Recently, Russian media reported on plans by the state-owned VTB Bank to build a new concert hall and performing arts complex for conductor Teodor Currentzis and his musicAeterna ensembles at the Novo-Admiralteysky shipyard in St. Petersburg.  On June 7, VTB President and Chairman Andrey Kostin and Governor Alexander Beglov signed a statement of intent formalizing […]

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For weeks, Kharkiv and the surrounding region has been under regular bombardment, but May 23, the day I arrived in the city, was an especially tragic occasion for our festival, KharkivMusicFest.  My train ride to Kharkiv from Chełm, southeast Poland, took almost 24 hours. The cars were crowded with passengers. In my compartment was a […]

The post “Let’s keep working.” appeared first on VAN Magazine.

When I first heard the music of Tom Johnson at a concert in Basel in 2013, I was immediately struck by its humor and unassuming simplicity. In contrast to the weighty works of the late 20th-century European avant-garde, Johnson’s music was a breath of fresh air. There were no hidden layers. It was transparent and […]

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On July 12, the label BMOP/sound of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project will release its 100th recording. BMOP—pronounced “BE-mop”—was founded in 1996 by conductor Gil Rose, and has since filled an essential gap in Boston’s classical music scene, performing new and new-ish music between the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s rarified renditions of canonical repertoire, new-music gigs […]

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When the French conductor François-Xavier Roth woke up the week before last in his apartment in Paris, his career was in excellent shape. He had just given two concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic. He had a tour to look forward to with Les Siècles, the period instrument ensemble he founded. He was the Music Director […]

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The conductor and singer Barbara Hannigan, 53, is possessed of such irrevocable musicianship and presence that, during her May 9 recital of works by Messiaen and John Zorn at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, with the pianist Bertrand Chamayou, I caught myself in the casual assumption that she was immortal, like Messiaen’s Catholic God […]

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A story published today by legendary French investigative magazine Le Canard enchaîné raises allegations of sexual harassment against conductor François-Xavier Roth.  Roth, 52, is a renowned musician and performer, and received France’s highest honor, the Chevalier degree of the Order of the Légion d’honneur, in 2017. In 2003, he founded the period instrument orchestra Les […]

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Cate Blanchett isn’t the only conductor in Todd Field’s “Tár” (2022). There is her predecessor at the Berlin Philharmonic, Andris, and the Gilbert Kaplan cipher Eliot (Mark Strong). There are also two assistant conductors: the aspirant Francesca Lentini (Noémie Merlant), who hopes to take the assistant position at the Berlin Phil, and the hapless Sebastian […]

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Last month, St. Louisans faced a unique risk when comedian Jim Gaffigan and conductor James Gaffigan played two very different shows in the same city on the same night. Luckily, it seemed that ticketholders for each event got to the right theater without any confusion. “My show is with @jerryseinfeld,” Jim Gaffigan clarified on Instagram. […]

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Somewhere in the depths of the internet lies a photo of Vasily Petrenko with a wad of £5 notes, posing next to a bin. It was part of the Liverpool Echo’s “Be A Binner, Not A Sinner” campaign to clean up Liverpool and improve its reputation, after the writer Bill Bryson infamously arrived in the […]

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