Lockdown listening
Concert halls may be closed, but there’s still music, Michael Andor Brodeur writes.
Faced with a traditional August, I’d be recommending not much more than plenty of sunscreen and spring water to accompany whatever wild vacation plans you had in the works. Alas, this is not that, and it may be up to music to give us escape this summer.
Luckily, there’s more than enough music — online and on record — to fill the dog days. Following are a few late-summer selections.
MET STARS LIVE
The Metropolitan Opera recently announced Met Stars Live, a new pay-per-view livestreamed performances from “opera’s biggest stars in striking locations across Europe and the United States.” If you’ve been stuck within a short radius of your living room for five months, just about anywhere counts as a striking location, and you’re probably getting a little streamed out. But the inaugural stream by Jonas Kaufmann attained transportive heights from its location at the Polling Monastery outside of Munich. And its library’s acoustics were a welcome escape from the echo chamber of the average Zoom. Forthcoming highlights from the series include Joyce DiDonato (Sept. 12); Anna Netrebko (Oct. 10); Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena (Nov. 7); and Bryn Terfel (Dec. 12). Find tickets and more information at metopera. org.
NATIONAL SAWDUST DIGITAL DISCOVERY FESTIVAL
New York City-based new music incubator/record label/ performance centre National Sawdust is weathering the turmoil of the new normal with a robust slate of exclusive online programming.
Its ongoing Digital Discovery Festival is a weekly program of live performances and interviews featuring some of the most adventurous players and composers in the field. On Aug. 18, the exciting young composer and pianist Conrad Tao plays a program featuring John Adams’s China’s Gate and a set of original improvisations. Find full festival schedule and more information at live.nationalsawdust. org/digital-discovery-festival.
RECORD REVIEWS
Christopher Rouse: Symphony No. 5 / Supplica / Concerto for Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, Giancarlo Guerrero (Naxos)
The late, great Christopher Rouse was a Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer, a lifelong Baltimorean, a proud Led Zeppelin fan, and a direct product of Beethoven. His first childhood encounter with Ludwig’s fifth marked the beginning of his composing life; and his own fifth, composed in 2015, makes for a stirring homage (especially in the timpani department) as well as a miniature survey of his vast range.
KMRU: Peel (Editions Mego)
This deeply satisfying sixpack of lush, looping, ambient soundscapes fashioned from field recordings by Nairobi-based sound artist Joseph Kamaru was recorded in 48 hours.
Thomas Adès and Kirill Gerstein: In Seven Days (Myrios Music)
Adès and Gerstein make one of the most electrifying pairings of composer and performer at work today, and their joined forces charge this suite of recordings from Tanglewood and Boston’s Symphony Hall. Especially so on the two-piano world première of Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face, where the composer and Gerstein take the dynamic duo thing to a very literal and beautiful place.
Various artists: Hildegard Competition Winners Vol. 1 (National Sawdust Tracks)
National Sawdust’s Hildegard Competition is a mentorship initiative “highlighting outstanding trans, female and non-binary composers in the early stages of their careers,” and this newly released compilation from the class of 2019 collects new works from Niloufar Nourbakhsh, inti figgis-vizeuta, Bergrun Snaebjornsdottir, Emma O’Halloran, X. Lee and Kayla Cashetta.