Classical New York

When the stay-at-home orders in New York began in March, pianist Simone Dinnerstein found herself unable to sit down at the piano. So, she took to reading and going on walks in Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery with her family. In June, her producer, Adam Abeshouse, convinced her to return to the piano through recording in her home. The results of those sessions, the album A Character of Quiet, featuring works by Schubert and Glass, is out now. Zev Kane talks with her about coping with lockdown, recording the album in her house, and what Glass and Schubert have in common (besides a birthday).

WQXR’s Terrance McKnight hosts a conversation about the Black experience in the concert hall and the unique challenges people of color face in the classical music world with violinist Sanford Allen, vocalist & conductor Bobby McFerrin, vocalist Julia Bullock, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, and cellist Alvin McCall.Producer: Rosa GollanTechnical Producer: Ed Haber

While In Conversations is on summer break, James Bennett sat down with Davóne Tines for a special episode as part of the Mostly Mozart on WQXR Festival to talk about his chamber Opera "The Black Clown", the relationship between Bach's music and R&B, and how sometimes just being in the room (or on stage) is already a form of protest.

Lauren Michelle is very good at singing. Seriously — over her career, she's stacked up awards that include First Place in the 2015 Lotte Lenya Competition and Marcello Giordani International Vocal Competition, and claimed prize winner status as BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition prize winner, and The Francisco Viñas International Singing Competition. But, in classical music of all places, the myth of meritocracy looms ever-large. In this episode of IN CONVERSATION, writer/editor James Bennett links up with the accomplished Soprano to discuss racism in the opera house, the cost of speaking up, and how she tumbled headfirst into the dazzling world of opera and the human voice.   James Bennett, HostRosa Gollan, ProducerLukas Krohn-Grimberghe, Executive Producer

The latest episode of In Conversation features baritone Lucas Meachem in conversation with Merrin Lazyan. Meachem talks about life at home, his new foundation A Perfect Day, and the importance of diversity in classical music.

It was last summer that Orli Shaham began recording the complete Mozart piano sonatas. The new album is still in the works, but ever since April, she’s been offering special sneak previews. Every Wednesday, you can hear a selection from the album - available for one week only. It’s called MidWeek Mozart, and Shaham’s hoping it brings just a little more beauty into the world. Usually she shares a single movement, but all throughout July, Shaham’s making an entire sonata available for free online listening. This week’s selection is Sonata No 3 in B-flat major, a piece that Mozart wrote when he was 19, traveling a lot and encountering all sorts of new musical styles and instruments. Orli Shaham’s recording of Mozart’s piano sonata no 3 is available for one week only. You can find a link at wqxr.org/Concerwatch.

This week you can join James Bennett in his conversation with Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir about her chamber opera UR_ (which was due to have its US premiere at this year's Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center which has since been cancelled), the role technology played in this collaboration with International Contemporary Ensemble and Nokia Bell Labs in enhancing the musical experience, what it means to be a composer during a pandemic and of course taking inspiration from nature.    James Bennett, HostLuka Vasić, Assistant ProducerRosa Gollan, ProducerLukas Krohn-Grimberghe, Executive Producer

WQXR and WRTI, Philadelphia’s classical music and jazz station, have come together to launch “This Week with Yannick,” an eight-week radio series hosted by acclaimed conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Nézet-Séguin – Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Orchestre Métropolitain of Montreal – has spent his career building connections between orchestras, singers, and audiences. Yannick now brings his passion for building connections through music outside of the concert hall and onto the airwaves. This Week With Yannick will air on WQXR and WRTI in Philadelphia every Sunday at 12pm, launching July 12th.

Pianist and composer Stewart Goodyear joins Zev Kane this week In Conversation. They talk about his love of Beethoven and his "Sonatahons," in which he performs the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas in a single concert, his own compositions, and his experiences as a Black classical musician. His new recording of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos is out now on Orchid Classics.

This month, you can take a crash course in six great operas... and invite the whole family to join you! San Francisco Opera is streaming six Opera in an Hour Movies – abridged versions of some of their family friendly productions. Shows like Carmen, The Barber of Seville, and The Magic Flute, all beautifully filmed and performed, and this month only, they’re free for everyone. Many of the shows are performed in English to make them accessible for even the youngest opera fans. And if you want to go a little deeper, there are lots of educational materials you can download.  There’s a link to these videos and many others at WQXR.org/ConcertWatch.

