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    Jonathan Tunick Unveils a Grand Orchestration of Sondheim’s ‘A Little Night Music’

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    Jonathan Tunick, Stephen Sondheim’s longtime collaborator, unveiled a grand orchestration of “A Little Night Music” that deserves more than a concert.Near the end of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “A Little Night Music,” the orchestra swells to what he is said to have called his Max Steiner moment, something out of “Casablanca” or “Gone With the Wind.”Désirée and Fredrik, former lovers who reconnect but nearly miss out on happiness again, come together and kiss. The instruments respond with a grand, emotive reprise of the show’s 11 o’clock number, “Send in the Clowns.”At a concert performance of “A Little Night Music” at David Geffen Hall on Thursday, the premiere of a new orchestration by Sondheim’s longtime collaborator Jonathan Tunick, the 53-piece Orchestra of St. Luke’s let out a fortissimo tutti. Strings and winds soared with the melody, but there was more: resonant, staggered chords to support it in the low voices, and florid counterpoint. It was a moment fit not only for the movies but for the opera house, which, perhaps, is where this new orchestration belongs.Not all musicals are fit for stages beyond Broadway, but some are. And there has been a resurgence, since Sondheim’s death in 2021, of large-scale revivals of his work. (This, after years of skillfully stripped-down productions by John Doyle.) “Sweeney Todd” returned to Broadway with Tunick’s original orchestration for nearly 30 players, crackling with detail and musical drama. Last week, “Follies” was presented at Carnegie Hall with a similarly sized ensemble and a starry cast in concert.The version of “A Little Night Music” on Thursday had nearly double those forces. If anyone can be trusted with that task, it’s Tunick. He and Sondheim first collaborated on “Company,” in 1970, and Tunick orchestrated the composer’s final, unfinished show, “Here We Are,” last year.Tunick, center, was Sondheim’s longtime collaborator, starting with the 1970 musical “Company.”Joan MarcusWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The North to Shore Festival Comes to New Jersey

