In just one week, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has been completely transformed. President Trump purged the center’s board of all Biden appointees and installed himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. …
Broadway OPERATION MINCEMEAT A sneaky compassion lies at the heart of this caper of a show, a deliciously eccentric London import that won the 2024 Olivier Award for best new musical. Starring the original West End cast, it’s a riff on a bizarre true story from World War II, when …
Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, Tetiana Martyniuk-Bahrii, a violinist in the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, has lived the life of a refugee, moving from apartment to apartment with her husband and 14-year-old daughter, Olesia. She has watched the war unfold from a distance, fearing for the safety of …
One of the most interesting and satisfying concerts of the classical music season was last week at Carnegie Hall. The conductor Raphaël Pichon, a rising star in Europe, led a version of “Mein Traum,” his collage of works by Schubert and some contemporaries, an intermissionless program that broods and rages …
Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Works Seong-Jin Cho, piano (Deutsche Grammophon) Seong-Jin Cho’s 2017 Debussy recording was full of bold colors and sharply delineated textures, which suited that composer perfectly. So I had high hopes for this set of Ravel’s complete solo piano works. Surprisingly, it leaves a more mixed …
Hygge lives on at the Minnesota Orchestra. Visitors stepping into Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis on a recent, frigid Saturday were greeted with a roaring fireplace and Scandi furniture strewed with blankets. Snacks were on sale from Ingebretsen’s, a local purveyor of Nordic goods, and pastries from the nearby Krown Bakery. …
When the musicians of the San Antonio Philharmonic gathered on a recent night to rehearse Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the mood was celebratory. The Philharmonic, which was formed after the demise in 2022 of the San Antonio Symphony, the city’s 83-year-old ensemble, had reason to be hopeful. The ensemble had found …
A few years ago, during the Ojai Music Festival in California, the pianist Vikingur Olafsson was having a couple of beers with the composer John Adams when he said, “John, you know that you are going to write me a piano concerto, don’t you?” Adams paused for several seconds, took …
On the cover of his latest album, Alexandre Kantorow’s left arm falls back behind a piano bench. A wave builds slowly from his dangled palm, up through the straight line of his bare forearm, and crests around his shoulders before breaking, down through his arched neck and deeply bowed head, …
On a stormy day more than 34,000 feet above Paris, Air France Flight 1205 prepared to make its descent. Flight attendants began checking seat backs and tray tables, and passengers groggily emerged from naps. Then a voice from the cockpit came over the intercom, offering an update on the weather …
