| Date and venue | Title | Submitted by |
|---|---|---|
| 17-May-2013 Sydney Opera House: Concert Hall | Tchaikovsky, Strauss and Walton: Ashkenazy's favourites with Sydney Symphony | Oliver Brett |
A concert entitled “Askenazy’s Favourites” is always going to be intriguing, but perhaps more intriguing are his choices. If asked to pick what symphony Ashkenazy would choose to go in this concert, I would have thought that most people would have chosen a large-scale Romantic symphony, maybe Brahms, Rachmaninov or Mahler. How many people would have thought that Ashkenazy would have chosen Walton’s First Symphony?Read full review... | ||
| 15-Feb-2013 Usher Hall | RSNO: Valentine's Night with Christian Kluxen and Olga Kern | Alan Coady |
The contention that black and white are not colours felt doubtful upon seeing the customary RSNO white tie and black tails reversed; the truly colourful array of dresses offsetting white tuxedos allowed one to see, more easily than usual, the gender balance of the RSNO – which, in this Valentine’s concert, seemed about 50–50.
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| 26-Jan-2013 Lincoln Center: Avery Fisher Hall | Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky, Lutoslawski and Shostakovich | Alan Yu, alanayu.wordpress.com |
I often think of Lorin Maazel as the American equivalent of Sir Colin Davis – they are both in their eighties and they both deliver steady, reliable interpretations that let the music speak for itself. Maazel’s return performance with the New York Philharmonic on Saturday re-affirmed my view.
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| 14-Jul-2012 Blossom Music Center | Tchaikovsky at Blossom Festival: Sinaisky and Müller-Schott make Cleveland Orchestra debuts | Timothy Robson |
Blossom Music Center, summer home of The Cleveland Orchestra, is about 25 miles south of Cleveland, just to the north of Akron, in a beautiful wooded area nestled next to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Opening in 1968, Blossom presents a wide variety of concerts, both orchestral and popular, and theatrical events each summer. The parabola-shaped Pavilion, with its stained wood stage walls, sits at the bottom of a natural hill, thus creating a grassy amphitheater for audience members who wish to sit outside under the stars.Read full review... | ||
| 21-Feb-2012 Barbican Centre: Hall | Russian Masterworks at the Barbican with Gergiev | James Potter |
Russian was the theme and Russian the temperament in this concert, part of an ongoing series at the Barbican. This particular group of "Gergiev's Russians" consisted of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, in music spanning seventy years of compositional history. The works played tonight offered different perspectives on the idea of musical classicism, a concept central to the formation of twentieth-century Russian music. Each composer was preoccupied in a different way with the classical traditions that preceded them.
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| 10-Jun-2011 Hong Kong Cultural Centre: Concert Hall | The Hong Kong Philharmonic in “Pictures from Russia” | Alan Yu, alanayu.wordpress.com |
The pictures in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance on Friday, dubbed “Pictures from Russia”, were clear, perfectly hued and daubed with rich colour. The command that conductor Carolyn Kuan held over the Orchestra produced an evening of electric excitement.
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| 27-May-2011 Dr Anton Philipszaal | Xian Zhang's triumphant return to The Hague | Renée Reitsma, ypgtcm.blogspot.com |
In 2010 Xian Zhang debuted as a conductor of The Hague’s Residentieorkest to rave reviews. Her performance tonight definitely justified those reviews, she and the orchestra were on excellent form. Of course it should not be important to talk about a performer’s gender, but as a female fan of classical music, I certainly found it refreshing to see a female conductor in charge of an orchestra, especially one with such prodigious skill. At times her energy and movement reminded me of another one of Holland’s favourite miniature conductors; Yannick Nézet-Seguin, whom I very much admire.
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