Category Archives: City Paper Staff Blogs
A Choice and Poignant Chamber Finale
Here’s that guest blog about the festival chamber finale that I promised you — sorry it’s a bit tardy, but I presumed to engage my guest blogger to cover this one the day before he moved out of Charleston for the musical jungle of New York.
And it’s Chucktown’s loss: Not only is Mike Hanf the […]
My Last (sob!) Spoleto Concert
Egad – my once-fat Spoleto ticket envelope (nearly 30 events) is now flat … I just used the last ones. Can the festival really be over? My body, ravaged by chronic sleep deprivation, may be about to shut down — but my mind is still reeling (and my ears ringing) in a grand sonic dither. […]
Piano Magic — and Delightful Dvorak — at Memminger
Dr. Wadsworth, before he introduced Friday afternoon’s program X to his capacity audience at the Memminger, informed us that one of his current crop of festival critics had described his humor as being of the “cornpone” variety … a quality that I’ve never observed, in the many years I’ve covered this series. Irreverent or un-stuffy? […]
The Tender Tao of Feldman
So sorry I’m running late one this one – but then, I can only tell you about part of what went on at Tuesday’s fifth and final Music in Time program. The fare was Morton Feldman’s four-hour-plus work, For Philip Guston: a meditative tribute to the composer’s friend and famed graphic artist. It also honors […]
Millennium Eargasm Alert — And a Party, Too!
As I told you in my opening salvo of festival posts, Millennium Music — Charleston’s biggest & best CD store over the past 15 years — will be closing its doors to the public at around the same time Spoleto strikes it’s tent: our last day will be Monday, June 9.
But we plan on […]
More Chamber Pleasures — and a Special Intermezzo Treat
Wednesday’s bout of overheated Spoleto-hopping netted two prime events — let’s begin with Chamber the Program IX, where it turned out to be proven classics all the way.First up was J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, one of the pinnacles of Baroque orchestral writing; musicians never tire of playing the six glorious Brandenburgs … nor […]
A Walk on Chamber Music’s Wild Side
Don’t get me wrong: Tuesday’s generous Chamber VIII concert had lots of terrific traditional music going for it – but, between plums by Vivaldi and Schumann came a piece from Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer that temporarily turned my musical world upside down.
But first came a well-known item from the so-called “red priest” of […]
St. Petersburg Quartet does right by Debussy, Messiaen
At last! — I finally made it to my first Piccolo event today. As I’ve told you, my marching orders are to cover the classical end of the big festival — ALL of it — and that means I miss the many world-class acts that have been gracing Piccolo for many years. But I absolutely […]
Oooops — Link problems!
I beg pardon, dear blogophiles, in case you’ve had trouble with my links: some of the the ones I’m posting from that dodo bird of a PC I’m stuck with at home aren’t “taking” — but I’m faithfully editing them back in from my work machine at Millennium the following day. So scroll down and […]
Spoleto’s Special Sparklers: Lindsay’s Classical Picks
People keep asking me what my favorite edition of the festival is (out of the seventeen I’ve experienced) … a question I can’t answer. There’s no way to meaningfully distill or quantify any festival’s cumulative greatness. I can name for you many memorable moments from past festivals: exciting, life-changing events Like Maestro Villaume’s explosive chemistry […]