Alive and well
Alive and well
Memo to doomsayers: Not only is classical thriving, but the debuts of Disney Hall and Golijov’s ‘San Marco’ also helped give it a new energy.
Ten years ago, cultural commentators found it fashionable to forecast the death of classical music. That bit of silliness ended on Sept. 5, 2000, with an unlikely work by an unlikely composer in an unlikely place. The Stuttgart Bach Academy in Germany commissioned four composers from different cultures to write new passions on each of the four Gospels. The third work, devoted to St. Mark, was by Osvaldo Golijov, an Argentine of Jewish Eastern European descent who had studied in Israel and Pennsylvania and settled in the Boston area.
An all-star ‘We Are the World’ remake for Haiti relief
Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Kanye West and Keith Urban join an all-star chorus at the Los Angeles studio where the dozens had gathered in 1985 to sing for famine relief in Africa.
Twenty-five years after the all-star recording of “We Are the World” became a signature moment in celebrity altruism and pop-music history, a new collective of stars came together Monday at the same Hollywood recording studio to record a new version for Haiti earthquake relief.
La La La Human Steps
Édouard Lock’s Montreal company rethinks Tchaikovsky with ‘Amjad’ at Royce Hall.
WE can refuse history, but we can’t forget about it, even with the new technologies. Those are Luciano Berio’s words. They were also the theme of the late Italian composer’s Norton Lectures at Harvard 15 years ago. Last week, I was sure I had long ago proved Berio wrong. Having shuffled dying swans and such into the category of ritual rather than renewable art, I not only, good Modernist that I am, refused Tchaikovsky’s ballets but also had put them out of my mind. Would good reviews have made American Ballet Theatre’s “Swan Lake” at the Music Center an event? Not for me.
Ascending Dragon Music Festival
Ascending Dragon Music Festival What: 17 concerts performed by Southwest Chamber Music and musicians from the Vietnam National Academy of Music Where: Pasadena, Los Angeles, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City