Concert Review: Connecting the Dots

Jonathan Biss and the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Caramoor.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Joshua Weilerstein (standing) conducts Jonathan Biss (seated, center)
and the Orchestra of St. Luke's on Sunday afternoon at Caramoor.
Photo by Gabe Palacios © 2016 Caramoor Festival of the Arts.

This year, the Caramoor Festival awarded the prized post of Artist-in-Residence to Jonathan Biss, the New York-based pianist whose exhaustive approach to Beethoven and Schumann and commitment to modern music has made him a favorite son among New York-based pianists. Sunday's concert saw the first fruits of this collaboration with the Westchester-based arts venue, located on the sprawling faux-Italian Renaissance Rosen Estate, somewhere in the woods outside Katonah, NY.

Opera Review: A Beard Too Far

Gotham Chamber Opera opens with a double bill by Martinů.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Me and my shadow: Jarett Ott (left) and Joseph Beutel (right) flank Jenna Seladie in Alexandre Bis.
Photo © 2014 Richard Termine, courtesy Gotham Chamber Opera.

On Tuesday night, the maverick Gotham Chamber Opera opened its fourteenth season at the Gerald Lynch Theater. The program: a pair of operas by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. Alexandre Bis (1937) and Comedy on the Bridge (1935) were written in those turbulent years before Nazi Germany marched troops into the relatively new nation of Czechoslovakia, an event which would force Martinů himself to escape, first to France and then to America in 1941. These one-act comedies burn with a nervous comic energy, reacting to the insanity of the 1930s with bursts of absurd humor. Under Neal Goren's baton, Martinů's excellent qualities as a composer came to the fore, giving New Yorkers a new appreciation of this composer.