focus on the jazz pioneers Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron and others.From Jan. 16-18, Cool School & Hard Bop concerts will explore midcentury jazz, featuring works from Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Max Roach and others. And May 29-31, the saxophonist Ted Nash will lead the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in performances of new arrangements of music associated with the 1970s.The season will also include more modern performances, including concerts that will feature music from Joanne Brackeen, Charlie Haden, Terence Blanchard and others.Several concerts will also spotlight specific musicians. On Nov. 15-16, Joshua Redman will return to the Rose Theater in a collaboration with Gabrielle Cavassa, a rising star from New Orleans. Later in the season, on Feb. 14-15, Dianne Reeves will perform in a Valentine’s Day celebration filled with songs about romance and heartbreak. The pianist and composer Monty Alexander will celebrate his 80th birthday by performing on Jan. 24-25, while Anat Cohen and her brothers will celebrate her 50th birthday with performances of early swing, post-bop and Brazilian choro on March 14-15.The final performances of the season, June 13-14, will feature music directed by Marsalis and will showcase works by the veteran band members Chris Crenshaw, Vincent Gardner and others. More

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      Next Jazz at Lincoln Center Season Will Celebrate Wayne Shorter

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      As part of the performing arts center’s 2023-24 concert season, the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis will honor Shorter, the innovative saxophonist who died this month.Jazz at Lincoln Center announced a 2023-24 concert season on Tuesday that includes tribute concerts to the influential saxophonist Wayne Shorter and performances from both jazz world fixtures like Bobby Rush and Terence Blanchard and up-and-coming artists like the singer Samara Joy, who won a Grammy for best new artist this year.Wynton Marsalis, the composer and trumpeter who is the organization’s managing and artistic director, will be among the artists celebrating Shorter, who died this month, on March 8 and 9 of next year.Rush, the singer, guitarist and harmonica player who is considered one of the last remaining blues masters of his generation, will play early next year, the center announced. Next March, Blanchard, the film and opera composer best known for scoring Spike Lee films, is scheduled to perform a career retrospective with his band, the E-Collective, and the Turtle Island Quartet.And Joy, who won her first Grammy this year at 23, will headline her first show at the organization’s Rose Theater in October.Marsalis, who is the face of Jazz at Lincoln Center, is slated to play several other concerts this year and next. He and the rest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will open the season on Sept. 21 with a “reimagining” of his small group compositions as big band orchestrations in a concert called “Beyond Black Codes,” a reference to his 1985 album “Black Codes (From the Underground).” In January, Marsalis will pay tribute to Max Roach, the drummer and a founder of modern jazz, in concerts that mark 100 years from Roach’s birth in 1924.Another pair of concerts in February will celebrate three other jazz architects: Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton and Charles Mingus, with music direction by Vincent Gardner, the trombonist and composer. The other part of the concert includes the premiere of a new suite, called “Usonian Structures,” by the composer and saxophonist Andy Farber.Ellington will also be the focus of concerts in the spring, led by Marsalis, to celebrate what would have been his 125th birthday. There will also be performances paying tribute to the civil rights activist and singer Bayard Rustin, which will be presented by the drummer Bryan Carter, as well as concerts celebrating the singers Mahalia Jackson and Sarah Vaughan.Other performances include an annual Valentine’s Day concert from Dianne Reeves; concerts by the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel; a set of shows by Catherine Russell, celebrating the genre of Hot Club jazz that emerged in 1930s Paris; and a two-night event by the ensemble Artemis. The saxophonist Sherman Irby will premiere a new commission, called “Musings of Cosmic Stuff.” More

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      Juilliard’s President Is Challenged but Retains Support of Board

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      The school’s chairman and biggest benefactor, Bruce Kovner, had wanted its president, Damian Woetzel, to leave after a negative evaluation. He marshaled support and stayed.When the charismatic former New York City Ballet star Damian Woetzel was named president of the prestigious Juilliard School in 2017, the school’s powerful chairman, Bruce Kovner, praised his “unusual mix” of intellectual and artistic qualities.But earlier this year Kovner told Woetzel that an internal evaluation had found a lack of confidence in his leadership and asked him to resign by the end of June, a year before the end of his contract, according to a letter Woetzel sent to the school’s trustees that was obtained by The New York Times.Woetzel fought back and succeeded in rallying support behind him, getting testimonials from several eminent artists including the trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, who directs Juilliard’s jazz program, and the pianist Emanuel Ax, a leading member of the faculty. And he wrote in his letter to trustees that the performance review “was