A dedicated following of Requiem-lovers, as well as those merely interested in classical music but likely enticed into attendance by the allure of a mythical work, filled the pews of downtown Little Rock’s First United Methodist Church to capacity on Thursday night. The several hundred in attendance turned out for the final concert of the 2012-13 season of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and Arkansas Chamber Singers, in a performance of one of the most popular musical works of the contemporary imagination: Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor, K. 626.
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Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. His new book isHelguera's Artunes. You can see more of his work atArtworld Salon and on his own site.
While you may disagree with the idea of using a circus to get people to listen to classical music, I found nothing wrong with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s decision to do so this weekend.
"I've thought to myself often listening to some classical works: 'I think I want to make a couple million dollars and turn that into a pop song,'" Joshua Bell (right) says, laughing. "There's a lot of untapped potential there."
Together, violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jeremy Denk make for one of the most dynamic duos in the classical music world. The two have been recording and performing together in the classical repertoire for almost a decade, and have become equally at home thumbing through the pages of the Great American Songbook.
Got an idea for a classical cartoon? Leave it in the comments section.
Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. You can see more of his work at Artworld Salon and on his own site.
It's fun to stay at the ИМКА: Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring triggered an uproar at its world premiere in Paris a century ago. Now we're asking you to help celebrate the centennial by creating a dance of your own.
Soprano Jennifer Zetlan sang two early Muhly songs, plus an excerpt from his opera Two Boys, a Metropolitan Opera commission that will receive its U.S. premier this October at the Met.
Credit Ebru Yildiz / For NPR
Muhly opened the show with A Hudson Cycle (for solo piano) which he composed as a wedding gift for friends and describes as, "music of longing and anticipation."
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Violist Nadia Sirota is a long-time Muhly collaborator. She performed Muhly's Etude 3, a piece Muhly wrote for her which also appears on her latest album, Baroque.
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The wonderful indie folk singer Sam Amidon was something of a surprise guest on the program. His three song set included what he called "a murder ballad," which was punctuated by a long and terrific scream.
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Nico Muhly, one of the most talked-about and widely heard composers today, gathered a group of friends to perform at the (Le) Poisson Rouge in Manhattan. Muhly labeled the show: "Things I love, things my friends love, and things I've written."
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Violinist Jennifer Chun (and her sister Jennifer) joined for a performance of Muhly's Honest Music, a piece from 2002 originally for violin and prerecorded music.
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For his piece Skip Town, Muhly processed the piano, giving it a kind of ramshackle feel — half way between a harpsichord and a honky-tonk piano.
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Angela Chun performs Muhly's Honest Music, the fragmentary nature which has been described as "the sad beauty of things coming together and things falling apart."
Opera audiences are well acquainted with all manners of intrigue — whether political, romantic or psychological. The exciting American composer Nico Muhly is updating that paradigm to the 21st century with his opera Two Boys.
We love mothers for all the Hallmark reasons: for their compassion and patience, not to mention giving birth. But some moms aren't exactly greeting card friendly — and none less so than those who live in the opera house.
This is opera, after all, so we expect the outrageous. But operatic moms seem to be disproportionately portrayed as murderers, harpies or generally women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Your Normas, Medeas, Butterflies, Queens of the Night and Clytemnestras.
