Nature is seen as both a thing of beauty and reckoning in the music video for Reena Esmail’s inconvenient wounds, one of 15 new works from harpist Yolanda Kondonassis‘ FIVE MINUTES for Earth project. Plinking high strings trickle like raindrops and cascading glissandi roll like waves, but th......
A drum set, a few woodwind instruments, a piano, a couple of bagpipes, and electronics waited onstage at Roulette on the evening of May 24, 2022. Audience members filtered in and out of the ground floor and balcony, clustering in small groups of friends and fanning out across the hall. Friendly cha......
In classical music’s recent efforts to become a more equitable space, I’ve often seen the words “diversity” and “inclusion” used interchangeably – but what many people don’t realize is that they’re vastly different concepts. Diversity is about representing artists with varying dem......
As classical musicians become more interested in styles of playing outside of what is traditionally taught in conservatories, we are beginning to see more recordings that interact with multiple genres in dynamic and original ways. On Corpus Vice, cellist and composer Eden Rayz doesn’t just oscill......
When composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate went on a pilgrimage with his grandmother to their Chickasaw tribe’s old homelands in 1994, he knew the journey would inspire a new symphonic piece. The resulting career-defining flute concerto, Tracing Mississippi, is about the Chickasaw composer’s ......
Nnenna Ogwo is the Founder & Artistic Director of Juneteenth LP (Juneteenth Legacy Project). Juneteenth LP’s mission is to share the varied rich musical traditions from across the African Diaspora. The collaborative is comprised of Black musicians who fuse their classical training with other ......
The experimental duo Squash & Biscuit 瓜和饼干 (Shuwen Zhao and Brian Griffith) identify themselves as “Los Angeles Film Design and Sound Design” creators. On their website, their moniker greets you against a warm field of glitchy and blurred video reminiscent of VHS distortions mixed w......
As an organist and dedicated repertoire hound, I like to think I have prowled around quite a few obscure corners of the organ literature, but on Sunday Gail Archer, in her recital at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, revealed to me a nationality of organ music I hadn’t previously known exis......
Is it really better than the English version seen in Smyth’s lifetime?Act I chorus (Richard Hubert Smith photo)Upon hearing that Glyndebourne would stage Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, I instantly resolved to attend. This memorable and compelling work is certainly too seldom performed and I jumped ......
In the vibrantly polychromatic Church of the Covenant on Saturday afternoon, Haydn’s Overture to Armida provided the warmup for the debuting Vangarde Orchestra. The players delivered smooth, tuneful, sonorous orchestral sound in the reverberant space. No early music group this, but rather a large ......
