Steve Smith
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American Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher HallThe New York Times, January 28, 2008
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"Life Past the Classroom and After the Orchestra"The New York Times, January 27, 2008 A brief, newsy preview of the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s 70th-birthday tribute to composer John Corigliano (photograph by Stephanie Kuykendal for The New York Times), a native son of Flatbush born on February 16, 1938. The festival starts this afternoon at 2pm at…
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Vittorio Giannini’s Beauty and the Beast at the Dicapo Opera TheaterThe New York Times, January 22, 2008
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Kelley O’Connor at Weill Recital Hall The New York Times, January 21, 2008
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New York Festival of Song at the Juilliard SchoolThe New York Times, January 18, 2008
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Phillip Bimstein is a man of many talents: among the entries on his C.V. are "alternative-rock bandleader," "environmental activist" and "mayor of Springdale, Utah." But the thing for which he’s best known is a body of inventive, deliriously fun electroacoustic compositions for live performers and sampled sounds. (I reviewed his most recent disc, Larkin Gifford’s…
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Gail Archer at the Church of the Heavenly RestThe New York Times, January 15, 2008
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Anne-Carolyn Bird is planning the best eighth-birthday party of all… her own! (Via Blognoggle.) Elsewhere, Bruce Hodges is cited by TypePad, and Alex Ross is on Charlie Rose tomorrow night (Jan. 15).
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I saw Bartlett Sher’s daffy production of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia twice last season and enjoyed it tremendously both times, but I still went into Saturday night’s performance at the Met with a high degree of principled uncertainty, shall we say. The big deal was the New York debut of Latvian mezzo Elīna Garanča…
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New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concert at Avery Fisher HallThe New York Times, January 14, 2008 I got about halfway through a post about the Met’s Saturday night performance of Il barbiere di Siviglia on Sunday afternoon before duty called me away; I hope to finish and post it later today. The short version: Garanča…
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On Monday morning, I had the pleasure of addressing attendees at Chamber Music America’s New Music Institute, held at New York University’s Kimmel Center. Friendly interrogator Richard Kessler and I discussed successful strategies for programming, presentation and promotion of new works. We covered a lot of ground, including multimedia presentations, themed programs and alternative venues.…
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(Posted this morning on the TONY Blog) Lorin Maazel, music director of the New York Philharmonic and an experienced hand in the opera pit, returned to the Metropolitan Opera last night after a 45-year absence to conduct Die Walküre, the second installment in Richard Wagner’s "Ring" cycle and arguably the most popular. It was big…
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Walking on 34th Street this afternoon on my way to TONY‘s palacial west side HQ, I was startled to see a photograph of Lorin Maazel staring out from the front page of the New York Sun. (The photo, left, is credited to Stephen Chernin/AP.) Immediately alarmed, I rushed over to the newsstand to see what…
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Miguel Frasconi — composer, improviser and player of a magical glass menagerie — has marked the recent passing of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Ike Turner with an utterly ingenious mash-up that absolutely demands to be heard. He’s also pondered some reader feedback about the piece. (Thanks to the Friday Informer for the tip.)
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Flushing Mall, January 1, 2008: The first sign was taped over a spotless sink in the men’s room, the second over a plastic trash bin. Around the corner, two impressive limited-edition Be@rbrick 1000% size figures stared out of a toy store window. Dr. LP and I opted for two of the regular-size Be@rbrick figures (roughly…
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As published in the December 27 edition of Time Out New York, here is my annual list of the top ten events, happenings and developments in New York City’s classical music scene for 2007 (in alphabetical order), followed by lists of my top ten classical and non-classical recordings. "Berlin in Lights" Carnegie Hall’s ambitious salute…
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The most striking thing I’ve read about Canadian band The Musical Box is that Peter Gabriel (pictured left) once took his children to see the group, so that they would understand what daddy did back when he was a lanky young man with an inverse mohawk shaved into his shaggy hair. For some years now,…
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Master drummer Billy Hart is leading his killer quartet with pianist Ethan Iverson, saxophonist Mark Turner and bassist Ben Street (L-R in Jim Eigo’s photo, above) through Sunday night at Iridium in midtown Manhattan. I reviewed this group at the Village Vanguard in April 2006 (go here, scroll down), and caught it again in the…
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The New York Philharmonic Messiah at Avery Fisher HallThe New York Times, December 21, 2007
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The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at the Rose TheaterThe New York Times, December 19, 2007
Night After Night 