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      Review: Sphinx Virtuosi Bring an Intriguing Vision to Carnegie Hall

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      An ensemble of 18 string players who are Black and Latino set a reflective and spirited tone on Friday, with solos by the charismatic bass-baritone Davóne Tines.“Tracing Visions” was the intriguing title of the program Sphinx Virtuosi, an ensemble of 18 top-notch string players who are Black and Latino, presented at Carnegie Hall on Friday. As Afa S. Dworkin, the president of Sphinx, explained in comments to the audience, that phrase spoke both to the organization’s mission and the music played so impressively on this night.You have to have a vision, to conceive one carefully, before you can write it out and realize it, Dworkin suggested. Sphinx began in 1997 as a “social justice organization dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts,” an ambitious mission statement more essential at this moment than ever. Based in Detroit but with nationwide reach to some 100,000 students and artists, Sphinx puts string instruments in the hands of children and provides them training; sponsors a national competition that awards stipends, scholarships and performance opportunities; and has a development project for emerging artists, among other initiatives.Sphinx Virtuosi, which is in the midst of a national tour, is the most prestigious outlet of the organization; and the splendid performances showed why. A beguiling account of the opening work, Xavier Foley’s “Ev’ry Voice,” set a reflective tone. The music is like an episodic rumination on “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the “Black national anthem.” At first, segments of the melody are played in tentative, harmonically rich strands. Then, while violins ascend to high, softly tender lines, in lower registers other strings begin stirring, as if to get this piece up and running. There are passages of bustling riffs, hard-edge chords, a burst of swing and, finally, a fanfare. This led to Florence Price’s wistfully lyrical Andante cantabile movement from her 1935 String Quartet No. 2, which came across with glowing richness in this version for string ensemble.Various players took turns introducing works. One member explained that the Brazilian violinist and composer Ricardo Herz had adapted “Mourinho,” a bracing dance song in the Brazilian forró style, especially for Sphinx. Since the original was alive with percussion, the string players here slap and tap their instruments to evoke the rhythms that capture the festive vibe of the music, as indeed they did in this arresting performance.The cellist Thomas Mesa performed a searching, intense and elegiac tribute to essential workers.Jennifer TaylorThe Cuban American cellist Thomas Mesa spoke at some length before playing Andrea Casarrubios’s “Seven” for solo cello, a searching, intense and elegiac tribute to essential workers during the pandemic. The title alludes to the communal ritual of applauding, shouting and banging pots and pans every night at 7 p.m. for those heroes. Mesa played it magnificently.Jessie Montgomery’s “Banner,” which received its New York premiere by Sphinx Virtuosi at Carnegie in 2014, has become almost her signature piece. The music takes “The Star-Spangled Banner” and explores, fractures, transforms and comments upon the tune and its complex associations. Scored for a solo string quartet both with and against a background string ensemble, the piece received a vibrant, assured performance here.The charismatic bass-baritone Davóne Tines was the soloist in the two next pieces: The British composer Gerald Finzi’s “Come away, come away, death,” a sternly beautiful musical setting of a Shakespeare poem (from the song cycle “Let Us Garlands Bring”); and Carlos Simon’s “Angels in Heaven,” an arrangement of a spiritual sung during baptisms (“I know I’ve been changed”). Tines invited the audience to join in the final refrains of the church song. Many members of this audience clearly knew it well, judging from the vigor of the response.The program ended with the breathless, wild and wailing “Finale furioso” from Alberto Ginastera’s Concerto for Strings. The prolonged ovation that followed was no surprise. More

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      10 Classical Concerts to Stream in May