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      A new arts festival featuring local and marquee-name talent is coming to the Garden State.Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, along with the first lady, Tammy Murphy, had a vision: A new performance festival in their home state that could rival South by Southwest in Texas or Bonnaroo in Tennessee. And they had a plan to distinguish it.“Austin and Nashville are great towns,” the governor said, referring to two famous arts hubs that are connected to notable festivals. “But if you stop to consider the cultural priorities of the states that govern them, you say, ‘Wait a minute.’ You’re hoodwinked if you get taken by the coolness.”A festival in New Jersey, they argued, would be produced in a state whose values align with issues like gun safety and reproductive rights, a bragging right difficult to come by in the south. But what organizers are really touting with the event, which is being produced for the first time this summer, is the mix of homegrown talent and national acts (Halsey, Santana, Jazmine Sullivan) performing across three different cities, from the state’s largest city to the coast.The North to Shore Festival will roam from Atlantic City to Asbury Park to Newark throughout the month. Its inaugural run will feature more than 220 acts — including music, comedy, dance and film — in 115 venues. “When you combine all the talent we have in New Jersey with the fact that our values are on the right side of history, we thought, there’s no reason we couldn’t give this a shot,” Mr. Murphy said.In May, the festival doubled in size, in part because of a commitment to local talent. Grants of up to $5,000 were handed out to 58 New Jersey-based artists.“What I love about it is that it’s a combination of the biggest names in entertainment and comedy and film,” said John Schreiber, president and chief executive of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, which is producing the festival, “but it’s also a chance to turn up the volume on the local folks I call the local heroes — the artists, the creators, the presenters, the producers — who work in these cities 365 days a year.”One example of this kind of artistic convergence is “You Got VERRRSED: NJ Poets vs. New York Poets,” which will take place in Newark on June 24, the day after Marisa Monte, a Grammy Award winner, performs there.In each host city, venues stretch beyond the familiar. Newark, for example, will host “Jersey Club 101,” a combination dance lesson and party, at Ariya Plaza Hall, a local dance club known for hosting private events and the occasional concert, on June 24.On June 9 in Atlantic City, a brewery, The Seed: A Living Beer Project, will host a multidisciplinary event, “From Earth to Cup,” with live music, pottery making and samples of its craft beers. The following afternoon at Sovereign Avenue Field, a popular skatepark, local hardcore and punk bands will play free shows in the “Back Sov Bullies Concert.”While Asbury Park’s famous rock club, the Stone Pony, will see its share of action — with Eric B. & Rakim, Brian Fallon, Demi Lovato and the B-52’s all scheduled to perform — stages at the lesser-known Watermark, down the street, will also be in heavy rotation and can expect to see more traffic than usual.Alexander Simone and his seven-piece band, the Whodat? Live Crew, will play there on June 14. Mr. Simone, 34, who is from the area and the grandson of Nina Simone, won a grant to take part in North to Shore with the band, which leans toward funk and R&B, after being nominated by local fans. The recognition confirmed something he already knew: “I am definitely one of the most known bands in this community,” he said.Now he hopes that other parts of the country will pay more attention to his music. “Artists are coming this way, to Jersey, and bringing people with them the way South by Southwest brings people to Texas,” he said. “They’re coming to see what we have to offer on this end.”Billboards along the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike are promoting the festival. Mr. Schreiber said he expects more than 350,000 people to attend. The overall windfall for New Jersey’s economy, he added, could be $100 million. “We’re betting the economic impact in all three of these communities will far outweigh any of the investment we have to make,” Mr. Murphy said.Amanda Towers, a founder of the Seed, a Living Beer Project, which will host a multidisciplinary event with music, pottery and beer in Atlantic City.Jennifer Pottheiser for The New York TimesNatalie Merchant, accompanied by New York City’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s, will perform in Newark on June 25. “I think it’s really ambitious and impressive,” she said of the idea behind the festival.But her decision to participate did not have much to do with performing in a liberal-leaning state, Ms. Merchant said. “I tend to not penalize my fans in states with political conditions like abortion restrictions.” Instead, “I talk about them onstage.”The North to Shore Festival will take place June 4-11 in Atlantic City, June 14-18 in Asbury Park and June 21-25 in Newark. More

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      Review: An Orchestra Falters in Schubert’s ‘Great’ Symphony

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      Bernard Labadie and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s returned to Carnegie Hall in a program that also included a Mozart piano concerto with Emanuel Ax.Despite Schubert’s best efforts, his “Great” Symphony never received a performance in his lifetime. Initially considered overlong and unplayable, it took Mendelssohn, who gave its premiere, and Schumann, who wrote passionately of its glories, to bring it to light more than a decade after Schubert’s death. Now it’s a repertory staple.The Orchestra of St. Luke’s and its principal conductor, Bernard Labadie, closed their first concert of the season together with the symphony at Carnegie Hall on Thursday — pulling off the hourlong work only intermittently. A sense of occasion flickered in and out.Schumann praised the symphony’s “heavenly length,” and its extended stretches of repeated material do give it an expansive air — not unlike the landscape of Gastein, Austria, where it was written. At Carnegie, Labadie and his forces made emphatic use of recapitulations and musical echoes, giving them a swell of renewed vigor or, when called for, a more diaphanous quality.Woodwind chorales, led by penetrating oboes whose silky tone occasionally turned rough-hewn, were handsome, and the brasses played with a captivatingly neat style — clear and stringlike, but also rousing when required. The cello section took its higher-lying solo in the second movement with breadth and transparency. Elsewhere, the strings anchored a bristling Scherzo, driving the music with buzzing figures and arpeggiated leaps, but thinned out toward the end of the symphony.Problems with communication and balance emerged among the sections. When the strings and woodwinds handed off phrases to one another, they seemed to be telling different stories instead of completing sentences. The strings often covered the beautiful divisi writing for winds or trombones. The beloved Trio lacked the sense of swirling, airborne, circular momentum — perhaps because of Labadie’s heavy downbeat — that makes the return to the opening bars of the third movement such a whirring delight.Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18 in B flat, with Emanuel Ax as the soloist, opened the program. It’s obvious in retrospect that Labadie had calibrated his orchestra to the dimensions of the Schubert. The fullness of the players’ tone, the strength of their attack, the opacity of the texture — all of it weighed down the simple joviality of the Mozart.These two pieces share a similarly extroverted, convivial spirit offset by moments of startling intimacy. In the Mozart, that intimacy takes the form of a theme and variations in a minor key during the Andante. It almost feels like a concert aria of lightly expressed melancholy that needs time to unlace itself; Labadie instead kicked up high-key drama. When Ax rendered Mozart’s quick, broken octaves as a lovely murmur, the orchestra ignored him and plowed ahead. In the final movement, soloist and orchestra occasionally lost each other.Ax, who recorded the concerto in the 1980s, had the notes at his fingertips. He played broadly, confidently, showing the architecture of whole passages and thumping out Mozart’s grace notes with cheeky brazenness, even if individual phrases wanted for detail. Ax skimmed over scales, and there wasn’t much beauty to relish in his straightforward treatment of melodies that had the potential to sing.His encore, Liszt’s arrangement of the Schubert song “Ständchen,” was the opposite: a whisper of something private under the moonlight. He voiced the melody elegantly and applied suppleness to the chordal accompaniment.The Orchestra of St. Luke’s likewise found inspiration in its own final moments onstage. As the fourth movement of Schubert’s symphony came to an intense finish, its themes breaking through the prevailing texture, the players dug deep for a rooted sound that felt alert to the score’s momentousness — and to the music they were making together.Orchestra of St. Luke’sPerformed on Thursday at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. More

