Month: February 2022

Updated

Conductor Valery Gergiev and pianist Denis Matsuev, both of whom have been vocal supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin, will not perform with the Vienna Philharmonic this weekend at New York’s Carnegie Hall and next week in Florida.

Gergiev was to have conducted the orchestra on Feb. 25, 26 and 27 in New York, and on March 1 and 2 in Naples, FL. Matsuev had been scheduled to play in the both locations. Demonstrations were planned to protest their Carnegie Hall appearances.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Metropolitan Opera and Philadelphia Orchestra, will replace Gergiev in New York, conducting the previously announced programs, devoted mainly to Russian repertory. Seong-Jin Cho, the South Korean winner of the 2015 Chopin Competition, will replace Matsuev in the Feb. 25 Carnegie Hall concert, playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor.

Replacements for the conductor and pianist have not been announced for the Florida dates, per Artis – Naples, the host venue.

“[T]he extraordinary last-minute decision to replace a star maestro apparently over his ties to Mr. Putin – just days after the Philharmonic’s chairman insisted that Gergiev would be appearing as an artist, not a politician – reflected the rapidly intensifying global uproar” over the invasion of Ukraine launched by Putin this week, The New York Times’ Javier C. Hernández reports:

“A great deal of private pressure was applied to the hall to lead to this outcome. It is not yet clear if US Government pressure was also involved. This is the worst possible outcome for Gergiev, who will now face aditional demands from his Munich [Philharmonic] employers to distance himself from the Ukraine aggression,” the British music journalist Norman Lebrecht writes on his Slipped Disc blog:

Breaking: Carnegie Hall drops Gergiev

Lebrecht, citing a report from Robert Braunmüller of the Munich newspaper Abendzeitung, writes that the mayor of the city has told Gergiev that he must denounce the Ukraine invasion by Feb. 28 or lose his post as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic:

Munich to Gergiev: You have 3 days to condemn Putin or get fired

Lebrecht also reports that the Berlin Philharmonic will dedicate its coming performances of Mahler’s Second Symphony (“Resurrection”) to the victims of the Russian invasion. The announcement includes this statement from the orchestra’s chief conductor, the Russian-born Austrian Kirill Petrenko: “Putin’s insidious attack on Ukraine, which violates international law, is a knife in the back of the entire peaceful world. It is also an attack on the arts, which, as we know, unite across all borders. I am in complete solidarity with all my Ukrainian colleagues and can only hope that all artists will stand together for freedom, sovereignty and against aggression.”

Berlin Phil dedicates concerts to Ukraine victims

The Times’ Hernández reports that two other European arts entities, La Scala in Milan and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, will cancel appearances by Gergiev if he does not denounce the invasion:

Classical Grammy Awards nominations for Jon Batiste, a pianist most widely known as the bandleader on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and Curtis Stewart, a violinist who has worked in classical, jazz and other musical genres, have prompted protests from a number of classical musicians.

Batiste’s “Movement 11” was nominated in the Best Contemporary Classical category, Stewart’s album “Of Power” for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

Both artists are conservatory-trained – Batiste at the Juilliard School, Stewart at the Eastman School of Music – and both have performed with classical ensembles and in classical series; but neither’s career has followed a conventional classical trajectory.

Apostolos Paraskevas, a professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, told The Observer’s Dalya Alberge that nominating works that aren’t classical by long-accepted definition “jeopardi[z]es the credibility of the Grammy Awards.” Asgerdur Sigurdardottir, a talent manager who works with classical guitarists, said that those who vote on Grammy nominations are not required to be well-versed in the styles they are judging, so “people that have no classical expertise are able to vote in the classical fields.”

Stewart told Alberge that he seeks to “connect a divide that has hurt and ostracised classical music from a world of listeners for decades. . . . My work attempts to draw question marks to categories. I think of myself as a classical musician.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/feb/20/how-is-this-classical-music-composers-fury-at-grammys-shortlist

Michael Butterman, currently music director of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra in Louisiana and the Boulder Philharmonic in Colorado, has been named the new music director of the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra, effective in July.

Butterman, who grew up in Northern Virginia and holds degrees from the University of Virginia and Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, was selected from 194 applicants for the Williamsburg podium, vacant since Janna Hymes left in 2019.

“The signing of Butterman is considered a real coup by the symphony,” Jon Krapfl, chair of Williamsburg Symphony’s conductor search committee, stated in a news release on Butterman’s appointment. “The new music director is a very experienced and well-known conductor who has conducted several major orchestras in the United States and has significantly enhanced the stature of orchestras for whom he has served as music director.”

