Month: April 2013

May is an important month for the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director, Michael Tilson Thomas, as they devote the first two weeks to a festival of the music of Beethoven, featuring some of the most significant of the composer’s works.  During this festival, to be held at Davies Symphony Hall, MTT leads the Symphony,…

In the second programme of its American Music Festival, New York City Ballet pays tribute to one of America’s greatest songwriters, Richard Rogers.  In a career that spanned more than six decades, Richard Rodgers composed the music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals, for film and television. NYCB’s programme opens with…

The Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra presents a performance of particular poignancy on May 5th.  Entitled The Violins of Hope, this is a unique event, since some of the instruments to be played belonged to victims of the Holocaust – and have lain silent for 70 years.  These violins were found, almost destroyed, in the desolation of…

The penultimate program in San Francisco Ballet’s current season features an interesting combination of works – Helgi Tomasson’s Criss-Cross, Yuri Possokhov’s Francesca da Rimini, and one of the Company’s signature ballets, Balanchine’s Symphony in Three Movements. Helgi Tomasson, San Francisco Ballet’s Artistic Director & Principal Choreographer, took the name of his 1997 ballet, Criss-Cross ,…

San Francisco Ballet continues to display its impressive versatility, with three very different works, in its programme which opens on April 9th.  It features Rudolf Nureyev’s Raymonda Act III, and two works choreographers with a local link – Ibsen’s House by Company member Val Caniparoli, and Symphonic Dances by Edwaard Liang who trained as a…

New York City Ballet launches its Spring Season with a Festival of American Music, featuring a sensational line-up of 25 ballets to music by 17 American composers.  NYCB Founding Choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, shared a deep passion for American music, a tradition which has been continued by Ballet Master in Chief, Peter Martins. …

A new recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 has been released by Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus.   Recorded live at Davies Symphony Hall in June 2012, at the conclusion of the Orchestra’s centennial season, this hybrid SACD album is available on SFS Media, the Orchestra’s in-house label.…

Director-Choreographer of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Jean-Christophe Maillot, has created something a little different for his Company’s next production which opens on April 28th.  In a departure from full-length, narrative works, he has created five short, abstract pieces for a ballet entitled Choré – the French diminutive of ‘choreography’. Jean-Christophe Maillot has never been one…