extraordinary and highly inconsistent with best practice in nonprofit governance — it was conceived, initiated and managed by our board chairman.”Things came to a head at a board meeting last month. The trustees were informed of the evaluation and Kovner’s recommendation that he leave, but declined to take steps to ease Woetzel out. Kovner, long the school’s biggest benefactor, is planning to step down this June after 22 years as its chairman, a move that one associate said had long been planned.Kovner declined to comment, and Juilliard provided a statement from the board to The New York Times in which it said that “at its most recent meeting, the board strongly reaffirmed its support for President Damian Woetzel” and the 10-year strategic plan that the school created in 2019.The statement said that the board was “unwavering in its focus on the best interests of the students of the Juilliard School, and remains committed to supporting the school’s exceptional faculty, staff and management.”Some saw the conflict as a rare power struggle between two prominent figures in the cultural world, a showdown between old guard and new blood.Given Kovner’s immense influence as Juilliard’s biggest patron — and as an important figure at Lincoln Center, Juilliard’s home, where he serves on the board and has given large sums — some were surprised to see Woetzel prevail. One trustee likened it to a David and Goliath story.Woetzel, 54 — who earned a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard while still dancing — has built a national reputation, having directed the Aspen Institute Arts Program and the Vail International Dance Festival and served on President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.Kovner, 75, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $6.2 billion, has been something of a permanent government at Juilliard, having served as chairman for an unusually long time. With his wife, Suzie, Kovner’s gifts have included $25 million toward a new wing and scholarships in 2005; a trove of precious music manuscripts in 2006; $20 million for the early music program in 2012; and $60 million for a new scholarship program in 2013.At Lincoln Center, Kovner was one of the biggest donors to the redevelopment of the performing arts complex, serves on the board of the Metropolitan Opera and was formerly a trustee of the New York Philharmonic.The standoff posed a challenge for the board and the school, given that Kovner’s ongoing support of Juilliard remains crucial.Bruce Kovner, the chairman of Juilliard, and his wife, Suzie, are the school’s biggest benefactors. He sought to ease Woetzel out after a negative evaluation. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images For Lincoln CenterWoetzel’s evaluation was sent to 49 members of the faculty and staff — including every department head and 18 direct reports — 43 of whom responded to it anonymously. There are about 700 full-time and part-time members of Juilliard’s faculty and staff.The review was designed and conducted by Kovner and J. Christopher Kojima, a vice chairman, Woetzel’s letter to the board said. His letter said that it was “not conducted at an arm’s length distance by an independent party as is best practice for nonprofit institutions of our scale.”The responses included 143 comments, more than three-quarters of which were negative, according to someone privy to a summary of the report who was granted anonymity to describe this sensitive personnel matter.The feedback amounted to several key criticisms, according to the summary, which was described to The Times: that Woetzel focused on performance instead of education; had weak administrative leadership; failed to consult faculty members on key decisions; and created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.A question about confidence in Juilliard’s future met with a negative response from more than half of those who responded, according to the person familiar with the summary.On Jan. 27, Woetzel was asked to leave, according to his letter to the board.“Bruce Kovner communicated — on behalf of the Executive Committee — that my service as president would be terminated prior to the end of my contract, and that the decision was ‘irrevocable,’” Woetzel wrote in the letter to trustees.“Having communicated to me this intent to terminate,” the letter said, “Bruce then emailed me an offer of a severance package that would include a jointly crafted statement that would create a false narrative that I was resigning as of June 30th.”The letter gave Woetzel 96 hours to respond. He decided not to resign.On Feb. 4, Kovner sent the results of the evaluation to the full board, saying the findings were concerning and would be discussed at the regularly scheduled board meeting four days later.Woetzel marshaled support from a number of prominent artists and colleagues, who sent letters to the board in advance of the meeting.“Damian has a record of excellence in his leadership of the school, especially during two pandemic years and these deeply troubling social, political and financial times that have changed the social landscape of America,” Marsalis wrote in his letter, obtained by The Times. “He has been engaged with students, faculty and board in attempting to create a modern institution that is nimble and able to address the very real concerns of students and alumni around the world.”“I feel how we are going about this brings our ethics into question,” Marsalis continued. “This attempt to remove him seems to be poorly thought out, poorly executed, and it will place a stain on our institution that even our love of resources and fragile spirit will not easily remove.”Juilliard has had successes, but also problems, since Woetzel took charge.