In the release, the conductor was quoted as saying, “I was immediately impressed by the musicianship and collegial spirit that I felt from the [Williamsburg Symphony] musicians,” and lauding the “mutually supportive relationship” among the orchestra’s musicians, management and board.

Butterman formerly served as the Rochester Philharmonic’s principal conductor for education and community engagement, resident conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony and Opera Southwest in Albuquerque, NM. He also is the longtime music director of the Pennsylvania Philharmonic, an ensemble that focuses on education.

He has guest-conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Houston Symphony Orchestra. He was a joint director of UVa’s Virginia Glee Club from 1989 to 1991, and led concerts at the Wintergreen Music Festival in Nelson County.

Thomas Dausgaard, the Danish conductor who sparked an uproar last month following his sudden resignation as music director of the Seattle Symphony, is being replaced at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra by the English conductor and composer Mark Wigglesworth, effective in September.

Dausgaard has been absent from the Glasgow-based orchestra for nearly two years “due to Covid and other considerations,” Norman Lebrecht reports on his Slipped Disc blog:

BBC dumps chief conductor

George Crumb, the composer of some of the most memorable – and topical – American works of the late-20th century, has died at 92.

Crumb’s “Black Angels,” written in 1970 in response to the Vietnam War, and “Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale)” of 1971, one of the first concert works addressing environmental concerns, as well as one of the first to expose many listeners to electroacoustic composition, are perhaps Crumb’s best-known pieces. His orchestral suite “Echoes of Time and the River” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1968.

He also was a teacher of composition, at the University of Pennsylvania for most of his academic career. Among his students were Jennifer Higdon, Osvaldo Golijov and the late Christopher Rouse.

An obituary by The New York Times’ Vivien Schweitzer:

Among this country’s founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson was the best-known musician. He played the violin, amassed a large collection of scores, many acquired during his years as US Minister to France, and presided over family musicales at Monticello, his estate near Charlottesville.

Now, from research by the baroque violinist David McCormick, we learn that the sons of Jefferson and his enslaved concubine Sally Hemings, as well as other relatives of Hemings, also were accomplished musicians.

McCormick, a Shenandoah University alumnus, founding artistic director of the Charlottesville baroque ensemble Three Notch’d Road and executive director of Early Music America, writes for EMA’s magazine about the family fiddle bands organized by the sons of Jefferson and Hemings, and their cousins in the Scott family, much in demand to play for dances and other social gatherings in 19th-century Virginia and Ohio:

http://www.earlymusicamerica.org/emag-feature-article/rock-reel-monticellos-black-fiddlers/

McCormick has produced a multimedia project, “Monticello’s Black Fiddlers,” accessible in March via http://earlymusiccville.org Several events stemming from his research are planned in coming months at Monticello (http://www.monticello.org).

(via http://www.artsjournal.com)

Valentina Peleggi conducting
with Stefan Jackiw, violin
Jan. 29-30, Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Energy Center
(reviewed from online stream, posted Feb. 2)

The Richmond Symphony’s first Masterworks program of the new year was a Viennese evening, but with only occasional and subtle hints of the waltz.

The program opened with the US premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s “Alma’s Songs without Words,” which the symphony’s music director, Valentina Peleggi, described as a “free transcription” of three Lieder (art-songs) by Alma Schindler Mahler.

Alma (1879-1964) was one of the most thoroughly networked figures in 20th-century culture – daughter of a well-known landscape painter (Emil Jakob Schindler); pupil of two prominent composers (Josef Labor and Alexander von Zemlinsky); wife of an even more prominent composer and conductor (Gustav Mahler); subsequently married to leading lights of modern architecture (Walter Gropius) and literature (Franz Werfel); involved romantically with Zemlinsky and the painter Oskar Kokoschka; and sometime soulmate of the painter Gustav Klimt. Her daughter, the short-lived Manon Gropius, was the “angel” to whom Alban Berg dedicated his Violin Concerto. Alma’s salons in Vienna, and later in Los Angeles, where she and Werfel settled after fleeing the Nazi takeover of Austria, brought together many of the creative and intellectual luminaries of her time.

Her music – mostly Lieder, piano pieces and chamber works, all dating from the early 1900s – reflects the intensely romantic, soulful yet world-weary tone of Viennese music in its pre-World War I fin de siècle epoch.

Panufnik, who also has a lineage in modern musical history (her father was the Polish-born British composer Andrzej Panufnik), sonically brightens the tone of Alma’s songs in an eventful orchestration that, following a richly burnished cello solo, played here by Neal Cary, apportions melodies democratically among winds and strings. While rooted in the songs’ romantic style, Panufnik’s treatment of them ventures well beyond old Vienna into a soundscape of neo-impressionist tone color and atmospheric scoring for winds, harp, celesta and percussion.

