John Adams led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a performance of El Niño at Carnegie Hall Sunday. The New York Times finds Adams's Nativity Oratorio to be "best suited to the business of telling the Nativity story" of the works typically heard during Advent and credits the conductor with drawing "a solid, passionate performance from the orchestra." Playbill spoke with Adams and New York City Ballet's Peter Martins about Martins's new piece set to Naive and Sentimental Music, which recently premiered at Lincoln Center.
John Adams conducted the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a performance of his 2000 Nativity Oratorio, El Niño, at Carnegie Hall Sunday night. Dawn Upshaw, who originated the soprano role in December 2000, reprises the role in Sunday's concert, with Michelle DeYoung in the mezzo-soprano role and Eric Owens as bass-baritone, along with the Westminster Symphonic Choir and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn finds Adams's oratorio to be "best suited to the business of telling the Nativity story," relative to the works typically performed during Advent, like Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. "In El Niño Mr. Adams offers a panoramic recounting of the story," says Kozinn, using a diverse array of texts, in Spanish and English, "that says as much about our time as Bach’s and Handel’s biblical sources say about theirs."
The review goes on to credit Upshaw with giving her part "an easygoing, almost jazzlike suppleness" and Adams, as composer, with drawing "a solid, passionate performance from the orchestra." Read the complete review at nytimes.com.
The Carnegie Hall concert followed two other New York City performances of Adams's work in the preceding days, by the Juilliard new-music ensemble Axiom: at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall last Thursday and at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village on Saturday, with the composer in attendance at both, leading Kozinn to title his Times review of Thursday's show "If It Seems You’re Hearing Adams All Over Town, Well, You Are."
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Late last month, Adams's 1999 orchestral piece Naive and Sentimental Music was featured as part of the New York City Ballet's Opening Night Benefit performance at Lincoln Center. The piece serves as both the score and title to a new work by Peter Martins, the company's ballet master in chief.
Playbill spoke with both creators, Martins and Adams, about the piece and about the rhythmic quality of the composer's work that makes it so appealing for choreographers like Martins to set to movement. You'll find the interview at playbillarts.com.
Performances of Naive and Sentimental Music continue through January. For more information, visit nycballet.com.
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