Opus 3 Artists

DREW PETERSEN NAMED STEINWAY ARTIST

6/7/2018

“When the sound of a Steinway can be anything I imagine it to be... this is Steinway's craft. But when the sound of a Steinway transcends my imagination... that is Steinway's magic.” -Drew Petersen

Review: Prokofiev for Two

6/1/2018

Sergei Babayan has truly made an inspiring gift to his long-time duo partner.

Austin Camerata splendidly fuses music and dance

5/25/2018

From where I sit, “Austin Camerata” translates into “unadulterated beauty.”

At least it did last night when the Austin chamber orchestra played the Rollins Studio Theatre at the Long Center for the Performing Arts.

But first, an historical note: Debra and Kevin Rollins, whose gift made the gray box theater possible, adored chamber music. And yet, during the first 10 years of the Long Center, not much of the genre has been heard in their Studio Theatre.

Music review: RSNO Europe Tour

5/21/2018

Peter Oundjian kicked off (or almost) his tenure as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s music director with an international tour – an energetic five-stop New Year trip to China just a few months into the role. And only weeks before his final season concert with the orchestra, he’s led the players overseas again, this time on a more laid-back but no less whistlestop tour across Europe, covering five cities, four countries and five concerts in five days – and joined, as on previous tours, by violinist Nicola Benedetti.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Patti LuPone steal the show at the Washington National Opera gala

5/21/2018

The two biggest ovations at Sunday’s Washington National Opera gala had nothing to do with opera and everything to do with beloved divas: The audience gave Ruth Bader Ginsburg raucous, sustained applause when it learned the Supreme Court justice was in the house, and Broadway icon Patti LuPone stole the show with a comic riff on “A Boy Like That” from “West Side Story.”
“Obviously, I’m not from the opera,” LuPone told the crowd — which was perfectly fine, given that the program was yet another centennial tribute to Leonard Bernstein.

Critical Acclaim

5/20/2018

Conductor candidate Daniel Meyer homes in on Russian favorites

5/14/2018

For the fastidious, it might have made sense for the Portland Symphony Orchestra to have ended its season with Robert Moody’s valedictory concerts, thereby drawing a neat line under his tenure before taking off for the summer. But whether by design or happenstance, the orchestra took a more interesting approach, scheduling one more classical program after Moody’s farewell. Instead of waiting until fall to begin the post-Moody era, it has moved decisively forward.
The main job at hand, of course, is selecting Moody’s successor. With one of the original four finalists having dropped out to take another post, three contenders remain, two of whom – Ken-David Masur and Eckart Preu – have already led the orchestra in both classical and pops programs. The third, Daniel Meyer, conducted a pops program last month and returned on Sunday afternoon to present his bona fides in the classical repertory, with an all-Russian program at Merrill Auditorium.

Calidore String Quartet makes gorgeous Philadelphia debut in Caroline Shaw works

5/14/2018

In Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte, the string quartet is asked to sound nothing like a string quartet. They create an airy effect several notches below a whisper. Two players tick-tock while the other two chime. We pass through a section in which Philip Glass meets Harold in Italy, and then move on to some instrumental moans and sighs.
It was the Calidore String Quartet bringing these sounds Sunday afternoon to a Philadelphia Chamber Music Society concert. The performance marked the local debut of both the work and this gorgeous young ensemble.

Violinist Faust, in a brilliant CSO debut, makes convincing case for flawed Schumann rarity

5/12/2018

In the absence of anything truly new, the programs that fill the remaining six weeks of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's subscription season include several works of lesser importance by important composers.

Such was the case at the concert leading off the weekend series Friday night at Symphony Center, where the young German violin virtuosa Isabelle Faust made her CSO debut playing a 165-year-old concerto by Robert Schumann that was new to the orchestra's downtown repertory: the Violin Concerto in D minor.

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Faust gave the lie to the standard rap that the music is unplayable - technically difficult, yes, but entirely playable if the soloist respects what's on the page. She stuck close to Schumann's metronome marking in the finale (which many fiddlers find problematic), making the polonaise rhythm feel light and dancelike despite the music's dogged repetitiveness. The movement is marked "lively, but not too fast," and that's exactly how she and Krivine treated it.

'Something Develops Onstage Called Love': Baltimore Symphony's Bernstein Centennial

5/12/2018

It's the Leonard Bernstein centennial this year and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestrahas been celebrating.Last weekend, music director Marin Alsop and the orchestra played music from Bernstein's Candide, On the Town and West Side Story — and shared photographs and videos of Bernstein with the audience. "Something develops onstage called love," he says in one clip, from a 1990 tribute on CBS Sunday Morning. "I'm sorry to use this four-letter-word; it's just so abused. But that's what it is — that's what it's all about. And it's not just a love between me and the orchestra. It is among themselves, and boy, does that make music."

