After all of the Wagner-related concerts and historic sites I've been to this week, it felt like an oasis of calm to spend my last hour in Bayreuth yesterday with Dr. Sven Friedrich, Director of the Wagner Museum and Archives,... Continue reading

Trumpeter Terence Blanchard performs at Jazz Standard Sunday, June 2, and FoM is giving away a free pairs of tickets to your choice of the 7:30 or 9:30 set! Reach us at info@feastofmusic.com or via direct message @feastofmusic for your... Continue reading

The stars and luminaries turned out last night in Bayreuth to hear Christian Thielemann (again) lead the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra in an amazing sampler of Wagner's mature work, including all of Act I of Die Walkure, the Overture and Liebestod... Continue reading

The first of two extraordinary concert events took place Tuesday night in Dresden's Semperoper, with Wagner specialist Christian Thielemann leading the Dresden Staatskapelle on the eve of Wagner's birthday. In addition to various overtures and interludes, the concert featured tenor... Continue reading

by Melanie Wong Above: Cadillac Moon Ensemble; below: Circles and Lines Friday evening at the Tenri Cultural Institute, Cadillac Moon Ensemble presented a program of music exclusively written by members the composer collective Circles and Lines. A unique quartet comprising... Continue reading

In 1842, soon after becoming Saxon Court Composer in Dresden, Wagner visited the Wartburg, a thousand-year-old castle on a mountain overlooking the Thuringian city of Eisenach. There, Wagner became entranced by the tales of Tannhäuser and his love for the... Continue reading

Greetings from Germany, where I'll be visiting places new and familiar over the next week, mostly in commemoration of Wagner's 200th birthday on May 22. Germany has struggled in the recent past with how openly to celebrate Wagner, thanks largely... Continue reading

While the FoM team continues to cover various NYC musical happenings this week, l'll be in Germany covering a whole spectrum of events celebrating Richard Wagner's 200th birthday. Along with concerts in Leipzig (where he was born), Dresden (where he... Continue reading

For all my anticipation seeing Simon Rattle onstage with the Philadelphia Orchestra last night at Carnegie Hall, it was soprano Barbara Hannigan who unapologetically stole the show. Hannigan, who hails from Canada, is one of today's most sought-after contemporary musicians,... Continue reading

Nico Muhly remains one the most active young composers around. Last Tuesday night, fresh off of curating at and performing in his own festival, A Scream and An Outrage, he returned to New York for two shows at Le Poisson Rouge. The night consisted of a broad range of works based loosely based around a preview of his opera, Two Boys, premiering at the Met in October. The opera premiered at the English National Opera in 2011. With a libretto by celebrated American playwright Craig Lucas, it examines issues associated with the darker corners of the Internet and online chat rooms. The opera is a part of Met general manager Peter Gelb’s larger effort to bring opera to a younger demographic, and the nature of the issues explored drags opera firmly into the 21st century. Continue reading

by Melanie Wong Widely considered one of the best pianists of our generation, Evgeny Kissin is known for his lyrical and poetic musicality. Earlier this month, Kissin presented a chronological concert of Haydn, Schubert, and Liszt on the main stage... Continue reading

by Aristea Mellos Some nights, after returning home from a music-soaked evening, you can’t help but be reminded that living in New York City is a privilege. On Tuesday, May 7, after first attending the Picker Pops Up concert at... Continue reading

by Aristea Mellos By 9PM on May 7, I found myself one concert into the evening, almost 100 blocks south of my first engagement, and in a large and stagnant line that started at the mouth of the Jazz Standard... Continue reading

by Michael Cirigliano II Photo credit: Ken Howard, AP Photo As the curtain rose on the revival of John Dexter’s production of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the Metropolitan Opera this week, a group of 13 nuns laid prostrate... Continue reading

by Michael Cirigliano II Photo credit: Torsten Kjellstrand, NPR Taking over the stage for the final evening of this year’s Spring for Music festival, Christoph Eschenbach led the National Symphony in an all-Russian tribute to longtime music director and famed... Continue reading

by Michael Cirigliano II All photo credits: Torsten Kjellstrand, NPR The vibrant, celebratory mood that has come to be associated with Carnegie Hall’s Spring for Music festival was in full effect this week, with a handful of the country’s most... Continue reading

The Emerson String Quartet may have had their final concert with founding cellist David Finckel last night in D.C., but for their hometown swan song, they offered an intimate performance this past Monday at WQXR's Greene Space. When asked about... Continue reading

by Melanie Wong After 43 years, the distinguished Tokyo String Quartet (TSQ) has announced that 2012-13 will be their farewell season, and approaching the end of their run, TSQ gave their penultimate NYC performance last Saturday at 92Y, where they... Continue reading

by Melanie Wong In preparation for their upcoming concert, composer collective Circles and Lines—Angelica Negron, Eric Lemmon, Dylan Glatthorn, Noam Faingold (via Skype), Conrad Winslow (absent)—and contemporary chamber group Cadillac Moon Ensemble—flutist Roberta Michel, violinist Patti Kilroy, cellist Meaghan Burke,... Continue reading

by Melanie Wong Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival has brought the contemporary music of living composers together with New York audiences since its inception in 1998. Last week CECNMF presented this season’s final concert at Symphony Space: a six-piece... Continue reading

by Aristea Mellos It is widely believed that a great work of art should be able to withstand reappropriation and reinterpretation, and, if possible, grow from the experience. This philosophy is often applied to plays, operas, and films, but rarely... Continue reading

by Dan Lehner The Improvisers Round Robin has the powerful ability to simultaneously be about individuality and community. Each approaching improviser has no rehearsal, no music in front of them, not even a concept of what kind of music they'll... Continue reading

by Melanie Wong If you were one of the 25 people in the basement of the DiMenna Center last Friday, you were among the lucky few who witnessed a truly remarkable performance by preeminent French clarinet quartet Quatuor Vendôme. Formed... Continue reading

by Melanie Wong Many of today’s leading classical artists kicked off their careers by winning Concert Artists Guild's Victor Elmaleh Competition—the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet, Grammy-nominated wind quintet Imani Winds, and Klezmer clarinet extraordinaire David Krakauer, to name a few.... Continue reading

by Michael Cirigliano II The St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble crossed the river and descended upon the Brooklyn Museum’s Cantor Auditorium Sunday afternoon, presenting a varied, yet cohesive, afternoon of trios that traced an unlikely stylistic lineage between two Viennese titans... Continue reading