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      A fast-rising young conductor, a 90th birthday celebration and a starry trio are among the highlights.With in-person performances not yet quite widespread, here are 10 highlights from the flood of online music content coming in May. (Times listed are Eastern.)Diderot String QuartetMay 2 at 4 p.m.; mb1800.org; available through July 15.The invaluable New York concert series Music Before 1800 is back with a series of streams, including this period-instrument group’s program of music written for the court of Catherine the Great. One of the pieces may well be familiar: Haydn’s Quartet in E flat, “the Joke.” The other will be a rarity, by Anton Ferdinand Titz. (The harpsichordist Aya Hamada’s recital follows on May 23.) ZACHARY WOOLFEKarl LarsonMay 6 at 8 p.m.; roulette.org; available indefinitely.Roulette, in Brooklyn, one of the best places to hear music in New York, is allowing limited audiences into its space for performances this spring. But those shows will still be livestreamed, too. No matter how you attend, any gig featuring Karl Larson, known as the pianist of the trio Bearthoven, is worth it. Here, he celebrates “Dark Days,” his new solo recording of music by Scott Wollschleger. Wollschleger’s generally soft dynamics may lull you into thinking he’s primarily meditative, but part of the fun involves staying alert for the alterations of attack and twists of mood that Larson highlights. SETH COLTER WALLSPhiladelphia OrchestraMay 6 at 8 p.m.; philorch.org; available through May 13.This program, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and featuring the bass-baritone Davóne Tines, opens with a triptych. First is the propulsive “Shake the Heavens,” from John Adams’s “El Niño,” followed by “Vigil,” a subdued and affecting song in memory of Breonna Taylor, by Igee Dieudonné and Tines. (You can stream that now, from Lincoln Center at Home.) Then Tines gives a preview of Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which he will star in at Michigan Opera Theater next year. The second half of the concert features Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G minor, which fans of “Amadeus” will recognize immediately. JOSHUA BARONESusanna Malkki will conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in a streamed concert starting May 22.Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times92nd Street YMay 11 at 7:30 p.m.; 92y.org; available through May 18.Schubert’s “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen” (“The Shepherd on the Rock”), thought to be the last of his 600 songs, is an extraordinary piece for soprano, clarinet and piano. Susanna Phillips, a frequent presence at the Metropolitan Opera, will sing it in a recital livestreamed by the 92nd Street Y, joined by the clarinetist Anthony McGill and the pianist Myra Huang. The program also includes a premiere by James Lee III — a setting of a poem by Lou Ella Hickman written for this trio combination — a work by William Grant Still and Schubert’s popular “Arpeggione” Sonata, here adapted for clarinet and piano. ANTHONY TOMMASINIAlvin Lucier at 90May 13 at 8 p.m. through May 14 at midnight; issueprojectroom.org; available indefinitely.For the 90th birthday of this experimental-music icon, over seven dozen colleagues will join him for 28 hours of performances of “I Am Sitting in a Room,” his signature work, from 1969. The piece consists of a few sentences that are recorded as they’re spoken; the recording is then played and rerecorded, and the process continues as the clashing frequencies of the different recordings begin to dominate and the words become unintelligible. After a year of isolation, what could be a more poignant artistic celebration? ZACHARY WOOLFEConcertgebouw OrchestraMay 14 at 2 p.m.; concertgebouworkest.nl; available through May 21.The coronavirus pandemic has upended the orchestral world, including separating ensembles from their music directors, sometimes by thousands of miles. This has provided an opportunity for conductors closer to home to fill in, sometimes even multiple times. It’s a slightly different situation with this superb Amsterdam orchestra, which has been searching for a new podium leader for the past few years — but the opportunity is still there. After making his debut in September, Klaus Makela, a 25-year-old Finn recently appointed music director of the Orchestre de Paris, returned to the Concertgebouw in December and will now be back yet again, an almost unthinkable frequency in normal times. His program includes Messiaen’s “Les Offrandes Oubliées” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, with its grandly brooding opening. ZACHARY WOOLFEA concert by the cellist Seth Parker Woods, second from right, will stream starting May 25.James Holt/Seattle SymphonyJoshua Bell, Steven Isserlis and Evgeny KissinMay 21 at 8 p.m.; washingtonperformingarts.org; available through May 27.When three star performers come together, it is often the occasion for canonical standards. This violin-cello-piano recital, though, goes a more idiosyncratic route, attempting to evoke Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the world wars. Works by Solomon Rosowsky and Ernest Bloch conjure that scene, as will Kissin’s recitation of Yiddish poetry. Then the cataclysm of the Holocaust will be represented by Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, written in 1944. ZACHARY WOOLFE‘Albert Herring’May 22 at 1 a.m.; mnopera.org; available through June 5.Britten’s chamber opera “Albert Herring” is like a wistfully comic alternative to his “Peter Grimes”; it’s the story of an awkward, shy, innocent boy who doesn’t fit in with the expectations of the people in his small market town in England, but goes on to be improbably crowned the town’s May King. This Minnesota Opera production, directed by Doug Scholz-Carlson, features the tenor David Portillo as Albert, with the insightful conductor Jane Glover leading Britten’s subtly complex, whimsical score. ANTHONY TOMMASINIBerlin PhilharmonicMay 22 at 1 p.m.; digitalconcerthall.com; available indefinitely.What will come of the premieres that were canceled during the pandemic? Thankfully, two by the composer Kaija Saariaho are happening sooner rather than later. The Aix Festival in France is planning to present her new opera “Innocence” in July, conducted by Susanna Malkki. And the Berlin Philharmonic is livestreaming the belated premiere of Saariaho’s 25-minute “Vista” — also led by Malkki, to whom the piece is dedicated. Filling out the program is “Bluebeard’s Castle,” the chilling Bartok one-act, of which Malkki recently released a wonderfully textured recording with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. JOSHUA BARONESeth Parker WoodsMay 25 at 7 p.m.; kaufmanmusiccenter.org; available through June 1.This cellist burst onto the scene with a 2016 recording that featured his stellar acoustic playing, often in works that also incorporated electronics. He’ll play one of those pieces — Pierre Alexandre Tremblay’s “asinglewordisnotenough3 (invariant)” — in this virtual concert for the Ecstatic Music series. The rest of the program, including a composition by Nathalie Joachim, emerges from Woods’s solo show, “Difficult Grace,” inspired in part by the Great Migration. SETH COLTER WALLS More