Miguel Harth-Bedoya Will Conclude Twenty Years as FWSO Music Director in 2019-2020 Season

5/11/2018

Miguel Harth-Bedoya announced today that he will conclude his tenure as Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in July, 2020, at the culmination of his 20th year as the orchestra's artistic leader. Following the 2019-2020 season, he will assume the title of Conductor Laureate of the FWSO, and will be returning to conduct in upcoming seasons.

RPO performs Brahms and a Higdon world premiere

5/11/2018

The world premiere of American composer Jennifer Higdon's Harp Concerto, performed by soloist Yolanda Kondonassis, had already made last night's Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concert one of the more anticipated events of the season. The RPO's performance, capably led by Music Director Ward Stare, more than fulfilled the promise of the program.

There are few compositions as ingenious and evocative as Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes from "Peter Grimes." Britten is a composer who demands a challenging blend of exactitude and lyricism of the musicians who interpret his work. The result is often music that is equally majestic and unsettling. From the haunting opening melody in the violins and the woodwinds' foreboding, arpeggiated response onward, the powerful articulation and heartfelt phrasing gives the music added poignancy.

Karina Canellakis named Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

5/9/2018

The 36-year-old American conductor Karina Canellakis has been appointed the new Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, beginning in the 2019-20 season. She succeeds Markus Stenz.

Eight weeks ago Karina Canellakis made a stunning debut with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in a program of Britten, Shostakovich and Beethoven. Following these performances, the orchestra expressed overwhelming enthusiasm, and invited her to become their new Chief Conductor before the week was over.

Seattle Opera presents a spectacular “Aida”

5/7/2018

“Aida” may well be the grandest of the grand operas, but it needs inspired staging and exceptional voices in order to make Verdi’s masterpiece shine.

Seattle Opera’s current “Aida” does just that. Co-produced with San Francisco, Washington National and Minnesota Operas, this classic opera about passion, jealousy and war is visually and musically spectacular. The crucial dialogues in the opera take on a new intensity; the larger-scale scenes have an almost over-the-top energy, with lots of action and bold design elements that constantly shift and move. The exuberant finale of Act II had the stage full of dancing, singing and a hailstorm of tiny gold “glitter discs” pouring down like confetti on the cast.

Review: A Star Pianist Finally Lets Us See Him Sweat

5/6/2018

Opus 3 Artists welcomes Philharmonix to the roster

5/3/2018

Opus 3 Artists is thrilled to welcome Philharmonix to the roster. Comprised of three members of the Vienna Philharmonic, two Berlin Philharmonic soloists, one Austrian pianist and an improvising and singing violinist, Philharmonix mix a deliciously heady cocktail of classical, jazz, klezmer, Latin, and pop music. Every concert is a living, grooving, finger-snapping night of good, old-fashioned fun.

The Donald Runnicles Musical Arts Scholarship Competition

5/3/2018

The Grand Teton Music Festival announces the inaugural scholarship competition in honor of Music Director Donald Runnicles. The competition is open to graduating high school seniors from Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana who will pursue their primary studies in music (classical, jazz, or other) at an accredited four-year college with a music program recognized by the National Association of Schools of Music, or a conservatory with a widely recognized national profile such as The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, or the New England Conservatory.

RSNO at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

4/30/2018

GLASGOW’s concert hall opened a month after the death of Leonard Bernstein and Saturday night’s US-focused concert was the sort of occasion for which it was built. Here was Scotland’s national symphony orchestra playing an all-American programme at the start of its celebration of the centenary of Bernstein’s birth to a capacity house that surely included many of those who are attracted to the orchestra’s concerts of film music alongside season regulars.

Jennifer Koh and the 'Shared Madness' of coming between a violinist and her violin

4/30/2018

Koh's Friday recital would surely have felt special any place, given her ability to hold an audience spellbound for 90 nonstop minutes of new music. But unique to Santa Barbara was the venue's sense of spiritual remove, magnificently enhanced by a reverberant enveloping acoustic that gave Koh's violin a lustrous aura.

Concert review: Freiburg Baroque Orchestra at Stockholm Concert Hall

4/30/2018

The highlight were the two piano concertos. Bezuidenhout makes the notes spout from a lively fountain, the orchestra succeeds in catching all musical twists with full power, and everything is swinging and shining.