The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra has traditionally been considered one of America’s Big Five – along with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago.  They’ve amassed six decades of recordings at the orchestra’s home in Severance Hall, and this summer they’re making some of those recordings available for on-demand listening.  The series is called TCO Classics, and the first recordings are online now. They include the orchestra’s near-legendary performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with conductor Pierre Boulez back in 1967, and a 2015 performance, led by The Cleveland Orchestra’s current music director, Franz Welser-Möst, of Mozart’s Symphony #41. Many people refer to this as Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, because it was his biggest one. But it was the smallest piece on this ambitious concert that included two works by Richard Strauss as well. TCO Classics means you can hear some or all of the concert any time.  There’s a link to this TCO Classics series and many others, at wqxr.org/concertwatch.

Harriett Stubs, english pianist and a "Personality with a capital p" is this week's guest In Conversation talking to our Host Paul Cavalconte from her London home where she hosts nighty quarantine concerts where she plays every thing from Bach, Bowie to the Beatles. They talk about social distancing concerts, her debut album Heaven & Hell, and the role of the concert piano in the classical and classic-rock genres.

Host Zev Kane talks with the violinists of Quatuor Ebène, Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure. Their Beethoven Around the World project, a series of performances of Beethoven's string quartets on 6 continents, was supposed to culminate in a series of performances of all 16 quartets at Carnegie Hall, but was cancelled when concert halls closed due to the COVID19 pandemic. They talk about their favorite quartets, the origins of Beethoven Around the World, and what it's like to start rehearsing together again after spending several months apart.

To celebrate Juneteenth, WQXR hosted a live call-in special – “The Black Experience in the Concert Hall” – with WQXR's Evening Host Terrance McKnight. Terrance spoke with leading figures in the world of classical music, including Wynton Marsalis, virtuoso trumpeter and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center; Martina Arroyo, legendary soprano and founder of the Martina Arroyo Foundation; Jesse Rosen, CEO and President of the League of American Orchestras; and Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of History, Race, and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and author of The Condemnation of Blackness. They discussed the ways in which the classical concert hall has historically excluded the black aesthetic, and in doing so, has been devoid of the American ethos that results from the nation’s diversity and the experience of black musicians on classical stages.

Ever since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown, the Czech Philharmonic has been presenting concerts as best they could.They began with two players wearing masks, then moved on to concerts with small chamber ensembles, and this week, they’re going big while staying safe.On Wednesday, 62 players from the Czech Philharmonic will play an open air concert at Sychrov Castle – a neo-gothic, 19th century palace in the Czech Republic – with Music Director Semyon Bychkov conducting. They’ll kick off the concert with Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream this Wednesday at 2pm. A link to this and many other performances is on wqxr.org/concertwatch

In January, WQXR’s James Bennett, sat down with opera singer John Holiday to talk about the relationship of black America with opera. Holiday explains how he personally navigated this space, how the stories of opera might seem far away from today’s realities (yet still convey meaning), the chamber opera We Shall Not Be Moved which premiered at Opera Philadelphia in 2017, and the importance of storytelling and all voices being heard.

French Pianist Lucas Debargue and WQXR host Zev Kane share a passion for composer and J.S. Bach contemporary Domenico Scarlatti. In this latest episode of In Conversation they talk about Debargue's latest recording of Scarlatti's piano sonatas, tough choices (like picking 52 sonatas out of over 500 (!) for the album), and why we shouldn't try to be happy all the time.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra – DSO Replay The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is one of the many organizations in the classical music world that has moved its offerings online. But they’ve done something slightly different – you don’t need a schedule to figure out when the orchestra is playing a certain work or where to go to watch it. Instead they have put their archives on its website under the heading DSO Replay. The Replay is a steady, ongoing stream of live performances, beautifully produced so they look and sound great. Even better, you can pick where in the stream you want to start. There’s a link to this concert series and many others, at wqxr.org/concertwatch.

The Metropolitan Opera is closed and will not open before the end of the year. But the Met has been doing what they can for those of us who just can’t wait. Every night, you can watch a free stream of some of their best Live in HD productions, and even though there’s nothing quite like hearing opera live, these do help scratch the itch. This Sunday, it’s an opera by the French composer Jules Massenet called Thaïs. It’s the story of a doomed romance between a courtesan and a monk, and it features one of the most heavenly tunes in all of opera – the Méditation. The production features Renee Fleming, this Sunday at 7:30. A link to the stream will be available via the Met’s homepage and on wqxr.org/concertwatch.

Our guests today are the collaborators cellist Inbal Segev, composer Anna Clyne, and conductor Marin Alsop. WQXR's James Bennett talked to them about their work, what it means to write contemporary classical music and how it all connects on a new album that juxtaposes Elgar's famous Cello Concerto with DANCE, an inspiring new work by Grammy-nominated English composer Anna Clyne that was commissioned by Inbal. The album will be out on June 5th on Avie. James Bennett, HostRosa Gollan, ProducerCurtis Macdonald, Technical ProducerLukas Krohn-Grimberghe, Executive Producer

As restrictions ease, livestreams move back from the sofa to the stage. The Wigmore Hall in London and the BBC Radio 3 are celebrating this return with a month-long series of live broadcasts. Every weekday in June, leading artists will play to an empty hall for audiences around the world. The series begins with pianist Stephen Hough playing a Schumann piece expressing the agony of separation. This performance and the others in the series will be available to watch online for 30 days. There’s a link to this concert and many others at WQXR.org/ConcertWatch.

