Concert Review: Return to Fun City

Michael Tilson Thomas comes back to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

MTT: Michael Tilson Thomas on the podium.
Photo courtesy the San Francisco Symphony.

The composer, conductor and educator Michael Tilson Thomas returned to Carnegie Hall last night for the first of two concerts that will end his Perspectives series, the year-long residency that started on opening night of this season in October of 2018. These performances feature the New World Symphony, the Miami-based training orchestra that he helped found in 1987. Although its members are transient--graduate students mostly en route to full time orchestra positions in the fullness of time, MTT's players are professional quality. They proved it last night.

Concert Review: Work Your Fingers to the Bone

The New York Philharmonic previews a new work by Julia Wolfe.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

On Monday night, the New York Philharmonic gathered music lovers and museum patrons at the Tenement Museum for a short program providing a first look at Fire in my mouth. This is the new oratorio by composer Julia Wolfe which premieres at the New York Philharmonic next Thursday. It is a 45-minute deep delve into the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, which claimed the lives of 146 New York garment workers on March 25, 1911.

2018-19 Season Preview: There Will Be (New) Blood

Jaap van Zweden and Deborah Borda take the reins at the Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Welcome to the jungle: Jaap van Zweden takes over at the Philharmonic.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2018 The New York Philharmonic.

The New York Philharmonic's upcoming season features a diverse slate that sees americas oldest orchestra dispensing with a few less popular initiatives while opening a few that will hopefully fill seats, and accelerating the orchestra’s transition from the Alan Gilbert era to the stewardship of its new music director, Jaap van Zweden.

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.