It’s been a decade since Jennifer Walshe described “The New Discipline” in a program text for Borealis Festival. This was not a school or a style, but a way of working that she saw shared across music she was witnessing, “where the physical, theatrical and visual aspects are as important as the sonic.” The text […]
Category: Interview
Posted inInterview
A Very Private Sense of Fear
It would be customary for a performer of James Ehnes’s stature—internationally touring and highly in-demand, with four records released in 2024, residencies in Australia and Seattle, and a recent credit on a “Star Wars” miniseries—to be precious with their time. And those who have heard, whether on record or live, his ability to imbue and […]
Posted inInterview
Exploratory Shapes
The career of soprano Lucy Shelton has been shaped by exploration. Shelton, a contemporary music specialist who has premiered works by Knussen, Carter and Grisey, continues to prove that musical curiosity outweighs perceptions of age. Looking to the 2025-26 season, she’ll make her Metropolitan Opera company debut, in Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence,” aged 82. I sat […]
Posted inInterview
The Yin and Yang
On February 7 and 9, the Handel+Haydn Society in Boston will perform works by the former under their artistic director, conductor, cellist and keyboardist Jonathan Cohen, in a program featuring the soloist Joélle Harvey and titled “Love, Handel.” (“Love, Handle”?) Recently, I met Cohen—whose interpretations of the Baroque and Classical repertoire are unusual for their […]
Posted inInterview
The Constant Dance
On February 20, Marin Alsop makes her debut conducting the Berlin Philharmonic at the orchestra’s Biennale, leading a premiere by Outi Tarkiainen alongside pieces by Brett Dean, Aaron Copland and Heitor Villa-Lobos on themes of nature and climate change. Last spring, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, but this next gig has the […]
Posted inInterview
Struggler
Alongside the regular recital appearances and branching out into conducting, in the six months between December just passed and May this year, the baritone Benjamin Appl will have released three albums: one, out in February, of Kurtág songs intermingled with Schubert lieder, featuring a rare appearance of the composer at the piano for Schubert’s “Der […]
Posted inInterview
Indeterminate Acts
In 1959, the Smithsonian Folkways label released an album called “Indeterminacy,” a piece that features John Cage speaking, and David Tudor playing mashed-up material from the former’s “Fontana Mix” and “Concert for Piano and Orchestra.” Since comedian Stewart Lee and pianists Tania Caroline Chen and Steve Beresford first decided to perform “Indeterminacy” around 15 years […]
Posted inInterview
Puzzles and Courage
Masato Suzuki plays the harpsichord and leads the Bach Collegium Japan with a clean, pearly touch, creating performances with the delicacy of freshly trimmed and polished fingernails. The son of the ensemble’s founder, Masaaki Suzuki, Masato will lead the group’s latest European tour, beginning January 21. We spoke on video call about composing in the […]
Posted inInterview
A Fast-Rising Star Reveals His Humble Origins
Tall, thin as a rake, with wispy hair and piercing blue eyes, Kurt Dirigent looks more like an imaginary character than the artistic director of the ground-breaking ensemble Lorem Ipsum. He orders a flat white at the Soho branch of London-based independent coffee shop Gail’s, with the pained look of a man who has seen […]
Posted inInterview
The Truck in the Nave
Earlier this month, Notre-Dame opened its doors after five years of construction work. The two-day reopening ceremony saw the cathedral filled to the brim with thousands of people, including celebrities, politicians and heads of state. Even Olivier Latry, titular organist at Notre-Dame, had to do his usually solitary work surrounded by film crews and security guards. […]