Peleggi’s reading of Panufnik’s orchestration played up its post-Viennese, coloristic qualities, with winds and percussion sounding as prominently as strings through much of the piece. (Or so it sounded in the audio mix of the online stream of this performance.) The moody lyricism of the original songs came through clearly, but more as an undertone than as a foreground characteristic.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), the Viennese prodigy who became a leading composer of film scores in 1930s and ’40s Hollywood, straddled the old and new worlds in his music, especially in the concert works he produced in the last decade of his life. The most durable of these compositions was his Violin Concerto in D major, written for Jascha Heifetz, introduced in 1947.

Heifetz cast a long shadow in American music. His brilliant, tonally sharp-focused, temperamentally febrile sound was the model of virtuosity for generations of violinists. Composers who wrote for him had to reckon with, if not outright cater to, that sound. Korngold’s concerto is one of the few Heifetz vehicles to have thrived without its original protagonist, because it is more than virtuoso fiddling with orchestral padding.

Stefan Jackiw, the featured soloist in the Korngold, summoned all the Heifetz-scale brilliance packed into the piece’s high-register phrases and quick-fingered filigree, but devoted as much or more care to the concerto’s lyrical and colorful qualities.

The violinist, as well as conductor Peleggi, clearly remembered that this music is a product of Hollywood – Korngold lifted some of the concerto’s themes from his film scores – and that much of the piece, especially its busy final movement, is a marriage of Mitteleuropische late-romanticism with the swaggering energy of mid-20th century America.

Jackiw’s willingness to balance solo pyrotechnics with more collaborative interactions between the violin and orchestra, and his audible determination to let this music breathe, made this an unusually fleshed-out, fully realized interpretation of the Korngold concerto.

The program closed, back in Vienna but predating Mahler (Alma or Gustav), with Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor. This was Peleggi’s deepest dive to date in her Richmond tenure into the German romantic canon, and the results were both gratifying and revealing.

The conductor captured and sustained the pulse that propels Brahms’ music, deeper than mere rhythm, sturdy enough to accommodate expressive shifts of tempo (which Peleggi applied fairly liberally) and to be sensed even in the symphony’s more dramatic and assertive passages.

Peleggi has spent much of her career leading voices, in both choral music and opera, and her ear for song-like phrasing and chorus-like ensemble playing was evident throughout the performance, from the full-hearted lyricism of the symphony’s slow movement to the anthemic big theme of its finale.

The stream of the program remains accessible through June 30, 2022. Single-concert access: $30. Full Masterworks season access: $180. Details: (800) 514-3849 (ETIX); http://www.richmondsymphony.com

Black History Month, which began as Negro History Week, organized in 1926 by the historian Carter G. Woodson, is each year’s premier occasion for revivals and re-evaluations of the culture and artistry of Black Americans.

In classical music for many years, it also was a calendar ghetto into which performances of works by Black composers were packed. (January’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday has been used similarly.) In the wake of the recent racial-justice movement, the music finally is being freed from those mid-winter bonds.

In any case, it’s productive and rewarding to spend Black History Month exploring in some depth a musical culture that over the past century has become so deeply embedded that much of what we hear as “American” in music – popular, classical and most every sound in between – is substantially African-American in its DNA. (As are our language, food, fashion and numerous other cultural manifestations.)

Classical critics and media typically spend this month acquainting listeners with music by Black composers, from William Grant Still and George Walker (whose centenary is being celebrated this year), to long-neglected figures such as Florence Price and Julius Eastman, to living creators such as Adolphus Hailstork and Jessie Montgomery.

Worthy endeavors – but this month I’ve decided to take a different path: Collecting 10 examples that tap deep roots of Black American music, folk and vernacular source matter for many composers writing for orchestras, chamber groups and recitalists.

In the following audio clips, you’ll encounter some familiar names – the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Scott Joplin, James P. Johnson; but most of the performers and pieces that I’ve chosen are little-known outside of specialist circles. Six of the 10 are of religious music, which shouldn’t be a surprise – most African-American musical styles can be traced back to the church. More surprising, perhaps, are the number of selections that came from or passed through Virginia, an under-appreciated seedbed of Black music.

In making my choices, I listened for musical essences: Instrumental and vocal techniques and expressive effects, treatments of phrasing, rhythm, tone-color and dynamics, solo-and-group interactions, that musicians and listeners – of all races around the world, by now – almost reflexively recognize as Black American.