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe trombone player Weston Sprott, who is the dean of Juilliard’s Preparatory Division, warned in an email to Ax, an influential faculty member, that “a decision to terminate Damian will be incredibly harmful to the institution.”“In the midst of managing the bumps and bruises that could be expected in navigating the national reckoning regarding racial injustice,” Sprott continued, “Damian has put together perhaps the most diverse, inclusive and successful leadership team in our industry — one that is respected by students and faculty and is the envy of its competitors.”Kovner and the executive committee expect Woetzel to address the problems raised in the evaluation with outside coaches and under the guidance of the trustee Reginald Van Lee, a former management consultant, according to the person familiar with the summary. But one trustee said no such course of action has been decided by the full board.Woetzel started out as an unconventional choice for Juilliard, having never worked in academic administration, let alone at one of the world’s leading performing arts schools, which at the time of his appointment had a $110 million annual budget, a $1 billion endowment, and more than 800 students.At Juilliard, Woetzel has made several noteworthy advances, securing a $50 million gift to expand the school’s weekend training program aimed largely at Black and Latino schoolchildren; filling several key positions; and guiding the school through the challenging two years of the pandemic.But he has also had bumps along the way. After a drama workshop at the school involving the re-enactment of a slave auction prompted an outcry, Woetzel issued a “heartfelt apology” in a note to the community.Last June, students protested a planned tuition increase, occupying parts of Juilliard’s Lincoln Center campus and holding street demonstrations. (Several other leading music and drama schools offer free tuition.)Kovner, who made his fortune as a hedge fund manager, has contributed extensively to conservative causes and has served on the boards of the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute, both right-leaning think tanks. Last May, City Journal, which is published by the Manhattan Institute, criticized what it described as the school’s “growing cadre of diversity bureaucrats” in an article headlined “The Revolution Comes to Juilliard: Racial hysteria is consuming the school; unchecked, it will consume the arts.”Kovner has also supported left-leaning organizations, including the Innocence Project, which aims to free the wrongfully convicted; and Lambda Legal, devoted to civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.Now Juilliard is preparing for the next chapter. This week the school’s Duke Ellington Ensemble was scheduled to perform a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Juilliard Jazz at the Chelsea Factory, a new arts space. More

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      Jazz at Lincoln Center Reopens, With Four Young Players in the Spotlight

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      The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra returned to indoor performance with “Wynton at 60,” a program featuring Marsalis originals and a quartet of up-and-coming trumpeters.The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra was amused as four trumpet players, all but one under the age of 30, took their position in the rehearsal room late Tuesday morning.“It’s the Young Lions!” called out the baritone saxophone player Paul Nedzela, referring to the coterie of sharp-dressed, tradition-minded bop up-and-comers who rose during the Reagan and Clinton administrations while edging jazz toward a concert art with a classical-music-style repertoire.That got a laugh.“We tried that in the ’90s,” said the bassist Carlos Henriquez.Another laugh.Soon, Wynton Marsalis, once the pride of those young lions, called the band to order from his perch in the trumpet section and the orchestra lit into “Windjammers,” a Marsalis cooker arranged to showcase the quartet of guest trumpeters, some of them students. The four swapped bars, breaks and occasionally expressions of wonderment, like they couldn’t believe they were — to borrow a title from Marsalis’s own repertoire — in this house, on this morning.The occasion: the kickoff to Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 34th concert season — and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s first indoor New York City performance since the Covid-19 shutdowns. The season will include a tribute to Chick Corea, who died in February; a celebration of the centennial of Charles Mingus; and three concerts showcasing extraordinary women singers, Dianne Reeves, Catherine Russell and Cécile McLorin Salvant.Excitement about the reopening pulsed through the band. “To look at and see our audience, and to feel that energy, I’m going to be overwhelmed,” said Ted Nash, a saxophonist and composer. “We’ve been doing all this virtual stuff, but to create together a sound field and an energy field in person, where all the sounds meld together — this is why I do this.”From left: Carlos Henriquez, Obed Calvaire and Marsalis rehearsing earlier this week.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesMarsalis was quick to say he didn’t name this weekend’s concerts — “Wynton at 60” — which celebrate his new status as a sexagenarian with a program of his originals from four decades.Still, despite a warm, even gentle demeanor, there was no doubt he was in charge, announcing the order of soloists at rehearsal, or small tweaks to the charts. But when a soloist occasionally asked how to approach a section, he replied, “Just do what you all want.” Or, “It’s you playing it.”Freedom within a structure, of course, separates Jazz at Lincoln Center from other major performing arts institutions with a repertoire. So does Marsalis’s tradition of inviting young musicians to play on its biggest stage, the Rose Theater in the Columbus Circle complex.