This first day of spring, Jeremy Denk's tour with Academy of St. Martin in the Fields continues in the Midwest ... Sam Amidon performs in Portsmouth, NH ... Timo Andres, Jacob Cooper re-work Mozart in Albany ... Audra McDonald tours Florida ... Natalie Merchant performs with SUNY Purchase orchestra ... Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters play Lollapalooza Argentina ... and more ...
On this first day of spring (huzzah!), Jeremy Denk continues his tour with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields this weekend with performances at Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, tonight and Debartolo Performing Arts Center in South Bend, Indiana, Sunday night. He joins the orchestra in performing Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 1 and No. 5. Also on the program are Stravinsky’s Concerto in D and Apollon musagète. The tour continues through the end of the month with stops in Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
The Los Angeles Times’ Richard S. Ginell, reviewing the recent tour stop at Walt Disney Concert Hall, calls it “a welcome visit,” noting that Denk “seemed to be having a ball” performing the Bach. Nonesuch released Denk’s recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 2013. CBC named it the No. 1 Classical Album of the Year, exclaiming: "Denk smashes through preconceptions and produces an overwhelmingly original account of a piece we thought we all knew." NPR says: "Once you've entered the Denkian dimension, you won't want to leave."
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John Adams’ 2009 piece City Noir receives its Austrian premiere in a performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Konzerthaus in Vienna tonight titled Urban Sounds. The orchestra performs the third movement from the piece, “Boulevard Night,” as well as Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986) and Lollapalooza (1995), along with Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Bernstein’s Candide overture. The 2014 Nonesuch recording of City Noir, performed by the St. Louis Symphony and conductor David Robertson, won a Grammy Award this year for Best Orchestral Performance.
This weekend also brings performances of two of Adams’ operas: Nixon in China by the San Diego Opera at San Diego Civic Theatre tonight and Sunday, and A Flowering Tree, in its penultimate weekend at the Gothenburg Opera, which Swedish Radio calls “an aesthetic, dazzling experience.”
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Sam Amidon helps celebrate the Grand Opening of 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tonight, on a double bill with Laura Gibson. The Vermont native finishes up a brief tour of the southern states, including an appearance at Charleston, West Virginia’s Mountain Stage on Sunday night, before heading to Europe for a spring tour with Sharon Von Etten.
In advance of this weekend's Mountain Stage performance, Amidon is the subject of a feature in the Charleston Daily Mail, which you can read at charlestondailymail.com.
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Timo Andres and Jacob Cooper, along with their fellow composers in the American composers collective Sleeping Giant, team up with Albany Symphony for the first of several collaborations to come, for two performances at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, New York, Saturday and Sunday night. On the program is Sleeping Giant’s re-interpretation of Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, featuring the Albany Pro Musica choir. Andres’s own Mozart reinvention, a re-composition of the “Coronation” Concerto, is featured on his 2013 Nonesuch album, Home Stretch.
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Rhiannon Giddens will be featured on The Village Folk Show on The Bridge, SiriusXM 32, this Sunday morning at around 9 AM ET. Tune in then or catch encore broadcasts of the show on SiriusXM The Village all week. The show will also be available for two weeks on demand at siriusxm.com/ondemand under The Bridge.
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Audra McDonald continues her extensive tour of the United States with two performances in Florida this weekend: at Jacksonville’s Jacoby Symphony Hall Saturday night and Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota on Sunday.
"I wanted to be on Broadway from the time I was 9 years old," McDonald tells the Florida Times-Union in advance of the weekend's concerts. You can read the article at jacksonville.com.
Following her performance in Houston last week, the Houston Chronicle remarked that “McDonald keeps improving in subtle ways – maintaining her extraordinary vocal and dramatic range, while deepening the understanding, nuance and emotional richness she brings to each song. She also upholds an impeccable integrity in her choice of material and its interpretation, with great fidelity to both the notes and the meaning of each selection.”
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Natalie Merchant continues her run of North American concerts when she is joined by the Purchase Symphony Orchestra, featuring students from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music, for a performance at the New York school’s Performing Arts Center tonight.
"I'm really looking forward to performing with the student orchestra at Purchase," Merchant tells the nearby Harrison Daily Voice. "Every orchestra has a different energy; the younger, emerging musicians play with passion and vitality. They tend to understand the music very well."
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Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Space Shifters continue their tour of Latin America with a performance at Lollapalooza Argentina in Buenos Aires on Saturday night. The close out the tour with three performances in Brazil in the week ahead.
As announced earlier this week in the Nonesuch Journal, Plant and the band will bring the music of their latest album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, back to the United States for a month-long tour starting in late May. Tickets go on sale today.
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