Here’s what I came up with:

Blind Willie Johnson: “Dark Was the Night” – Johnson (1897-1945), a blues and gospel singer-guitarist from Texas, made this recording in 1927. Closely related to the field holler, the spontaneous, wordless solo vocalizing of rural Black Southerners, the song can serve as a primer in the phrasing, note-bending and contrasting rhythms (here, quite subtle) characteristic of some West African music and many styles of Black music in the Americas. Plucked from obscurity during the 1960s blues revival, “Dark Was the Night” has become a practice or warmup piece for many guitarists, rather like the Bach solo sonatas and partitas are for violinists. Picked up since the ’70s by some major musical influencers, notably the Kronos Quartet and Ry Cooder, the song has become a Black aural lode-star for contemporary musicians working in a variety of genres:

Traditional spiritual: “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray” – A 1909 recording by a male quartet from the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the ensemble from Fisk University in Nashville that introduced the spirituals to US and European Whites in the decades following the Civil War. Treble elaborations atop close-harmony group melodizing became standard practice in Black gospel song and its stylistic inheritors in rhythm and blues. Something quite like this also can be heard in trumpet, clarinet and other horn solos of the first generation of jazz musicians, and in the works of classical composers influenced by jazz in the 1920s and ’30s:

Charles A. Tindley: “The Storm Is Passing Over” – Tindley (1851-1933), a Philadelphia Methodist preacher and musician, wrote two songs that are foundational in American music: “I’ll Overcome Someday,” which evolved into the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Overcome;” and “The Storm Is Passing Over,” published in 1905, considered by many to be the first modern Black gospel song. The Donald Vails Choraleers’ 1976 recording became so popular and widely imitated that Vails is sometimes mistakenly identified as the song’s composer:

Scott Joplin: “Magnetic Rag” – Joplin (1868-1917) was the greatest of the ragtime pianist-composers of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. This is his last and most ambitiously scaled piano rag, subtitled “Synchopations Classiques,” composed in 1914, three years after he completed his opera “Treemonisha.” Joplin made a piano roll of the piece, which sadly sounds stiff and uninflected – a chronic shortcoming of that medium. Here instead is the 1979 recording by Joshua Rifkin, the pianist and musicologist who led the modern revival of Joplin’s music:

Arizona Dranes: “Crucifixion” – Dranes (1889/91?-1963), a Texas singer and pianist, was one of the first Black Pentecostal musicians to make records, and one of many church musicians of her generation to adopt the ragtime piano style – as did the “Piedmont” blues artists in the southeastern US, who in turn would influence White country and bluegrass musicians in the region. (Ragtime changed everything in American music.) This rare solo-piano recording by Dranes, made in the late 1920s, is an example of the “church march” processional that is traditional in many Black Pentecostal services:

The Sparkling Four: “They Won’t Believe in Me” – From the 19th-century flowering of Creole culture in New Orleans and other Southern port cities to the present day, Black musicians in the US frequently have inflected their styles with Caribbean and Latin-American accents, widely employed in jazz and some classical works. Here, more unusually, musical cultures cross in a Caribbean-accented Black gospel song by The Sparkling Four, one of many male quartets active in the Hampton Roads ports of southeastern Virginia in the early 20th century. The group recorded the song for Okeh Records, at the time a leading US label for “race” and regional/subcultural musics, during 1929 sessions in Richmond:

Thomas Wiggins: “The Battle of Manassas” – Sui generis in Black American music, arguably so in this country’s music generally, Wiggins (1849-1908), born blind and enslaved in Georgia, billed as “Blind Tom, the Eighth Wonder of the World,” was one of the most popular musicians in mid- and late-19th century America. A sometime Virginia resident and superstar of Richmond’s music halls in the 1860s, Wiggins was famed for his piano virtuosity and prodigious memory, said to retain thousands of tunes. His compositions range from dance pieces and marches to tone poems. The Civil War-vintage “Battle of Manassas,” an American echo of the venerable European battaglia genre, is perhaps his most venturesome work, couched in a harmonic language years ahead of its time – as if Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had been re-imagined by Charles Ives. Here’s the 1999 recording by John Davis, the pianist who launched a modern revival of Wiggins’ music:

R. Nathaniel Dett: “His Song” from “In the Bottoms” – Dett (1882-1943) was a Canadian-born composer, pianist, arranger of spirituals and choral director at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) from 1926 to 1932, among other academic posts. “His Song,” the second movement of the 1913 suite “In the Bottoms,” immerses a tune that could be a prototype of the bluesy torch song in the harmonies and tone colors of the then-current French impressionist style. It’s played here by Clipper Erickson from his 2015 collection of Dett’s solo-piano works:

James P. Johnson: “You’ve Got to Be Modernistic” – Johnson (1894-1955) was the master of stride piano, the energized and elaborated offspring of ragtime. In retrospect, he may rate as the most influential US musician of the 1920s: He wrote “Charleston,” the decade’s theme song; his technique and compositional style resonates in much of George Gershwin’s music, as well as that of generations of jazz pianists. Here’s Johnson playing “You’ve Got to Be Modernistic,” introduced in 1929, recorded the following year:

Maggie Ingram: “Richmond, Virginia Flood” – Ingram (1930-2015), a daughter of Georgia sharecroppers, was a widely traveled gospel singer who ultimately settled in Richmond in the 1960s. She wrote this testimony-in-song in response to a 1985 flood, and recorded the piece a year later with her family ensemble, the Ingramettes. It’s a classic of oration that segues into or alternates with song (recitative and aria, in opera parlance), a widespread practice in the Black church, especially in Pentecostal congregations, that has migrated into jazz poetry, rap/hip-hop and various experimental or avant-garde genres:

Classical performances in and around Richmond, with selected events elsewhere in Virginia and the Washington area. Program information, provided by presenters, is updated as details become available. Adult ticket prices are listed; senior, student/youth, military, group and other discounts may be offered.

Each listing includes primary Covid-19 safety protocols for the event. Contact presenters or venues for detailed requirements.

Feb. 1 (8 p.m.)
Williamsburg Library Theatre, 515 Scotland St.
Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg:
Escher Quartet
Mozart: Quartet in C major, K. 465 (“Dissonance”)
Bartók: Quartet No. 3
Beethoven: Quartet in E flat major, Op. 127
George Walker: “Lyric for Strings”
$25 (waiting list)
masks required
(757) 741-3300 (Williamsburg Regional Library)
http://chambermusicwilliamsburg.org

Feb. 1 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Vocal Arts DC:
Will Liverman, baritone
Myra Huang, piano
Ravel: “Don Quichotte à Dulcinée”
works TBA by Richard Strauss, Howard Swanson
$50
proof of vaccination, photo ID & masks required
(800) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

Feb. 2 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Richard Becker, piano & speaker
Becker: “Nine Inventions to the Muses”
works TBA by Mozart, Liszt, Chopin
reading of poems from Becker’s “On Sunday Afternoon”
free; ticket registration required
masks required
(804) 289-8980
http://modlin.richmond.edu

Feb. 4 (7:30 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Boulevard, Norfolk
Virginia Symphony Pops
Adam Turner conducting
“The Music of the Bee Gees”
$25-$110
masks required
(757) 892-6366
http://virginiasymphony.org

Feb. 3 (7 p.m.)
Feb. 5 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Gemma New conducting
Vaughan Williams: “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”
Missy Mazzoli: Violin Concerto
Jennifer Koh, violin
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E flat major
$15-$109
proof of vaccination, photo ID & masks required
(800) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

Feb. 4 (8 p.m.)
Capital One Hall, 7750 Capital One Tower Road, Tysons
National Symphony Orchestra
Gemma New conducting
Vaughan Williams: “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”
Missy Mazzoli: Violin Concerto
Jennifer Koh, violin
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E flat major
$29-$69
proof of vaccination, photo ID & masks required
(800) 653-8000 (Ticketmaster)
http://capitalonehall.com/events

Feb. 5 (8 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Energy Center, Sixth and Grace streets, Richmond
Richmond Symphony Pops
conductor TBA
Tony DeSare & Capathia Jenkins, guest stars
“Jazz & Swing – a Classic Tribute”
$10-$82
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(800) 514-3849 (ETIX)
http://www.richmondsymphony.com

Feb. 5 (8 p.m.)
Feb. 6 (2 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Virginia Opera
Adam Turner conducting
Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer: “Three Decembers”
Karen Ziemba (Madeline Mitchell)
Cecilia Violetta López (Beatrice Mitchell)
Efraín Solís (Charlie Mitchell)
Lawrence Edelson, stage director
in English, English captions
$45-$115
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result & masks required
(866) 673-7282
http://vaopera.org

Feb. 6 (3 p.m.)
Capital One Hall, 7750 Capital One Tower Road, Tysons
American Youth Philharmonic
Timothy Dixon conducting
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major
soloist TBA
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor
free
proof of vaccination, photo ID & masks required
(800) 653-8000 (Ticketmaster)
http://capitalonehall.com/events

Feb. 9 (7 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
VCU Guitar Studio
program TBA
free
masks required
(804) 828-1169
http://arts.vcu.edu/events

