Concert Review: The Revelations Will Not Be Televised

The Crypt Sessions presents Quatour pour la fin du temps.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Stephen Jackiw, Orion Weiss, Jay Campbell and Yoonah Kim contemplate the End of Time.
Photo by Andrew Ousley © 2019 The Death of Classical

The Crypt Sessions has returned and its timing could not be better. Their season opener was Tuesday night, with a performance of Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps, a work written and premiered in a German prisoner of war camp in the dark days of World War II. For the forty-nine lucky souls gathered in the depths of the Church of the Intercession, it was a transcendental experience.

Great Recitals and Concerts: Spring 2018

Superconductor breaks down the best recitals, performances and even a play.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

It's not all symphonies and operas. Here at Superconductor we also try to cover smaller and more intimate performances where you find see and hear some of the best music on offer in and around New York City. Here are the best of the spring season of 2018.

Concert Review: Above the Stars, Below the Stairs

The Attaca Quartet plays Beethoven at The Crypt Sessions.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Silence: church in session: the Attacca Quartet in the crypt.
Photo by Tristan Cook © 2018 Unison Media.

The Church of the Intercession sits on a steeply sloped intersection, right at the southern border of Washington Heights. On Thursday night, the acclaimed series The Crypt Sessions (curated by publicist-turned impresario Andrew Ousley) opened its third season of playing concerts deep in the earth. The venue is a strange one: the stone vault that supports this historic church. Even more unusual was that this concert featured one work: Beethoven's Op. 132 String Quartet in A minor, played by the Attacca  Quartet.

Opera Review: The Pit and the Piano

On Site Opera and the Crypt Sessions unearth The Tell-Tale Heart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hanging on a heartbeat: Elizabeth Pojanowski performs The Tell-Tale Heart 
by Gregg Kallor (center) with cellist Joshua Roman. Photo by Andrew Ousley.

There's nothing scarier than Edgar Allen Poe.

The writer and poet, who grew up in the Bronx and called New York home for much of his life is responsible for setting the template for the modern horror story, for inventing the detective tale, and for using simple words to give nightmares to millions of readers, this writer included. You can keep your tentacles, your chest-bursting aliens, your psychopaths wielding baseball bats bound with barbed wire: Poe's stories cut right to the heart of what terrifies us, our own inner demons and darkest moments laid bare for all to see.

Concert Review: A Journey in the Dark

Matt Haimovitz at The Crypt Sessions.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Candlepower: Matt Haimovits and friend at the Crypt Sessions.
Photo by Andrew Ousley for the Crypt Sessions.

The cellist Matt Haimovitz is one of the mavericks of his instrument, breaking new ground with each commission for solo cello and each group project. To celebrate the release of his new disc Overtures, Mr. Haimovitz agreed to play The Crypt Sessions, the chamber music series mounted deep beneath the Church of the Intercession at 155th and Broadway.

Concert Review: Notes from the Underground

The Attacca Quartet play Haydn in a crypt.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Members of the Attacca Quartet rehearse in the crypt of the Church of the Intercession.
Photo by Andrew Ousley.

The Church of the Intercession sits on the corner of West 155th and Broadaway, an imposing 100-hyear-old stone pile located across from the equally historic Trinity Church Cemetary. A fantasy of peaked Gothic arches and stone passageways, the church is now home to the Crypt Sessions, a recital series played deep beneath the earth in the church's crypt. On Thursday night, this unlikely venue hosted the Attacca Quartet, performing Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross