Opera Review: It's Seven o'clock Somewhere

The Mile Long Opera: A Biography of 7 o'clock premieres on the High Line.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Singers at an exhibition: David Lang's Mile Long Opera in performance on The High Line.
Photo by the author.

Composer David Lang is no stranger to presenting operatic and choral works in unusual locations. His latest opus, The Mile Long Opera: A Biography of 7 o'clock is  an a capella opera performed in its entirety by singers stationed on The High Line, the former elevated freight railway on the west side of Manhattan that was saved from demolition in the 2000s. In three phases, this old but structurally sound railway was converted into a public park, a narrow oasis in West Chelsea that served as a spring-point for a kind of frenzied urban development the reminds one of the game SimCity. 

Opera Review: "Wake, My Beauty, Wake!"

The Prototype Festival unleashes Acquanetta.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Image from Acquanetta by Maria Baranova-Suzuki © 2018 Prototype Festival.

A hovering, rotating camera rig. A mysterious room. A Hollywood starlet. A transplanted brain. And the thunderous sound of an electric guitar, electric bass, three string players and an electronic keyboard.. These are just some of the elements that made up Acquanetta, the new opera by Bang on a Can! Founder David Gordon that opened the Prototype Festival last night.

Concert Review: Making Tracks in Brooklyn

Julia Wolfe's Steel Hammer rolls into BAM.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Bang on A Can All Stars and the SITI Ensemble perform Steel Hammer. 
Eric Berryman (standing, right, with hammer) is John Henry.
Photo © 2015 the Krannert Center and courtesy Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The composer Julia Wolfe is one of the most important voices in American music. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her oratorio Anthracite Fields she combines Appalachian folk music, minimalist techniques and the power of the human voice to create a unique American sound, rock-ribbed, raw-boned and bursting with vitality. On Wednesday night, the Bang On A Can All-Stars and the SITI Company brought the New York premiere of the fully staged version of her first oratorio Steel Hammer to the BAM Harvey Theater in the waning days of this year's NextWave Festival.

Concert Review: American Nightmares

Two major new works at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"Breaker boys" are featured in Julia Wolfe's Anthracite Fields.
Photo from the Anthracite Heritage Museum.

Editor's Note: In honor of Julia Wolfe winning the Pulitzer for her piece Anthracite Fields, we are we are re-posting this review of its New York premiere from last year. Congratulations  to Ms. Wolfe!

In Pennsylvania's coal country, the borough of Centralia stands abandoned, due to an underground coal fire that forced citizens to flee the once-thriving municipality. Last week, the NY PHIL BIENNIAL unveiled two works that reminded one of that abandoned town: Julia Wolfe's Anthracite Fields and Steven Mackey's Dreamhouse. In their own way, each composition illustrates the dangers of the American dream, whether in the forced labor and brutal conditions of the coal mines or the uncertainty and terror of the decade following the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Summer Marches On: The 2014 Superconductor Festival Guide Part II

Three big festivals make New York more bearable in the summer.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Lincoln Center becomes a cultural oasis in the summer months.
Unfortunately that's not a real palm tree. Photo alteration by the author.

The Rolling Stones once said "you can't always get what you want." For New Yorkers sweltering through summer heat, that might translate to "you can't always get out of town." For those city-bound urbanites or visitors to this great metropolis, Mostly Mozart is the ideal cure, a shelter of musical marvels in the helter-skelter of a summer swelter. (And yes, readers, I know that's from an entirely different song.)