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      Review: ‘Carmen’ Returns to Its Comic Opera Roots

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      MasterVoices sheds the typical grand-opera treatment of Bizet’s classic to reveal a sleeker, funnier show.Do we truly know Bizet’s “Carmen”?To be fair, the opera could single-handedly fill out a playlist of classical music’s greatest hits, with its Overture, Habanera and “Toreador Song,” among other gems. It has played at the Metropolitan Opera over a thousand times since it debuted there in 1884.But that grand-opera version, with its recitative — and some ballet music adapted from the Bizet catalog — was finalized after the composer’s death. When the work premiered at the Opéra Comique in Paris, in 1875, audiences instead heard spoken dialogue in between the score’s rip-roaring numbers.When you remove the subsequent meddling, and dial things back to Bizet’s original idea for “Carmen,” you get a sleeker, funnier show: one in which the tawdry violence and blithe indifference to pat morality comes off with a devil-may-care kick.Most companies stick to the grand-opera confection. Yet MasterVoices — New York’s scrappy, pop-up music drama specialists — brought the original idea to town on Tuesday for a one-night-only performance at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center. (It was sung and spoken in English, using a fluid, ingenious translation by Sheldon Harnick, the Broadway veteran and lyricist of “Fiddler on the Roof.”)As sung by the mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson, this Carmen was suitably entrancing, but also a savvy operator. Her mix of laser-sharp intonation and a dark timbre has been heard in smaller roles at the Met, where she is a member of the young artist program, but the intimacy of the Rose Theater allowed her greater freedom for subtle dramatic effects.When rebuffing ceaseless male attention in Act I, Costa-Jackson used cabaret theatrics, including flicks of the finger and generous servings of side eye, to emphasize how much of Carmen’s story — even her vaunted independence — amounts to a show observed by the citizenry of Seville.There were slight signs of pushing too hard during the Habanera, but Costa-Jackson’s aggressive, overall take on the role was a success, especially by the third act: As Carmen came face to face with a grim recognition of her unalterable fate, she had full command of a glowering power, easily slicing through some of Bizet’s most dramatic scoring.Just as strong was the soprano Mikaela Bennett as Micaëla. Her top notes sparked as clearly on Tuesday as they did in Michael Gordon’s doom-metal chamber opera “Acquanetta” in 2018. John Brancy’s suavely warm baritone made for a dashing Escamillo. And although the tenor Terrence Chin-Loy’s honeyed sound as Don José could overindulge in the character’s naïveté, he produced a climactic characterization of authentic, thrilling malevolence.Ted Sperling, MasterVoices’ artistic director, conducted an Orchestra of St. Luke’s performance of polished, singing ease. During the first act’s expositional recounting of Carmen’s knife fight, Sperling rushed the tempo a bit, making it difficult for the skilled singers of the MasterVoices chorus to be heard as cleanly as elsewhere. Yet his reading was in service of an evening that strutted.MasterVoices tends to underpromise then overdeliver, and Tuesday’s performance was carefully not billed as a staging. But with this cast — and some choreography by Gustavo Zajac — it was much more than a mere concert.Previously, I have admired the way Sperling and his players can figure out a problem piece like Kurt Weill’s “Lady in the Dark” or the largely forgotten “Let ’Em Eat Cake,” by the Gershwins. Their only real problem is budgetary. Short runs or one-night performances are great for audiences in the know. But imagine a stable home, and enduring engagements, for these musicians. They could go from being a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it novelty to something that New York desperately lacks: a standing, smashing comic opera company.CarmenPerformed on Tuesday at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Manhattan. More