“It shows the generations working together,” he said. “When we started the orchestra, surviving members of Duke Ellington’s orchestra played. Marcus Belgrave played with Ray Charles. Sir Roland Hanna played with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. Jerry Dodgion and Frank Wess played with Basie. They passed on a lot of the feeling of the music and its identity and meaning to us. So, this is a continuation.”Chris Crenshaw, a trombonist, composer and arranger who has been in the orchestra since 2006, said, “We have a charge to keep. We have a responsibility. There’s so many things in all traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation orally or with music.”The responsibilities that come with serving as the artistic director and public face of a major arts organization has meant that, for Marsalis, the shutdown was never truly a shutdown. He pulled out his phone and thumbed through dozens of photos of score pages for upcoming projects (a tuba concerto, a bassoon piece).Versions of the band have toured the United States and the world, taking endless Covid-19 tests and often playing music from his politically engaged “The Democracy! Suite,” which boasts song titles like “Sloganize, Patronize, Realize, Revolutionize (Black Lives Matters).” Streaming concerts, from the vault and some fresh, have abounded and will continue — this season, any concert can be streamed for a donation of $10.The work helps distract from the losses that have mounted since March 2020, including Marsalis’s musician father, Ellis, and his friend and mentor, the critic Stanley Crouch, in addition to more musicians than any institution could fully memorialize. “I tend not to dwell,” he said. “My dad, he said ‘Everybody’s losing people. And when you focus too much on yours …’” He let that thought drift away and then recalled something the pianist John Lewis once said to him. “‘To focus too much on even something negative is a form of deep ego.’”“You got to keep moving forward, keep being productive and trying to create the world you envision,” Marsalis added.The saxophonist Walter Blanding with Marsalis as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra prepared for its return to indoor performances.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesAt 60, Marsalis, who won a Pulitzer in 1997 for “Blood on the Fields,” his oratorio about slavery, sees a world in which democracy itself is imperiled, and “the intellectual class still always wants the Black man to be a fool on all levels.” His humanism, though, buoys him. “You can subvert the Constitution and make it harder for people to vote, make it more difficult for government to work,” he said. “But there’s always voices that defend the integrity of the document, which is changeable — it’s not set in stone.”He shifted quickly back to the subject upon which he has most often stirred controversy. “Music is the same. You can be glib enough to undermine the integrity of it and be successful. But there’s always just enough voices who believe in the integrity of it.”Those young trumpeters, in his estimation, count among those voices. Jazz at Lincoln Center’s mission has always focused on jazz education and advocacy, and the guest artists at “Wynton at 60” — Summer Camargo, Giveton Gelin, Tatum Greenblatt and Anthony Hervey — demonstrate the power of that outreach.Camargo caught Marsalis’s attention when her South Florida high school placed in the institution’s annual “Essentially Ellington” contest, which invites school bands to record themselves playing free Duke Ellington charts and then brings the finalists to New York City to perform. Now a Juilliard student, Camargo said she never would have attempted composition without the impetus of the contest, where, in 2018, she won awards for composing as well as for soloing.“When people ask me what was one of the best days of your life, I always go back to that moment,” she said. “Wynton took me backstage and gave me compliments and advice. He doesn’t sugarcoat it — he tells you what you need to do to get better.”Gelin, a recent Juilliard graduate who self-released his debut album, also praised Marsalis’s generosity as a mentor — and his practical advice. Visiting New York from the Bahamas during his high school years, Gelin attended a free Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra concert in Queens and afterward worked his way through the line to meet Marsalis. The next day, Gelin played for him at his home and was surprised that so famous a figure invested such energy in urging a kid to dig deeper into developing his own voice.“I spent a lot of time in the Haitian church,” Gelin said. “One of the first things Wynton said to me was to listen closely to the singers there and how their vocal qualities reflect where they’re from.”Marsalis nodded when reminded of this encounter. “Your sound will be organic when who you are doesn’t fight with who you want to be,” he said.“To create together a sound field and an energy field in person, where all the sounds meld together — this is why I do this,” said the saxophonist Ted Nash.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesOn opening night Thursday, the four up-and-comers got their shot onstage. The orchestra’s 90-minute set surveyed some of Marsalis’s most crowd-pleasing compositions, including big-band stompers, ballads and percolating curios marked by his fondness for musical onomatopoeia, with muted horns aping the buzz of bees and the keening of train whistles.The 15-member ensemble tackled “The Holy Ghost,” from Marsalis’s “Abyssinian Mass,” and he delivered a bracing, unamplified solo on a quartet treatment of Gordon Jenkins’s “Goodbye” that he dedicated “to all the people who have lost someone and didn’t get to tell them goodbye.”But the most boisterous crowd response came soon after those young trumpeters took the stage. Camargo’s gutsy opening solo brought patrons to their feet and inspired Marsalis — her hero — to muse afterward, “She ain’t playing around at all.”The four ringers’ joyous clamor brought the house down. Marsalis called their presence “a birthday present to myself,” but their performances suggested it’s not just a gift for him. More