Feb. 10 (6:30 p.m.)
Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, Overbrook Road at Ownby Lane, Richmond
Richmond Symphony
conductor TBA
program TBA
$30
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(800) 514-3849 (ETIX)
http://www.richmondsymphony.com

Feb. 11 (8 p.m.)
Feb. 13 (2:30 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Energy Center, Sixth and Grace streets, Richmond
Virginia Opera
Adam Turner conducting
Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer: “Three Decembers”
Karen Ziemba (Madeline Mitchell)
Cecilia Violetta López (Beatrice Mitchell)
Efraín Solís (Charlie Mitchell)
Lawrence Edelson, stage director
in English, English captions
$12.50-$85
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(866) 673-7282
http://vaopera.org

Feb. 12 (2 p.m.)
Gellman Room, Richmond Public Library, First and Franklin streets
Mark Valenti, piano
works TBA by Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Barber
free
masks required
(804) 646-7223
http://rvalibrary.org/events/gellman-concerts

Feb. 12 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Feb. 13 (3:30 p.m.)
Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center, Charlottesville High School, 1400 Melbourne Road
Charlottesville Symphony
Benjamin Rous conducting
Tchaikovsky: Serenade in C major for strings
Copland: “Appalachian Spring” Suite
$10-$45
masks required
(434) 924-3376
http://music.virginia.edu/events

Feb. 12 (7:30 p.m.)
Feb. 13 (3 p.m.)
Shaftman Performance Hall, Jefferson Center, 541 Luck Ave., Roanoke
Roanoke Symphony Orchestra
David Stewart Wiley conducting
“Vienna Valentine”
Schubert: Symphony No. 8 in B minor (“Unfinished”)
Suppé: “Light Cavalry” Overture
Johann Strauss II: “Pizzicato Polka”
Johann Strauss II: “Thunder and Lightning Polka”
Johann Strauss II: “Vienna Blood”
Johann Strauss II: “On the Beautiful Blue Danube”
$34-$56
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result & masks required
(540) 343-9127
http://rso.com

Feb. 13 (3 p.m.)
Vlahcevic Concert Hall, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Park Avenue at Harrison Street, Richmond
Rennolds Chamber Concerts:
Imani Winds
program TBA
$30 (general admission)
masks required
(804) 828-1169
http://arts.vcu.edu/event/mary-anne-rennolds-chamber-music-series-imani-winds/

Feb. 13 (3 p.m.)
Altria Theater, Main and Laurel streets, Richmond
Richmond Symphony
George Daugherty conducting
“Bugs Bunny at the Symphony!”
$10-$82
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(800) 514-3849 (ETIX)
http://www.richmondsymphony.com

Feb. 13 (3 p.m.)
Good Luck Cellars, 1025 Goodluck Road, Kilmarnock
Feb. 19 (7 p.m.)
Feb. 20 (3 p.m.)
Westminster Presbyterian Church, 4103 Monument Ave., Richmond
Capitol Opera Richmond
RVA Baroque
conductor TBA
Monteverdi: “The Coronation of Poppea”
cast TBA
$30 (Kilmarnock); $25 (Richmond)
masks required
(804) 840-7878
http://capitoloperarichmond.com

Feb. 13 (3 p.m.)
Capital One Hall, 7750 Capital One Tower Road, Tysons
National Philharmonic
Piotr Gajewski conducting
Debussy: “La Mer”
Holst: “The Planets”
$45-$99
proof of vaccination, photo ID & masks required
(800) 653-8000 (Ticketmaster)
http://capitalonehall.com/events

Feb. 15 (7:30 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Tuesday Evening Concerts:
Natasha Paremski, piano
Chopin: Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60
Chopin: Mazurka in B major, Op. 63, No. 1
Thomas Adès: Mazurka, Op. 27, No. 1
Chopin: Mazurka in F minor, Op. 63, No. 2
Adès: Mazurka, Op. 27, No. 3
Chopin: Scherzo in C sharp minor, Op. 39
Mussorgsky: “Pictures at an Exhibition”
$12-$39
masks required
(434) 924-3376
http://tecs.org

Feb. 15 (7:30 p.m.)
Cramton Auditorium, Howard University, 2455 Sixth St. NW, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda conducting
“Celebrating George Walker at 100”
Walker: Sinfonia No. 1
Walker: Violin Sonata No. 1
Gregory Walker, violin
Natalia Kazaryan, piano
Walker: Sinfonia No. 4
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major
free
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(804) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

