Concert Review: Playing at Statues

The New York Philharmonic makes CONTACT! at MoMA.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Mario Merz sculpture Ziffer im Wald inspired a work on this week's CONTACT! 
program at the 2014 NY PHIL BIENNIAL. Photo from salzburg.gv.at.

In the Alan Gilbert era at the New York Philharmonic, the CONTACT! series has provided a playground for musicians and enthusiasts of modern music alike to hear avant-garde compositions n a more intimate venue than the vast cavern of Avery Fisher Hall. On Thursday night, composer/conductor Matthias Pintscher led members of the orchestra in Beyond Recall, a late-night new music marathon at the Museum of Modern Art. This was the first of three CONTACT! concerts in the orchestra's ongoing NY PHIL BIENNIAL.

Opera Review: The Pigs Take Over

The NY PHIL BIENNIAL unveils Gloria--A Pig Tale
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The thin line between love and sausage: Alexander Lewis (with knife) and
Lauren Snouffer in Gloria: A Pig Tale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2014 The New York Philharmonic.

Opera is a serious art. Unless its perpetrator is H.K. Gruber, the imaginative Austrian composer whose Gloria--A Pig Tale is the second new stage work to have its New York premiere in the early days of the first NY PHIL BIENNIAL. This new production was a collaboration between New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert, director Doug Fitch and AXIOM, a Juilliard-based ensemble devoting itself to the interpretation of contemporary music.

Opera Review: Bird or Fiend?

Gotham Chamber Opera opens The Raven.
by Paul J. Pelkonen (with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe)

Singer Frederika Brillembourg (standing) and dancer Alexandra Ferri in The Raven.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2014 Gotham Chamber Opera/NY PHIL BIENNIAL.

In the opera world it's known, that on stages lights are shone
and composers look to poets for librettos for their scores.
It's to Edgar Allen Poe and his great poem of great woe
that the Gotham Chamber Opera's new The Raven owes its source.
'Twas by Toshio Hosokawa, and its New York premiere this was,
a new work washed on Gotham's shore.

Concert Review: The Players' Club

Members of the Philharmonic at the 92nd St. Y.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yefim Bronfman (left) and Glenn Dicterow (right) wrap up their terms as Artist-in-Residence
and Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic this season.
Portrait photos © 2014 The New York Philharmonic.

The giant sound of a major symphony orchestra often obscures the excellence of its component players. Last Friday night at the 92nd St. Y, members of the New York Philharmonic joined pianist (and current Philharmonic artist-in-residence) Yefim Bronfman for an evening of chamber music, highlighting the excellent individual voices that comprise New York's oldest orchestra.