Brian Wise | Digital Producer, Writer, Editor

April 7, 2019April 17, 2019

5 New Developments on the Summer Music Festival Scene For 2019

Filene Center at Wolftrap (Photo: Robert Llewellyn)

Because summer music festivals rely heavily on the tourist dollar, most don’t assume a lot of risk when it comes to programming. And for touring musicians, rehearsal time can be limited in the summer, leaving little room to learn new works. But as I discovered while putting together a summer festival guide for the April BBC Music Magazine, there is plenty that’s new and compelling if you look for it. Here are five trends to watch for as the summer of 2019 approaches.

March 2, 2019March 2, 2019

Jimmy López Highlights Dreamers in New Oratorio

Jimmy López at work. Photo: Franciel Braga

Peruvian composer Jimmy López has explored his Latin-American heritage in a number of orchestral, chamber and vocal works. Dreamers, his new oratorio created with the Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz, focuses specifically on the subject of immigration. It receives its premiere at Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA, on March 17 (the performance will be live streamed). I spoke with him for the April issue of BBC Music Magazine. Below are excerpts from the interview.

January 23, 2019February 9, 2019

Method Acting, Steve Jobs, and Opera

John Moore in The Revolution of Steve Jobs (Seattle Opera)

Can method acting enhance an opera performance? Should an opera singer look like the character they are portraying, down to their body weight and hairstyle? These questions came up recently in a conversation with John Moore, the baritone who is starring as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the Seattle Opera production of The Revolution of Steve Jobs (February 23 – March 9).

December 23, 2018December 23, 2018

Enjoy Messiah? Conductor Jane Glover Recommends 5 More Handel Works

George Frideric Handel by Balthasar Denner

Even as “Home Alone” screenings with live accompaniment are a growing staple of orchestra programming in December, Handel’s Messiah remains a holiday season favorite. Like the 1990 holiday hi-jinx film, with its John Williams score, Messiah was a popular success from its 1742 premiere in Dublin. Unlike “Home Alone,” Messiah, of course, didn’t have a sequel. But Handel did compose some 25 other oratorios. For the Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine, I asked conductor Jane Glover, author of Handel in London: The Making of a Genius, about next steps beyond Messiah.

December 9, 2018January 4, 2019

Florence Price: A New Chapter For An Undervalued Composer

Advocates of American classical music have often complained that there is a whole generation of mid-20th century symphonic composers whose work has been unjustly neglected. It includes figures like Roy Harris, Charles Ives, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, and William Schuman, to name a few who were active from roughly 1930 to 1960 and who now rarely turn up on orchestra subscription programs.

Such a list could also include the name Florence Price. Continue reading “Florence Price: A New Chapter For An Undervalued Composer”

November 3, 2018November 12, 2018

Classical Music Podcasts: 12 to Listen For

A microphone for podcasts (StockSnap_Maciej_Korsan)

The universe of classical music podcasts is expanding. Some of these shows have an educational focus while others specialize in roundtable-style banter. The most sophisticated feature elaborate sound design and narratives; others have a quirky, home-spun feel, with guests veering off-mic and conversations peppered with “um’s.” Here are a dozen to check out, depending on your interest. Continue reading “Classical Music Podcasts: 12 to Listen For”

October 3, 2018October 3, 2018

Landfills, Icebergs and Far-Flung Piano Performances

The most attention-getting moment in a new short film by Russian pianist Pavel Andreev comes near the end, when a front-loader carrying a mountain of household garbage approaches him from behind, seemingly ready to dump it on the musician and his 11-foot grand. Andreev (pictured, above) sits at a piano in the middle of a landfill in Russia’s northern Leningrad region. He plays an original piece as seagulls hover above and tractors scale the mounds of waste. Continue reading “Landfills, Icebergs and Far-Flung Piano Performances”

September 8, 2018November 17, 2018

Visiting the Brahms House in Baden-Baden

Brahms House in Baden-Baden (photo: Brian Wise)

Visitors to Baden-Baden usually have a few items leading their agendas, whether visiting an old-school thermal spa, spending euros (or perhaps, rubles) on boutique-lined Sophienstrasse, or trying lady luck at the casino. The town is tucked away in the Black Forest region, and it feels, it in some ways, like the German equivalent to Aspen or Jackson Hole. Continue reading “Visiting the Brahms House in Baden-Baden”

August 17, 2018November 17, 2018

Classical Music from Mexico: A Starter Playlist

As a potential Mexican border wall sharply divides opinion in the U.S., a number of visual arts institutions have rolled out exhibits aimed at shining a light on Mexico’s cultural riches. Continue reading “Classical Music from Mexico: A Starter Playlist”

July 17, 2018August 4, 2018

John Luther Adams, With 800 Singers, Takes on Central Park

John Luther Adams’s In the Name of the Earth, which premieres on August 11 in New York’s Central Park, may rank among the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer’s most logistically ambitious works to date: It calls for 800 singers, divided into four groups and perched around the Harlem Meer, the lake at the park’s northern tip bordered by bluffs and rocky outcroppings.

The text, says Adams, draws on the names of North American rivers, lakes, mountains and deserts. The singers are a mix of amateurs and professionals, and their parts coalesce in the final bars, suggesting rivers flowing downhill and converging in the ocean.

Continue reading “John Luther Adams, With 800 Singers, Takes on Central Park”