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      The American Academy of Arts and Letters Unveils Expanded Roster

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe American Academy of Arts and Letters Unveils Expanded RosterFor the first time in more than a century, the society is adding new spots for members, with a diverse group of cultural figures.From left, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Joy Harjo, Wynton Marsalis and Betye Saar, who are among the new members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Credit…John Lamparski/Associated PressMarch 5, 2021, 5:19 p.m. ETThe American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor society of leading architects, artists, composers and writers, announced 33 new members on Friday as part of an effort to expand and diversify.Among them are the painter Mark Bradford, the poet Joy Harjo, the artist Betye Saar and the composer Wynton Marsalis and the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates.Founded in 1898, the institution had capped membership at 250 since 1908; members are elected for life and pay no dues. In addition to adding 33 members, the academy announced it is going to grow to 300 by 2025. Its move to diversify comes as the arts reckon with issues of race, inclusion and social justice.“The board of directors is committed to creating a more inclusive membership that truly represents America and believes that expanding the Academy’s membership will allow the Academy to more readily achieve that goal,” the organization said in a statement.Early on after its establishment, the organization — which now administers more than 70 awards and prizes, totaling more than $1 million — was mainly made up of white men, like Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent and Mark Twain. Previously, new members could only be elected after the death of existing members.“That the doors of the institution have opened to a more representative membership is symbolic of a cultural shift that is long overdue,” Harjo said in an email to The New York Times.“Every culture has contributed to the restoration, remaking and revisioning of this country,” she added. “Together we are a rich, dynamic story field of every shade, tone and rhythm.”The academy is ushering in its most diverse group as institutions across the nation have reckoned with racial justice, equity and inclusion in the last year. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a $5.3 million program to distribute curated collections of books to prisons across the country last June and later pledged $250 million to help reimagine the country’s monuments and memorials to include the histories of people who have been marginalized. In January, the Library of Congress also announced a Mellon-funded initiative to expand its collection and encourage diverse outreach for future librarians and archivists.Employees at other arts organizations are also airing their issues with the gatekeepers of high arts: a coalition from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and other New York-based cultural institutions issued an open letter on social media regarding the “unfair treatment of Black/Brown people” last year, demanding “the immediate removal of ineffective, biased Administrative and Curatorial leadership,” among other requests.The academy only includes American architects, artists, writers and composers. Among the new additions, who are not in these categories, are honorary members, like Mikhail Baryshnikov, Spike Lee, Unsuk Chin and Balkrishna Doshi.All of the new members will be inducted on May 19 via a virtual award ceremony.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jazz at Lincoln Center Focuses on Music’s Role in Social Justice

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJazz at Lincoln Center Focuses on Music’s Role in Social JusticeA new season of video concerts will feature a tribute to renowned jazz vocalists and include new compositions created in collaboration with Bryan Stevenson.This season, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by Wynton Marsalis, will feature programs like “Freedom, Justice and Hope” and a concert focusing on John Coltrane.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2021With in-person concerts unlikely to return this spring, Jazz at Lincoln Center on Tuesday announced a full season of video presentations, all centered on jazz’s role in the fight for social justice.The spring programming will feature four shows, each one streaming on the center’s website for $20 a ticket. (Prices are lower for members and subscribers.) Each show will remain available for streaming over a period of days.The first concert, “Legacies of Excellence,” will premiere on Feb. 20. Featuring the vocalist Catherine Russell, it explores the contributions of jazz legends through an educational lens, and is presented as part of an initiative called Let Freedom Swing.For the remaining three shows, guests will join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by Wynton Marsalis. On March 26, the ensemble will present “Voices of Freedom,” a celebration of four eminent 20th-century jazz singers: Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone. A lineup of contemporary vocalists, including Melanie Charles and Shenel Johns, will offer renditions of these figures’ famous works.The orchestra returns on May 21 with “Freedom, Justice, and Hope,” a program featuring new compositions by two rising musicians: the bassist Endea Owens, who will debut a suite honoring the pioneering Black journalist Ida B. Wells; and the trumpeter Josh Evans, who will present a work in response to the 1919 Elaine massacre in Arkansas. The compositions were written in collaboration with the racial-justice activist Bryan Stevenson, who will participate in the concert.The season concludes with a show on June 10 devoted to the music of John Coltrane, including a big-band rendition of his landmark “A Love Supreme.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020

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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 storyThe 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020Listen to our critics’ favorites from a year in which much of the energy in music came from recordings.Credit…The New York TimesAnthony Tommasini, Zachary Woolfe, Joshua Barone, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, David Allen and Dec. 17, 2020Thomas Adès: Berceuse from ‘The Exterminating Angel’“In Seven Days”; Kirill Gerstein, piano (Myrios)The composer Thomas Adès and the pianist Kirill Gerstein’s artistically fruitful friendship has given us two essential albums this year: the premiere recording of Mr. Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, featuring Mr. Gerstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon); and this one, which includes a solo arrangement of the harrowing and slippery Berceuse from Mr. Adès’s opera “The Exterminating Angel.” JOSHUA BARONEBerceuse from “The Exterminating Angel”Myrios◆ ◆ ◆Bach: Cello Suite No. 4, GigueBach: Complete Cello Suites (Transcribed for Violin); Johnny Gandelsman, violin (In a Circle)From the beginning of this movement, ornamented with the insouciance of folk music, it’s difficult to resist tapping along with your foot. That urge doesn’t really leave throughout the rest of the six cello suites, lithely rendered here on solo violin by Johnny Gandelsman. This is Bach in zero gravity: feather-light and freely dancing. JOSHUA BARONESuite No. 4, GigueIn a Circle◆ ◆ ◆Beethoven: Symphony No. 2, Allegro moltoBeethoven: Symphonies and Overtures; Vienna State Opera Orchestra and others; Hermann Scherchen, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)The few new Beethoven symphonies released in this, his 250th birthday year, have largely offered more evidence for the drab state of interpretive tastes today. Not so the rereleases — above all this remastered and exceptionally bracing cycle that was eons ahead of its time when it first came out in the 1950s. Scherchen’s Beethoven — like this Second Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — is fast, sleek and astonishing detailed, as exciting as anything set down since. DAVID ALLENSymphony No. 2, Allegro moltoDeutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Nadia Boulanger: ‘Soir d’hiver’“Clairières: Songs by Lili and Nadia Boulanger”; Nicholas Phan, tenor; Myra Huang, piano (Avie)After Lili Boulanger, the gifted French composer, died in 1918 at just 24, her devoted older sister Nadia suffered doubts about her own composing and turned to teaching. On this lovely recording, the tenor Nicholas Phan performs elegant songs by both sisters, ending with Nadia’s misty, rapturous “Soir d’hiver,” a 1915 setting of her poem about a young mother abandoned by her lover. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Soir d’hiver”Avie◆ ◆ ◆Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1, RomanceChopin: Piano Concertos; Benjamin Grosvenor, piano; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Elim Chan, conductor (Decca)There’s pianism of historic caliber on this release, and another mark of Mr. Grosvenor’s breathtaking maturity, even though he is still in his 20s. Summoning playing of pure poetry, he lavishes on these concertos all his lauded sensitivity, innate sense of pace and effortless way with phrasing. He’s matched bar for bar by Ms. Chan, an impressive young conductor who makes an occasion of orchestral writing that in other hands sounds routine. DAVID ALLENPiano Concerto No. 1, RomanceDecca◆ ◆ ◆Duke Ellington: ‘Light’“Black, Brown and Beige”; Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (Blue Engine)If Ellington’s 1943 Carnegie Hall performance of his “Black, Brown and Beige” remains matchless, its radio broadcast sound has dated, making the crispness of this faithful recent rendition worth savoring. Sterling interpretation and production values permit a fresh look at “Light,” including the elegant way Ellington weaves together motifs heard earlier in “Black,” just before a rousing finish. SETH COLTER WALLS“Light”Blue Engine◆ ◆ ◆Eriks Esenvalds: ‘Earth Teach Me Quiet’“Rising w/ the Crossing”; the Crossing (New Focus)Earlier this year, when singing together became just about the most dangerous thing you could do, Donald Nally, the magus behind the Crossing, our finest contemporary-music choir, began posting daily recordings from their archives. He called it “Rising w/ the Crossing,” also the title of an album of a dozen highlights. There’s David Lang’s eerily prescient reflection on the 1918 flu pandemic, performed last year, and Alex Berko’s stirring “Lincoln.” But I keep returning to Eriks Esenvalds’s dreamily unfolding appeal to the Earth, its text a prayer of the Ute people of the American Southwest: a work of true radiance, fired by the precision and passion of this spectacular group. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Earth Teach Me Quiet”New Focus◆ ◆ ◆Antoine Forqueray: ‘Jupiter’“Barricades”; Thomas Dunford, lute; Jean Rondeau, harpsichord (Erato)This is Baroque music as hard-rock jam: driving, intense, dizzying, two musicians facing off in a brash battle that raises both their levels. It is the raucous climax of an album that creates a new little repertory for lute and harpsichord duo, with arrangements of favorites and relative obscurities that highlight Thomas Dunford and Jean Rondeau’s sly, exuberant artistic chemistry. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Jupiter”Warner Classics◆ ◆ ◆Ash Fure: ‘Shiver Lung’“Something to Hunt”; International Contemporary Ensemble; Lucy Dhegrae and Alice Teyssier, vocalists (Sound American)I try not to be fussy with audio quality. But if anything calls for an exception, it’s this long-awaited collection of music by Ash Fure — works that experiment with how sounds are made and felt. So before hitting play, gather your focus, along with your best headphones or speakers, for an intensely visceral listening experience. JOSHUA BARONE“Shiver Lung”Sound American◆ ◆ ◆Handel: ‘Pensieri, voi mi tormentate’“Agrippina”; Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano; Il Pomo d’Oro; Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor (Erato)A shot of venom, boring its way into the brain: There are some arias that aim to soothe anxiety, but for pure cathartic transference of all the anger, fear and impotence that 2020 has sparked, this aria — “Thoughts, you torment me” — by the title character of Handel’s “Agrippina” is the ticket. The fiercely dramatic Joyce DiDonato brings her multihued mezzo and over-the-top embellishments to the music, while the period-instrument orchestra pushes things along with raw-edged insistence. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Pensieri, voi mi tormentate”Erato◆ ◆ ◆Handel: Harpsichord Suite No. 4, AllemandeHandel: Suites for Harpsichord; Pierre Hantaï, harpsichord (Mirare)Handel’s eight suites for harpsichord, published in 1720, haven’t always gotten as much attention or respect among performers as the keyboard works of Couperin, Rameau or, especially, Bach. Sometimes they’ve been viewed more or less as training exercises: good for technique but not quite sublime. Pierre Hantaï, known for his vivid Scarlatti, dispels the slightly derogatory preconceptions with suave danciness and lucid touch. ZACHARY WOOLFEHarpsichord Suite No. 4, AllemandeMirare◆ ◆ ◆David Hertzberg: ‘Is that you, my love?’“The Wake World”; Maeve Hoglund, soprano; Samantha Hankey, mezzo-soprano; Elizabeth Braden, conductor (Tzadik)With his playfully convoluted 2017 fairy tale opera “The Wake World,” David Hertzberg demonstrated that voluptuous, sweeping elements of grand opera could be reimagined for today. In the work’s swelling, shimmering climactic duet between a young seeker and her fairy prince, Ravel meets Messiaen, and Wagner meets Scriabin; the music is spiky, original and wondrous strange. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Is that you, my love?”Tzadik◆ ◆ ◆Nathalie Joachim: ‘Dam mwen yo’“Forward Music Project 1.0”; Amanda Gookin, cello (Bright Shiny Things)Even when brief and minimalist, Nathalie Joachim’s compositions cross complex ranges of emotion. Here, in a piece for cello (and vocals recorded by its composer), the somber cast of mood at the opening is complicated by a change in gait. The effect is akin to what you might feel inventing a new dance on the spot, while trudging through otherwise grim surroundings. SETH COLTER WALLS“Dam mwen yo”Bright Shiny Things◆ ◆ ◆George Lewis: ‘As We May Feel’“Breaking News”; Studio Dan (Hat Hut)Boisterous riffs and counter-riffs seem to suggest improvisatory practices; after all, this veteran artist has explored those practices. Yet George Lewis’s 25-minute joy ride is fully notated. And it was written for an Austrian ensemble which appreciates the chug and wail of Duke Ellington’s train-imitation music, as well as the rigors of extended-technique modernism. SETH COLTER WALLS“As We May Feel”Hat Hut◆ ◆ ◆Meredith Monk: ‘Downfall’“Memory Game”; Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble; Bang on a Can All-Stars (Cantaloupe Music)For almost 60 years, the composer and performer Meredith Monk has created works mainly for herself and her close circle, so it’s been an open question what will happen to those intricate, idiosyncratic pieces when she’s gone. This album of sympathetic but not slavish new arrangements — collaborations with the Bang on a Can collective — offers tantalizing experiments. The clarinetist Ken Thomson gives the hawing vocals of “Downfall,” part of Ms. Monk’s post-apocalyptic 1983 evening “The Games,” seductively sinister instrumental surroundings. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Downfall”Cantaloupe Music◆ ◆ ◆Tristan Perich: ‘Drift Multiply,’ Section 6“Drift Multiply” (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)Music emerges out of snowdrifts of white noise on this mesmerizing track. Tristan Perich is one of the most innovative tinkerers in electronic music, creating works of vibrant mystery. In “Drift Multiply,” 50 violins interact with 50 loudspeakers connected to as many custom-built circuit boards that channel the sound into one-bit audio. The result is a constantly evolving landscape where sounds coalesce and prism, where the violins both pull into focus and blur into a soothing ether. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Drift Multiply,” Section 6New Amsterdam◆ ◆ ◆Joseph C. Phillips Jr.: ‘Ferguson: Summer of 2014’“The Grey Land”; Numinous (New Amsterdam)Joseph C. Phillips Jr.’s “The Grey Land” is a stirring, stylistically varied mono-opera that draws on its composer’s reflections on being Black in contemporary America. The longest movement on the premiere recording makes an early textual reference to Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” while dramatizing an expectant couple’s unease in the wake of the death of Michael Brown. SETH COLTER WALLS“Ferguson: Summer of 2014”New Amsterdam◆ ◆ ◆Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2, Andantino“Silver Age”; Daniil Trifonov, piano; Mariinsky Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)The thoughtful pianist Daniil Trifonov explores the music of Russia’s so-called “silver age” of the early 20th century on a fascinating album that offers various solo works and concertos by Scriabin, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. The spacious yet fiendishly difficult first movement of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto is especially exciting. ANTHONY TOMMASINIPiano Concerto No. 2, AndantinoDeutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Rameau: ‘The Arts and the Hours’“Debussy Rameau”; Vikingur Olafsson, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)Few musicians craft their albums with as much care as Vikingur Olafsson, whose “Debussy Rameau” is a brilliantly conceived, nearly 30-track conversation across centuries between two French masters. There is one modern intervention: Mr. Olafsson’s solo arrangement of an interlude from Rameau’s “Les Boréades” — tender and reverential, a wellspring of grace. JOSHUA BARONE“The Arts and the Hours”Deutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Jean-Féry Rebel: ‘Le Chaos’“Labyrinth”; David Greilsammer, piano (Naïve)In his riveting, aptly titled album “Labyrinth,” the formidable pianist David Greilsammer daringly juxtaposes pieces spanning centuries, from Lully to Ofer Pelz. The theme of the album is captured in Jonathan Keren’s arrangement of Rebel’s “Le Chaos,” which comes across like an early-18th-century venture into mind-spinning modernism. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Le Chaos”Naïve◆ ◆ ◆Rebecca Saunders: ‘Still’“Musica Viva, Vol. 35”; Carolin Widmann, violin; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Ilan Volkov, conductor (BR-Klassik)A renowned figure on Europe’s experimental music scene, Rebecca Saunders builds teeming systems of shimmying severity from the sparest melodic materials. In this live recording of her violin concerto, Carolin Widmann excels in fulfilling the score’s contrasting requirements of delicacy and power. Helping judge the balance is the conductor Ilan Volkov, an artist American orchestras might consider working with. SETH COLTER WALLS“Still”BR-Klassik◆ ◆ ◆Schubert: ‘Des Fischers Liebesglück’“Where Only Stars Can Hear Us: Schubert Songs”; Karim Sulayman, tenor; Yi-heng Yang, fortepiano (Avie)Intimate, sweet-toned and more easily given to dry humor than its powerful keyboard successors, the fortepiano should be a natural choice for Schubert lieder. Yet recordings such as this exquisitely personal recital — with the clear-voiced tenor Karim Sulayman and the sensitive pianist Yi-heng Yang — are still rare. Listen to them weave a storyteller’s spell in this song about a nighttime tryst in a fishing boat, and marvel at the emotional arc they weave with the simplest of gestures. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Des Fischers Liebesglück”Avie◆ ◆ ◆Ethel Smyth: ‘The Prisoner Awakes’“The Prison”; Experiential Orchestra and Chorus; James Blachly, conductor (Chandos)Ethel Smyth, suffragist and composer, is among several female composers receiving fresh, deserved attention as the classical music industry tackles its diversity problem. If they all receive recordings as perfect as this account of her last major work, we will all benefit. Half symphony, half oratorio, “The Prison” includes this striking chorale prelude, with dark and light in the same bars, at its heart. DAVID ALLEN“The Prisoner Awakes”Chandos◆ ◆ ◆Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ‘Mikros’“Epicycle II”; Gyda Valtysdottir (Sono Luminus)A subterranean hall of mirrors lures in the listener in this deeply affecting three-minute track. Gyda Valtysdottir’s cello takes on the guise of a modern-day Orpheus and the spectral sounds of the underworld as she layers her performance on top of two prerecorded tracks. As this protagonist cello line sighs, heaves and slackens, the taped parts add fragmented scratch tones, whispers and tremors, evoking terrain both alluring and treacherous. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Mikros”Sono Luminus◆ ◆ ◆Joseph Wölfl: Piano Sonata in E, Allegro“The Beethoven Connection”; Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano (Chandos)No finer recording has emerged from the Beethoven celebration than this, and it has not a single work by Beethoven on it. Mr. Bavouzet’s inquisitive look at the musicians who were composing at the same time as their colleague and competitor features Muzio Clementi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Jan Ladislav Dussek — but it’s the forgotten Joseph Wölfl, who once battled Beethoven in a duel of keyboard skills, who comes out best, in this immaculate, charming sonata. DAVID ALLENPiano Sonata in E, AllegroChandos◆ ◆ ◆[embedded content]AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More