A Quick Word About the Election

And back to music soon after...promise!

It is impossible for Superconductor to exist in a bubble, or to allow the events of last night's election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America to pass without comment. This blog is not a political forum and it is not normally a place for such things, but I cannot get my regular blog writing done without getting these words out of my system.

Concert Review: The Master Builder

Steve Reich turns 80 at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Footage from Hindenburg, part of Steve Reich's Three Tales.
Image by Beryl Korot © 2002 Nonesuch Records.

Steve Reich is now 80, and remains at the forefront of the school of American minimalism. On Tuesday night, Carnegie Hall celebrated Mr. Reich's birthday with a concert featuring Sō Percussion, the International Contemporary Ensemble, members of Synergy Vocals and three of Mr. Reich's major compositions, including first Carnegie Hall presentation of his 2002 "video opera" Three Tales, a collaboration with his wife Beryl Korot.

Opera Review: Country Discomfort

The Met revives Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Karita Mattila (standing) holds Oksana Dyka in a key scene from Act II of Jenůfa.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

This latest Met revival of Jenůfa, the third opera by Czech composer Leoš Janáček is one of the most important productions of the current season. It allows a new generation of opera-goers to discover one of the most powerful dramas of the 20th century, thanks to the presence of a near-ideal cast. On Monday night, soprano Oksana Dyka was incandescent in the title role, a peasant girl whose suffering makes her one of the great operatic heroines. She's pregnant by a man that does not love her. She is attacked and mutilated by his love-struck brother. And then the baby is drowned.

Concert Review: Their Business is Rejoicing

The London Symphony Orchestra at NJPAC.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Miracle man: conductor Gianandrea Noseda in action.
Photo © 2016 Teatro Regio di Torino.

The London Symphony Orchestra are in transition. Valery Gergiev left for a post in Munich, and the orchestra awaits the arrival of its next chosen leader, Sir Simon Rattle, in 2017. Their current North American tour (which stopped at Prudential Hall in Newark on Saturday night) is lead by associate principal conductor Gianandrea Noseda, an Italian maestro who has worked operatic miracles in the pit at the Metropolitan Opera in recent years, and will soon be known to American audiences as the newly minted leader of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C.