Feb. 17 (7 p.m.)
Feb. 18 (11:30 a.m.)
Feb. 19 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda conducting
Weber: “Oberon” Overture
Haydn: Sinfonia concertante in B flat major, Hob. I:105
Marissa Regni, violin
David Hardy, cello
Nicholas Stovall, oboe
Sue Heineman, bassoon
Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G minor
$15-$109
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(804) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

Feb. 18 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Philip Setzer, violin
David Finckel, cello
Wu Han, piano
Haydn: Piano Trio in D minor, Hob. XV:23
Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70, No. 1 (“Ghost”)
Dvořák: Piano Trio in F minor, Op. 65
$35 (general admission)
masks required
(804) 289-8980
http://modlin.richmond.edu

Feb. 18 (7:30 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
Feb. 19 (7:30 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Boulevard, Norfolk
Feb. 20 (2:30 p.m.)
Sandler Arts Center, 201 S. Market St., Virginia Beach
Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Wilkins conducting
Jim Beckel: Toccata for Orchestra
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor
Alexi Kinney, violin
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor
$25-$110
masks required
(757) 892-6366
http://virginiasymphony.org

Feb. 19 (8 p.m.)
Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Zimmerman conducting
Adolphus Hailstork: “Essay for Strings”
Dvořák: Serenade in D minor, Op. 44, for winds
Christopher Rouse: “Ku-Ka-Ilimoku”
Arvo Pärt: “Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten”
Sylvie Bodorová: “Bruromano” for guitar, double-bass & strings
Jason Vieaux, guitar
Aaron Clay, double-bass
$45-$70
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result & masks required
(703) 993-2787
http://cfa.gmu.edu

Feb. 20 (8 p.m.)
The Loft at HofGarden, 2818 W. Broad St., Richmond
Classical Revolution RVA:
artists TBA
“Classical Incarnations”
program TBA
donations requested
masks required
(804) 424-3303 (HofGarden)
http://www.classicalrevolutionrva.com/events

Feb. 20 (3 p.m.)
The Barns at Wolf Trap, 1635 Trap Road, Vienna
Miró Quartet
Haydn: Quartet in D major, Op. 64, No. 5 (“Lark”)
Kevin Puts: “Home”
Ravel: Quartet in F major
$44
proof of vaccination or negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(703) 255-1868
http://wolftrap.org

Feb. 24 (7 p.m.)
Feb. 26 (8 p.m.)
Feb. 27 (3 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda conducting
J.S. Bach: “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049
Villa-Lobos: “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 4
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G major
Katerina Burton, soprano
$15-$109
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(804) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

Feb. 25 (7:30 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
Feb. 26 (7:30 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Boulevard, Norfolk
Virginia Symphony Pops
Byron Stripling conducting & trumpet
Carmen Bradford, vocalist
Leo Manzari, tap dancer
“Uptown Nights”
works TBA by Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, others
$25-$110
masks required
(757) 892-6366
http://virginiasymphony.org

Feb. 26 (2 p.m.)
Gellman Room, Richmond Public Library, First and Franklin streets
Greater Richmond Children’s Choir ensembles
Crystal Jonkman & Pete Curry directing
program TBA
free
masks required
(804) 646-7223
http://rvalibrary.org/events/gellman-concerts

Feb. 26 (8 p.m.)
Feb. 27 (3 p.m.)
Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Energy Center, Sixth and Grace streets, Richmond
Richmond Symphony
Valentina Peleggi conducting
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor
George Li, piano
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor
$10-$82
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(800) 514-3849 (ETIX)
http://www.richmondsymphony.com

Feb. 26 (8 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
John Mayhood & Shelby Sender, pianos
I-Jen Fang & Brian Smith, percussion
Zachary Wadsworth: “Four Laws” for percussion
Gabriela Lena Frank: “Danza de los Saqsampillos” for 2 marimbas
Stravinsky: “The Rite of Spring” (2 pianos & percussion arrangement)
free
masks required
(434) 924-3052
http://music.virginia.edu/events

Feb. 27 (3:30 p.m.)
Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
UVa Chamber Music Series:
Dan Sender, violin
Ayn Balija, viola
Peter Sparr, double-bass
Kelly Peral, oboe
Jiyeon Choi, clarinet
Elizabeth Roberts, bassoon
Prokofiev: Quintet in G minor, Op. 39, for winds & strings
Paganini: Duetto No. 3 for violin and bassoon
$15
masks required
(434) 924-3052
http://music.virginia.edu/events

Feb. 28 (7:30 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Renée Fleming, soprano
Emerson String Quartet
Simone Dinnerstein, piano
Uma Thurman, narrator
George Walker: “Lyric for Strings”
Philip Glass: “Mad Rush”
Barber: Quartet in B minor, Op. 11
André Previn & Tom Stoppard: “Penelope”
$69
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(804) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