This week, Steve Reich is our guest at "In Conversation" with WQXR's Zev Kane. Reich is joined by two of his collaborators, cellist and Ensemble Signal's Executive and Co-Artistic-Director Lauren Radnofsky and conductor/composer Brad Lubman. They are talking about the new normal, the relationship between composer and performers and they go into detail about two of Reich's most esteemed pieces: Music for 18 Musicians and the Double Sextet. Both are available as part of Lincoln Center's re-stream initiative and as studio recordings by Harmonia Mundi.

Composer and DJ Gabriel Prokofiev talks with WQXR's Zev Kane about his Turntable Concerto, why he loves the concerto form, his relationship with the legacy of his grandfather Sergei Prokofiev, and the state of classical music today.

German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, who recently recovered from Covid-19, continues to advocate for the welfare of artists and refugee children. Starting today and through this weekend, you can see Anne-Sophie Mutter in a 2014 concert with The Mutter Virtuosi - a string orchestra of students from her foundation promoting young musicians. The concert is streaming as a part of the weekly web-series series Carnegie Hall Fridays, a collaboration between Carnegie Hall and Medici TV highlighting recent concerts. Learn more on wqxr.org/concertwatch.

This week, Aria Code producer Merrin Lazyan talks to soprano Angel Blue, who recently performed the role of Bess at the Met's production of Porgy and Bess to stellar reviews and is now, like most of us, hunkered down at home. Blue gives insights into how she approaches her roles and talks about the upside of not being able to perform during the current crisis, as well as her Faithful Friday sessions.

Every Sunday evening, the residents of an apartment complex in Berlin join together in solidarity and music. Cellist Eckart Runge and pianist Jacques Ammon have been performing together for decades, and they both happen to live in that apartment complex. When the quarantine took hold, Eckart and Jacques wanted to do something to help their community, to lift people’s spirits with music. So they started a series of balcony concerts. Neighbors and friends gather on their own balconies or in the courtyard below to watch, listen... even dance a tango – every week. You can join too – virtually, this Sunday at noon. For a link go to wqxr.org/concertwatch.

Pianist and composer Chad Lawson has just released his new EP ‘Stay’. And as he, like all of us, are staying indeed at home, WQXR's Zev Kane spoke to him via video call about his compositional process, the driving force of melody, and the value of simplicity.

There are lots of transcriptions and arrangements of Bach's Goldberg Variations, including some for jazz ensemble, saxophone quartet, and marimba. One arrangement is by Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie, and this one’s for strings and harpsichord. It sticks pretty closely to Bach’s original work, filling it in with Baroque instrumentation. Back in 2018, the Australian Chamber Orchestra played this arrangement of the Goldbergs at the iconic Sydney Opera House. And now, as part of its initiative to make digital content available while the hall is closed, you can watch it online.

This week IN CONVERSATION is mezzo-soprano Lucy Dhegrae with WQXR's James Bennet to talk about her unique approach to singing, the voice as an instrument (with imperfections), and her projects Resonant Bodies and the Processing Series.

This week our host and artistic director Clemency Burton-Hill is in conversation with the members of the genre defying ensemble and "classically trained garage band" Time For Three. Here, Ranaan Meyer, Charles Yang, Nick Kendall, talk about improvisation, connection with the audiences, taking the freedom of moving between genres and playing hungover.And then they play that piece, their "desert island" companion: Bach's Chaconne – or their take on it.

Deborah Borda, President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic speaks to WQXR's James Bennett about the current crisis and the need to re-invent the future. We learn how the Orchestra navigated the first days and weeks of the Corona epidemic and what the implications are for its next season, music programming, women composers and conductors, and the scheduled refurbishment of David Geffen Hall.

WQXR host Zev Kane talked to Pianist Jeremy Denk about his music, music making in times of a pandemic, and his upcoming residency at the Greene Space which he will kick off with a deep dive into Bach’s life and four of the most fascinating moments from Book 1 of his most iconic work, The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson joined us in our studio a couple of weeks ago to talk with evening host Terrance McKnight about his new album, the musical connection between Claude Debussy and Jean-Philippe Rameau and his first piano lessons back home in Iceland.

Zev Kane is talking to Violinist Leonidas Kavakos about Beethoven, the right time and place, and the power of music.