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      Review: A ‘St. Matthew Passion’ Balances Grandeur and Calm

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      Bernard Labadie led the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and three choirs, in Bach’s sprawling, meditative masterpiece.Of Bach’s two surviving Passions, “St. John” is the more fiery, dramatic and troubling. “St. Matthew” is something like its wise and contemplative sibling.And that’s how the “St. Matthew Passion” came across on Thursday at Carnegie Hall, with Bernard Labadie leading the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, along with three choirs and a half-dozen soloists. That is the battery of musical forces required for Bach’s Lenten masterpiece, which over nearly three hours recounts the death and resurrection of Jesus, with reflective asides in the form of chorales, recitatives and da capo arias.Bach’s score begins as if its volume were being carefully turned up. Here, it was more like a radio dial finding a station, with the orchestra unsteady before settling into flowing momentum. Under Labadie’s baton, the music was unwaveringly measured but balanced; its flashes of grandeur didn’t need to be overstated to land powerfully. From the start: The opening calmly built toward what the conductor John Eliot Gardiner has called an aural analogue to an “altarpiece by Veronese or Tintoretto” — immersive, its elements gaining sweep from their interplay.The Orchestra of St. Luke’s played with qualities of historically informed performance but not a wholesale devotion to it in the strings’ lightly gliding bows, judicious ornamentation and the use of largely modern instruments. Split into two groups, it also had two concertmasters: Krista Bennion Feeney, a violinist with a gift for elegant phrasing, and Benjamin Bowman (who has the same role with the Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra), impressively agile and clear. Stephen Taylor’s humane oboe took on the character of a vocal soloist, and Mélisande Corriveau’s viola da gamba had crisp, authoritative articulation befitting her prominent placement at center stage.But the performance’s stars may have been the choirs: La Chapelle de Québec and the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, and the boys of the St. Thomas Choir aloft in the first ring of boxes, all virtually without fault in trickily woven polyphony and memorable even in passing moments like the jolting vigor of “Sind Blitze, sind Donner.”Julian Prégardien, center, as the Evangelist, a role he sang with a raconteur’s conviction and excitement.Richard TermineAs the Evangelist, the tenor Julian Prégardien (inheriting a role from his father, Christoph) recounted Matthew’s story with conviction and excitement; tellingly, he was the only soloist not singing with a score in hand. Expressive, with a soft and sympathetic upper range, he was also at times less steady and assured at full voice — unable to match the quaking turmoil of “Und siehe da” following Jesus’s death.Jesus was sung by the bass-baritone Philippe Sly with stoic fatalism, his smooth warmth rending for its tragic dignity in lines like “Du sagest’s,” then shattering in its resigned agony at his final words, “Eli, Eli, lama asabthani?”Joshua Blue, a tenor stepping in for the ill Andrew Staples, had a consistent brightness — much like his fellow soloist, the soprano Carolyn Sampson, who after warming up bounded through runs with skillful control and enunciation. The young countertenor Hugh Cutting was on less sure footing in similar passages, in which his intonation was unreliable compared with smoother legato melodies. Those were where he shined and showed the most promise: Cutting possesses penetrating strength and a lushness that doesn’t come easily to his voice type. His instrument might not be fully formed, but his “Erbarme dich” was.Another standout was Matthew Brook, who during Part I was chameleonic in arias attached to Judas and Peter but in Part II took a solemn turn: first in “Komm, suß Kreuz,” then in “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein,” which he sang soothingly, with the rocking phrases of a lullaby.That aria was all the more moving for how unforced its sentiment was. The “St. Matthew Passion” is more meditation than melodrama, and this reading carried that belief to the final measure — its dissonance barely held, the slightest tension resolving with the grace of the restfulness it’s meant to reflect.Orchestra of St. Luke’sPerformed at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. More

