Contemporary Symphonies

by sarah | Aug 28, 2015

The current issue of The New Yorker includes a column by Alex Ross in which he explores the ways in which the symphony has transformed in new music.   As one would expect, it covered the most familiar names with only a few surprises (including Gloria Coates who, to...

Amy Beach at Toronto Summer Music

by sarah | Jul 31, 2015

There will be a great treat tonight for classical music lovers attending the Toronto Summer Music Festival – a performance of Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet in F-Sharp Minor, op. 67. Tickets and more information about the concert this evening is available here....

Featured Guest Blogger: Amy Zigler reviews “The Wreckers”

by Liane Curtis | Jul 29, 2015

    Dr. Amy Zigler is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC.  She specializes in music of the 19th and 20th centuries, with a focus on the cultural study of chamber music, the social history of music in Germany and Great Britain,...

The Wreckers: An Opera for our Time

by Liane Curtis | Jul 23, 2015

Ethel Smyth’s “The Wreckers” (1906) will receive its’ first staged US performance Friday night (July 24) at Bard Summerscape (total of 5 performances).  NPR’s All Things Considered aired a feature (available here)  about this historic performance (Musicologist...

Women at the 2015 Proms

by sarah | Jul 21, 2015

  The 2015 Proms kicked off on Friday, July 17 with another full lineup of fabulous and engaging concerts ahead.  The role of women in music has been a hot topic in the London music scene this year, stemming largely from the popularity and publicity of BBC Radio...

Grieving and healing: Julia Perry’s “Stabat Mater”

by Liane Curtis | Jun 30, 2015

The U.S. continues to mourn the massacre of nine African Americans in a South Carolina church.  At the Rev. Clementa Pinckney’s funeral service, President Barack Obama drew on the healing power of words melded with music, as he sang “Amazing Grace.”  This was a...