Steve Smith
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James Bond is ruthless and unseasoned in Casino Royale, the latest installment in the long-lived film franchise, which returns Ian Fleming’s British secret agent to the very beginning of his career. He makes critical errors, but learns and compensates; he earns his stripes, and in the process has his heart shattered. He also survives a…
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Comedy is in fact pretty, at least when it’s done at the Metropolitan Opera lately. Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, the closing salvo of the Volpe regime, was a popular success largely because of the magnetism of its principals, dishy soprano Anna Netrebko and boyish tenor Juan Diego Flórez. Physical allure also plays a part in the…
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Phil Kline’s John the Revelator at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden,and Teatro Grattacielo’s La Farsa Amorosa at Alice Tully HallThe New York Times, November 14, 2006
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News of musical doings in Boston has been somewhat harder to come by since the demise of Christina Linklater’s blog, St. Botolph’s Town, thought Matthew Guerrieri’s vastly engaging Soho the Dog does toss us the occasional bone. That’s why it was such welcome news to learn this afternoon that the semi-permeable website of the Boston…
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CD review: Gustav Holst – The Planets(with Colin Matthews – Pluto, the Renewer; Kaija Saariaho – Asteroid 4179: Toutatis; Matthias Pintscher – towards Osiris; Mark-Anthony Turnage – Ceres; Brett Dean – Komarov’s Fall)Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Simon RattleEMI Classics 69690; CDThe New York Times, November 12, 2006(ArkivMusic, Barnes & Noble) Playlist: Ellery Eskelin – Quiet…
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(Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times)
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It was an off-campus TONY editorial summit that drew me down to the Lower East Side on Tuesday night, but what kept me there was the chance to finally hear Gabriel Kahane, who performed at Tonic this evening. Son of the noted pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane, this young singer-songwriter has been making waves lately…
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Jumping in with this quick, unusual daytime post for a bit of business relating to the day job: Time Out New York has now launched a blog similar to that of its younger sibling, Time Out Chicago. My first post there, freshly squirted onto the web, announces news of the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of the…
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I’ll be in Richmond, Virginia this weekend, spending time with the good Dr. LP and generally decompressing. But there’s also music to be consumed in the form of the University of Richmond’s ambitious Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival, which is being held on Friday and Saturday at the university’s Modlin Center for the Arts. (You’ll…
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The Flanders Recorder Quartet at Gilder Lehrman HallThe New York Times, November 3, 2006
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Added to the blogroll tonight: SpiderMonkey Stories, a new blog from cornetist-composer Taylor Ho Bynum. An ace bandleader in his own right, Bynum has also been heard in a number of recent Anthony Braxton units, including those brilliant Iridium shows I covered here, here and here in March. In the photo above, snapped by Scott…
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The Los Angeles Master Chorale at Alice Tully Hall ("Steve Reich @ 70")The Kirov Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall (Shostakovich finale)The New York Times, October 31, 2006 Playlist: Boris Christoff – Lebendige Vergangenheit (Preiser) Richard Wagner – Das Rheingold – Hans Hotter, Gustav Neidlinger, Rudolf Lustig, Ludwig Weber, Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele/Joseph Keilberth (Testament, due…
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CD review: C.P.E Bach – Symphonies Nos. 1-4 (H. 663-66); Cello Concerto in A (H. 439)Allison McGillivray, cellist; English Concert, conducted by Andrew ManzeHarmonia Mundi France 907403; CDThe New York Times, October 29, 2006(ArkivMusic, Barnes & Noble)
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Out late last night and gruesomely squashed by work today, I’m not going to be able to reflect on last night’s set by Cecil Taylor, Henry Grimes and Pheeroan akLaff at Iridium in time to persuade fence sitters that this is almost without question the most significant, satisfying band hit by Taylor that this city…
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I’ve posted a few times recently about my pal and TONY colleague Hank Shteamer’s blog, Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches. When I dropped by there earlier tonight, I was reminded all over again why I hope everyone out there takes a minute to head over that way. The overall tone of Hank’s posts is a…
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Valery Gergiev returned to Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center this week, to resume the complete Shostakovich symphony cycle he launched here last spring with the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. (Reviews of the earlier concerts are here, here, here and here.) Gergiev is finishing the cycle in three concerts…
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The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully HallThe New York Times, October 23, 2006 ===== Sunday night’s concert at Zankel Hall by Steve Reich and Musicians proved revelatory in an unexpected way. Not for the video-aided performances of Cello Counterpoint by Maya Beiser and Piano/Video Phase by David Cossin: these were expected…
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CD review: Anthony Coleman – Pushy BluenessDoug Wieselman, clarinetist; Marco Cappelli, guitarist; Jim Pugliese, percussionist; Joseph Kubera, pianist; Anthony Coleman, keyboardist; Tilt Brass BandTzadik TZ 8024; CDThe New York Times, October 22, 2006(ArkivMusic, Barnes & Noble, Tzadik)
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Xian Zhang, the New York Philharmonic’s associate conductor, cuts a diminutive figure on the podium, but good lord, what amazingly powerful sounds she coaxed out of the orchestra on Saturday night! Practically everyone I know was at the Steve Reich All-Stars affair at Carnegie Hall — apart from Bruce Hodges, who was seated across the…
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A few days ago, I linked up to the blog my friend and Time Out New York colleague Hank Shteamer maintains for his band, while offering excuses for not mentioning the band’s name. And already there’s a further development: Hank has launched a new blog, Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches, devoted exclusively to his voracious…
Night After Night 