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      Two New York Orchestras Return With Acts of Renewal

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      Classical music’s live performance comeback continued with concerts by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.How should classical music ensembles return to live performance after 18 months of pandemic closures and a nationwide reckoning with racial injustice?It’s a question that has loomed as programmers decide whether to open their seasons with statements of purpose. Recently, two major New York groups — the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra — returned with what appeared to be mostly standard fare that could come across as timid missed opportunities, yet offered exceptionally fine and committed music-making that felt like acts of renewal.At Carnegie Hall last Thursday, Bernard Labadie, the music director of St. Luke’s since 2018, warmly greeted the audience and explained that when he and the players started planning their program, “one word jumped out: joy.” This concert was all about having some fun, he added, and Handel’s “Water Music” is “the happiest music I know.”He led the orchestra in a lively, stylish account of the complete “Water Music,” 22 pieces lasting some 50 minutes. Handel wrote this score to provide entertainment for King George I and his entourage during a river trip in 1717 from Whitehall Palace in London to the borough of Chelsea. “Water Music” is best known for the various suites drawn from it — which, for me, more effectively show off the allures of the music and the rich intricacies Handel subtly folded into each piece. But, judging by their enthusiastic ovation, the audience seemed happy to go along for the entirety of Handel’s musical river ride.This Baroque program began with a vigorous account of the Prelude from Charpentier’s “Te Deum,” music that deftly mixes martial-like rigor and sparkling ebullience. Next came a Bach novelty, a “weird creature of my imagination,” as Labadie described it, titled “An imaginary Concerto for Violin.” During his busy years in Leipzig, Germany, Bach often recycled existing movements from instrumental pieces into large sacred scores, Labadie explained. So, with respect and plucky daring, Labadie fashioned a concerto from three Bach movements that feature a solo violin: two sinfonias sandwiching an adagio from the “Easter Oratorio.” The result was a sort-of concerto, with an industrious first movement, a mournful slow one and a fleet finale, made to order for the splendid violinist Benjamin Bowman, who played beautifully.The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra began its season with works by Mozart and Boulogne at the 92nd Street Y on Tuesday.Joe SinnottAt the 92nd Street Y on Tuesday, two Mozart staples dominated the program by Orpheus, which in 2022 celebrates its 50th anniversary as a proudly conductor-less ensemble. (The evening was also the start of the venue’s classical music season.) Opening the concert was a short work by the 18th-century composer and violinist Joseph Boulogne, whose life and musical achievements have been gaining renewed attention. The ensemble gave a vibrant account of the beguiling, three-movement Overture to “L’Amant Anonyme,” Boulogne’s only surviving opera.Then the distinguished pianist Richard Goode, who has collaborated with Orpheus since the mid-1970s, including recordings of Mozart concertos, appeared as the soloist in the Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, a majestic and virtuosic score. Goode was at his best, in a sensitive, crisply clear and supremely musical performance. The orchestra ended with an exciting account of Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony. With just 25 players in the Y’s intimate hall, the music came across grandly, but also with revealing detail.I wish someone from Orpheus had spoken, as Labadie had for St. Luke’s, about the ensemble’s reasons for choosing the works it had for this significant return. There were not even program notes available. Some artists prefer to let music speak for itself. But maybe this is a time when classical musicians need to speak directly about what they are playing, and why. More

