One of the specialties of the Harriman-Jewell Series has been to present recital debuts—either world or U.S. debuts—of budding young opera stars. On March 5th at the Folly the headline-grabbing young American tenor Stephen Costello will present the 20th such debut, following in a distinguished line that has included Luciano Pavarotti, June Anderson, Carol Vaness, Ben Heppner, Sergei Leiferkus, Salvatore Licitra, […]

Adam Schoenberg’s American Symphony adopts an accessible style but does not stray so far into a Hollywood idiom that it grows cheesy. The agreeable new piece, a Kansas City Symphony commission, received its world premiere on March 4th at the Lyric Theatre, with the Symphony led by music director Michael Stern. If the finale felt prolix in proportion […]

Tenor Stephen Costello possesses a natural, rich-auburn voice with a durable top, a pleasantly feathery lower register, a sweet head-voice that can shift into full voice with fetching ease, and a big capacity for warm pathos. The American artist, who made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007 and won the Richard Tucker Award in 2009, seems destined for a […]

How does one pay suitable homage to Henry Fogel, arts visionary, longtime orchestra executive, and current dean and distinguished professor of the arts at Roosevelt University? For the League of American Orchestras, which Henry led from 2003 to 2008, the best way to honor the man who has fought tirelessly for the continued importance of classical music […]

The dancers of the Kansas City Ballet are known for their proficiency in a wide variety of styles, and we sometimes forget that classical ballet remains at the core of their training and artistry. The company’s mastery of this centuries-old art form—which stands at the center of Western dance—was on glorious display at its production […]

The Akademie für alte Musik Berlin performs Baroque music with a bright, solid sense of style, technique to spare and, where necessary, a sense of playfulness and mirth. Their performance on March 11th at the Folly Theater, part of the Friends of Chamber Music’s series, offered delights and, at times, frustrations but was ultimately a satisfying […]

When we listen to Bach’s keyboard music today, do we hear the same thing he did 300 years ago? It’s the kind of question that spurs musicians and lay music-lovers alike to ponder and explore historical practices. For example: Anyone who took a music history class in the last century was probably taught that Bach […]

Evan Luskin, who joined the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 1986 and has  been its general director since 1998, announced on March 15th that he would retire at the end of the 2011-2012 season, the company’s  first year in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Luskin, who led the Lyric from a small regional company […]

Composers have long delighted in creating elaborate narrative “programs” for their instrumental works, then instructing us not to rely on the programs too much, or even asking us to ignore them altogether. At issue is a tension over whether a piece conceived programmatically can also stand on its own as “pure” music. Avner Dorman’s new Piano Concerto […]

Can one woman change the direction of a culture? We all know the answer is yes, but it’s still gratifying to see it when it happens. Among her multifarious other accomplishments Valerie Naranjo —a native of Colorado who has played with the Saturday Night Live band and for the Broadway hit The Lion King — is credited with having helped […]

It’s not often that a 12-minute piece by a living American composer proves to be the musical highlight of a two-hour concert of classical favorites. Usually the “modern” piece is that cacophonous thing that you grin and bear to get through to the good stuff. But at Friday’s season-opening concert by the Kansas City Symphony, […]

Choreographer David Parsons’ earnest new piece Remember Me takes as its ambition to do Jesus Christ Superstar and Movin’ Out one better, by creating not just rock-opera or rock-ballet but rock-opera-ballet. Its conceit seems reasonable enough: to tell a love story through dance in collaboration with singers of the East Village Opera Company, a group that in recent years has achieved fame/notoriety for creating big-boned […]

Are you as tired as I am of country singers and demagogues telling you what it is that makes America great? Freedom, family values, guns, pickup trucks. Choreographer Paul Taylor embodies, as much as any American I know, the values that have made this country strong:  At 79, he still works like the devil every day, using […]

Octarium continues to refine its sonority and musical profile, and its distinguished concert on November 14 and 15, Modern Masters, showed that the group is gaining heft with leading choral composers around the country as well. The program included two world premieres and marked the release of a CD by the same title containing the music performed […]

If you want to know what the six youngsters playing the lead parts in the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker think about what they do, just ask them. Not only can they pirouette, plié and jeté, these boys and girls aged 9 to 14 can also talk about dance with clarity, thoughtfulness and no small amount of humor. We recently sat […]

If you are looking for just one holiday event to attend, the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker might not be the most inexpensive offering in town, but it’s probably the most solidly satisfying aesthetically. With Balanchine-inspired choreography by late artistic director Todd Bolender and delicious scenic and costume design by veteran Hollywood designer Robert Fletcher, it’s one of the […]

The Kansas City Symphony has an intriguing array of soloists lined up for the spring, from superstars to newcomers, and the first one I’m looking forward to is Benedetto Lupo, a marvelous Italian pianist with a substantial European career who only recently has begun to attract due notice on these shores. Odd, considering that his career […]

Musical groups of all kinds have drawn on word-play for their names — from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Chanticleer (Geoffrey Chaucer’s “clear-singing” rooster in The Canterbury Tales) and Anonymous 4 (a quartet named for the unknown author of a famous 13th-century musical treatise). But one Dutch vocal ensemble may have gone those groups […]

Italian composer Luca Lombardi has admired the artistry of flutist Emmanuel Pahud since he first heard him play years ago. “I was very impressed not only with the beauty of the tone, but with the musical intelligence and sensitivity,” the 64-year-old composer said in a recent phone chat. “I like his earnestness but also his humor, his irony.” The two seemed […]

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin has an uncanny ability to convince you, through the sheer force of his musical personality and will, that whatever he’s playing at the moment is the greatest music on earth — even music whose genius you might later, upon reflection, decide you’re not as sure about as he is. But at the moment he’s […]

It’s an irresistible image, almost like a scene from a Werner Herzogmovie: the aging Albert Schweitzer — theologian, musician, philosopher, physician, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Johann Sebastian Bach biographer — sitting in his bungalow playing Baroque organ music, while outside his windows the sounds of Africa buzz and sing. Such was the inspiration for Lambarena, an ingenious CD […]