Category Archives: Opera

Charleston Symphony & Friends Deliver Another Special Evening

Musically, last weekend was a very busy one for me (four concerts in as many days) … I’m just now getting caught up with it all in Eargasms. What a joy it is to report on a classical music scene like Charleston’s, offering a level of richness and variety (AND frequency) that makes it impossible [...]

Charleston Music Fest Does it Again

A pile of fresh CD reviews (and tight deadlines) for American Record Guide (the national review mag I write for) has kept me out of the blogging loop lately. But Friday before last’s “Mostly Baroque” event – part of the College’s top-notch Charleston Music Fest chamber series – still bears scrutiny.
The concert’s title struck me [...]

CSO and Chorus Tackle Vaughan Williams

The Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, led by Dr. Robert Taylor, packed the business end of Citadel Square Baptist Church last Sunday evening. The occasion was a festive and thrilling concert of choral-orchestral gems by 20th-Century English master Ralph Vaughan Williams – the 50th anniversary of whose death we observe this season.
The rest of [...]

College Makes Music for Habitat

For a long time now, the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts has had a special relationship with Bishop Gadsen: Charleston’s Episcopal Church-affiliated retirement community. Talented student musicians perform there regularly – check out my last post below, covering the amazing bunch of young Uruguayan musicians from “El Sistema” that wowed us in the [...]

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 [...]

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? [...]

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 [...]

More from Amistad Composer Anthony Davis

I’m just about brain-dead, after covering successive opening nights for this year’s two big operas. But before I collapse, I’ve just gotta tell you about the kinds of music that Amistad composer Anthony Davis writes when he’s not working on an opera (he’s got five of ‘em under his belt).
I’ve heard (and thoroughly enjoyed) [...]

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