March 2 (7:30 p.m.)
Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond
Garrick Ohlsson & Kirill Gerstein, piano duo
Thomas Adès: “Powder Her Face” Suite
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances
Busoni: “Fantasia Contrappuntistica”
Ravel: “La Valse”
$35 (general admission)
masks required
(804) 289-8980
http://modlin.richmond.edu

March 3 (7:30 p.m.)
Williamsburg Community Chapel, 3899 John Tyler Highway
Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra
conductor TBA
Kodály: “Dances of Galanta”
Joaquin Turina: “Danzas fantásticas,” Op. 22
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in C minor (“Organ”)
organist TBA
$55 (live attendance); $25 (online stream)
masks recommended
(757) 229-9857
http://williamsburgsymphony.org

March 3 (7:30 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
March 5 (7:30 p.m.)
Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Boulevard, Norfolk
March 6 (2:30 p.m.)
Sandler Arts Center, 201 S. Market St., Virginia Beach
Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Jacomo Bairos conducting
Kishi Bashi: “Improvisations on EO 9066”
Kishi Bashi, violin
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E minor
$25-$110
masks required
(757) 892-6366
http://virginiasymphony.org

March 3 (7 p.m.)
March 4 (8 p.m.)
March 5 (8 p.m.)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington
National Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda conducting
Dvořák: “The Wood-Dove”
Carlos Simon: “Tales – a Folklore Symphony”
Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major
James Ehnes, violin
$15-$99
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(804) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

March 4 (8 p.m.)
Ferguson Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News
The Ten Tenors
program TBA
$38-$58
masks required
(757) 594-8752
http://fergusoncenter.org

March 5 (7 p.m.)
Eisenhower Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Washington National Opera
Robert Spano conducting
“Written in Stone”
Jason Moran: “Chantal”
Alicia Hall Moran (Chantal)
Huang Ruo & David Henry Hwang: “The Rift”
Karen Vuong (Maya Lin)
Nina Yoshida Nelsen (Phuong Tran)
Christian Mark Gibbs (Grady Mitchell)
Rod Gilfry (Robert McNamara)
Kamala Sankaram & A.M. Homes: “Rise”
Vanessa Becerra (Alicia Hernández)
J’Nai Bridges (Officer Victoria Wilson)
Daryl Freedman (A Powerful Woman/Adelaide Johnson)
Danielle Talamantes (Maria Hernández)
Suzannah Waddington (The Monument)
Marc Bamuthi Joseph & Carlos Simon: “it all falls down”
J’Nai Bridges (Laurel)
Christian Mark Gibbs (Bklyn)
Alfred Walker (Mtchll)
James Robinson, stage director
in English, English captions
$35-$199
proof of vaccination or recent negative test result, photo ID & masks required
(804) 444-1324
http://kennedy-center.org

March 6 (4 p.m.)
Seventh Street Christian Church, Grove and Malvern avenues, Richmond
Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia:
Njioma Grevious, violin
Melissa Reardon, viola
Mary Boodell, flute
Charles Overton, harp
Saint-Saëns: Fantaisie in A major, Op. 124, for violin & harp
Debussy: Sonata for flute, viola & harp
David Bruce: “The Eye of Night” for flute, viola & harp
Onutė Narbutaitė: “Winterserenade” (after Schubert) for flute, violin & viola
$30
masks required
(804) 304-6312
http://cmscva.org

March 6 (3 p.m.)
Cave Spring United Methodist Church, 4505 Hazel Drive, Roanoke
Roanoke Symphony Orchestra winds
David Stewart Wiley, piano
Mozart: Quintet in E flat major, K. 452, for piano & winds
Mozart: Serenade in C minor, K. 388, for winds
$32-$49
masks recommended
(540) 343-9127
http://rso.com

March 6 (2 p.m.)
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington
Martin James Bartlett, piano
Rameau: Suite in A minor – VII. Gavotte et six doubles
François Couperin: “Les Barricades Mystérieuses”
François Couperin: “Le Tic Toc Choc ou Les Maillotins”
Haydn: Sonata in A flat major, Hob. XVI:46
Wagner-Liszt: “Tristan und Isolde” – “Liebestod”
Julian Anderson: “She Hears”
Rachmaninoff-Wild: “Where Beauty Dwells”
Rachmaninoff-Wild: Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14
Rachmaninoff: “Polka de W.R. Ravel – La Valse”
$40
proof of vaccination or recent negative test results, photo ID & masks required
(202) 784-9727 (Washington Performing Arts)
http://washingtonperformingarts.org