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      Review: At Caramoor, a Concert Signals Return and Remembrance

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      The performance, by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, felt like normal again, while the music looked back on a year of upheaval.KATONAH, N.Y. — Before a concert by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s on a steamy Sunday afternoon here at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, a jubilant James Roe, the ensemble’s executive director, told the audience that these musicians had not presented a live, in-person performance in 472 days.This return meant more than a mere visit from a Caramoor fixture. In recent months I’ve attended orchestral concerts around New York City. But these events played to very limited, mask-wearing audiences. At Caramoor the capacity wasn’t restricted to a mere 150 or so people. Hardly any of the 400 people in attendance wore masks (only the unvaccinated were asked to do so).It felt like a real return to normal for classical music.With its bucolic grounds and open-air Venetian Theater, where most programs are being presented, Caramoor is an ideal venue for summer concerts, especially during this still-challenging time. And it has planned an adventurous summer season, running through Aug. 8. This Orchestra of St. Luke’s program was conducted by Tito Muñoz, the Queens-born music director of the Phoenix Symphony, and offered works that spoke to the larger social issues of the past year.The afternoon began with the premiere of Valerie Coleman’s “Fanfare for Uncommon Times.” The idea for the piece, as Coleman explained recently in a video interview on the Caramoor site, came from Roe, who invited her to write a piece that grappled not just with the pandemic, but the tumultuous “political landscape,” as she put it.Yet, hanging over every American composer who writes a fanfare, Coleman said, is Aaron Copland’s iconic 1942 “Fanfare for the Common Man.” In an inspired idea, this 75-minute program, after opening with Coleman’s fanfare, ended with Copland’s, and included, in the middle, Joan Tower’s plucky “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” (1987). In a nod to Copland and Tower, Coleman also scored her piece for brass and percussion.Yet, while writing something that offered affirmation to people emerging from unimaginably “uncommon times,” Coleman said, as a Black woman she wanted to “bring the Black experience in,” the “turmoil, the upheaval,” the complexity of recent conversations about race in America.These threads — and the emotions entwined with them — come through vividly in Coleman’s six-minute piece. It begins not with a typical fanfare salute, but a quizzical, searching line for solo trombone that soon is cushioned by pungent, soft-spoken brass chords. Unrest amid determination stirs as the music shifts into agitated episodes for percussion. The mood seems at once reflective and restless, uplifting and ominous. The elements of the Black experience during a challenging time that Coleman described come through during a passage alive with riffs for mallet percussion instruments, hints of dance and bursts of anxious frenzy. By the end, with spurts of four-note brass motifs, echoes of Coplandesque affirmation arise, but also a breathless flurry that feels bracing yet challenging.The program included a premiere by Valerie Coleman that was put in conversation with Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” and Aaron Copland’s famous “Fanfare for the Common Man.”James Estrin/The New York TimesIt made for a surprisingly good contrast to follow the Coleman with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending,” a “romance,” as the composer described it, for violin and orchestra, with the superb Tai Murray as soloist. This glowing, pastoral, somewhat bittersweet piece is enormously popular, but it doesn’t turn up as often as it should in concerts. Murray’s playing abounded in radiant sound, arching lyricism and delicacy. During moments when the violin writing turns intricate with evocations of fluttering birds, she dispatched the passagework with effortless grace.Tower’s short, feisty “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” dedicated to the pioneering female conductor Marin Alsop, the outgoing director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is the first in a series of six such fanfares she has written. This short but packed, muscular piece is like a respectful retort to Copland.Muñoz then led an elegant account of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” Suite, capturing the melancholy of the music while letting the players cut loose in dancing, near-frantic episodes. And Copland’s fanfare on this day proved the fitting conclusion: a way to usher in a moment that signals a return in more ways than one.CaramoorThe festival continues through Aug. 8 in Katonah, N.Y.; caramoor.org. 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