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      A Malcolm X Opera Will Get a Rare Revival in Detroit

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      Michigan Opera Theater announced the return of indoor performances and named an associate artistic director: the star soprano Christine Goerke.When Anthony Davis’s sprawling, genre-blending biographical opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” premiered in 1986 at New York City Opera, it drew a notably diverse audience and was considered a commercial success. Yet it has rarely been revived.A new production is coming, though, as part of Michigan Opera Theater’s 2021-22 season — the first under its new artistic director, Yuval Sharon. Opening in May 2022, “X” will be directed by Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”) and star the bass-baritone Davóne Tines, who will also be the season’s artist in residence.“My first interview for this job was shortly after the murder of George Floyd,” Sharon, who is also an innovative stage director, said in an interview. “I thought: This is a moment for change. Casting singers of color is really easy, but my focus has been on composers, librettists, conductors. I’m thinking about this season as a statement of principles, and that’s what I hope for going forward.”As part of the season announcement, on Tuesday, Michigan Opera Theater also said that Christine Goerke, a reigning Wagnerian soprano who sang the role of Brünnhilde last fall in “Twilight: Gods” — Sharon’s drive-through abridgment of “Götterdämmerung” in a Detroit parking garage — would join next season as associate artistic director.In an interview, Goerke said that her family would be moving from New Jersey to Detroit, where she has relatives. But, aware that the news of her appointment might surprise fans of her performances, she clarified that she didn’t plan to reduce her performance schedule any time soon.“I’m not stepping away from singing,” she said. “I’m stepping toward what’s going to come eventually.”“I’ve been doing this for 27 years,” she added. “We’re always thinking about what’s next. And I want to be on the other side of the desk. My relationship to opera is not going to end when I’m done singing.”The soprano Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde in “Twilight: Gods” last fall at Michigan Opera Theater, which has named her its associate artistic director.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesAll of the productions next season come with backup plans, as the course of the coronavirus pandemic appears hopeful yet is still uncertain. But what Michigan Opera Theater unveiled on Tuesday puts off a return to live indoor performances at the Detroit Opera House until at least April 2022.Until then, productions will be staged outdoors, or at unconventional venues. The season will open on May 15 with a concert performance of Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana,” with Goerke making her role debut as Santuzza. It will be presented at the Meadow Brook Amphitheater in Rochester Hills, Mich., and conducted by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra music director Jader Bignamini.In September, Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s opera “Blue,” about a family in Harlem navigating the American Black experience, will receive a new production, by Kaneza Schaal, following its premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2019; Daniela Candillari will conduct. The location and timing have not yet been determined, but the following production, staged by Sharon, will be “Bliss,” Ragnar Kjartansson’s marathon performance piece that loops the same three minutes from Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” for 12 hours.Michigan Opera Theater will return indoors on Feb. 26 for Robert Xavier Rodríguez and Migdalia Cruz’s “Frida,” conducted by Suzanne Mallare Acton, the company’s assistant music director. It will be a revival of Jose Maria Condemi’s 2015 staging, performed at Music Hall in downtown Detroit.Then the company will return to its theater, the Detroit Opera House, on April 2, for Sharon’s production of “La Bohème,” conducted by Vimbayi Kaziboni. The concept is something Sharon has discussed in interviews before: He will present the four acts of Puccini’s opera in reverse.“The reverse order means that we’re starting with death, and ending with love and hope,” he said. “We’ll all be coming from a place of death — at least I hope that this will be post-Covid. And I love that this thing everyone is hearing, the first thing in the theater in two years, is something they’ve never heard.”“X,” in a newly revised score by Davis, will bring the season to a close in May, conducted by Kazem Abdullah. Writing for The New Yorker after Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for Music last year, the musicologist Ryan Ebright noted that the opera had received only one full revival, at Oakland Opera Theater, in 2006. San Francisco Opera once suggested that “X” be staged as part of its inner-city parks performances, and Davis countered by asking whether they would put on Philip Glass’s “Einstein on the Beach” in a park.“I tried to make them realize,” Davis told Ebright, “that it’s about time that America got over thinking of Black art as being what’s done in the playground, or what’s basically the social-service part of culture.” More