What can you say about a string quartet that has perfect intonation, balance, discipline and control and has become an icon in its field? As it turns out, quite a lot. For its Sunday, Jan. 28 concert, the Tokyo String Quartet, an annual visitor to the Triangle, diverged from its usual offering of three complete […]
Joe Kahn
Posted inMusic
An American Breeze
Naming an ensemble “wind symphony” sometimes seems like an oxymoron. On the one hand, it’s a band that doesn’t play typical band music (marches, show medleys); on the other hand, it doesn’t play typical orchestral-style music, either. Such groups try to slither around the problem by calling themselves hybrid names like “concert bands,” “wind orchestras” […]
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Oh, Susannah!
In its second season, the Long Leaf Opera Company is beginning to establish a track record for well-produced performances of 20th-century American and British opera. It’s a niche category for a niche market, to be sure, but one that deserves a hearing. Last weekend, Long Leaf brought together some fine voices for its first full-length […]
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Wit without wisdom
In remarks before the opening concert of the Raleigh series of the North Carolina Symphony last Friday, conductor Gerhardt Zimmermann stated that he intends to introduce into each concert a work by a living composer. For the first concert he chose Peter Schickele, known both as a living composer and a dead one–aka J.S. Bach’s […]
Posted inGuides
Fall-ternative
For the past two years, Long Leaf Opera Company has commendably filled its niche of presenting modern British and American opera, not trying to compete with the other area companies that aim for the grand opera stage. A collaboration between the Durham Savoyards and NCCU through faculty members Randolph Umberger and Benjamin Keaton, Long Leaf […]
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Duo Invecchiando
Sights and Sounds on Sundays, the collaborative effort of the N.C. Museum of Art and the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild, set as one of its main goals to highlight relationships between music and the fine arts. Just how the connection would be implemented was left to the individual performing artists. Last year, Soprano Louise Toppin […]
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Private world
Every summer, most of the Triangle’s musicians head out to the greener pastures of summer festivals. But before they go, Duke University recruits them in late spring for a series of four chamber music concerts in the Bryan Center. This year, a fifth concert, an all-Chopin recital by pianist Elza Kolodin last Wednesday, May 24, […]
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Young talent
A few weeks ago we reviewed a piano recital by the phenomenally gifted 14-year-old Sergiy Komirenko. Last Monday, in St. Mary’s Pittman Auditorium, we discovered that he does not come alone: His 13-year-old sister, Olena, is a violinist of equally formidable talent. A student of Brian Reagin, concertmaster of the North Carolina Symphony, she recently […]
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Prague spring
Every other spring, Ravenscroft School in north Raleigh takes its faculty/student orchestra and choir for a one-week performing trip overseas. This year the venue was Prague, capital of the Czech Republic and one of Europe’s most musical cities. For the students, this kind of trip, performing in a foreign country and, in this case, together […]
Posted inMusic
Looking inward
A few years ago, in a series of articles on music education in the Triangle, we described the new Suzuki violin program for grades K through 4 at R.N. Harris Elementary School in Durham. Last Friday morning, April 7, we heard the great strides the children in this program made, as they played in Raleigh’s […]