The Opening Night Gala 2011/2012 of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra features keyboard legend Herbie Hancock who joins Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic for a high-spirited celebration of quintessential American composer George Gershwin. The concert begins with the iconic Tin Pan Alley composer’s Cuban Overture and his beloved An American In Paris. Then the multiple Grammy Award-winning pianist joins Dudamel and the LA Phil to perform arguably Gershwin’s most famous work, the jazz hued Rhapsody in Blue.
Bartabas in Salzburg 2016 – Mozart: Davide Penitente
For this spectacular production of Mozart’s Davide penitente on the vast stage of the Salzburg Felsenreitschule at the Mozart Week 2015, Marc Minkowski and the equestrian choreographer Bartabas used dancing horses and thus restored the former riding school to its original function. Horses, riders from the Académie équestre de Versailles and Bartabas himself, whose successful productions are unique in the world of art, perform their elegant dressage arabesques within this exceptional setting. Soloists, chorus and orchestra are ranged over three levels on galleries cut from the bare rock. The result is a unique synthesis of the arts.
The 3 Tenors – Christmas Concert 1999
The 3 Tenors capture the joy and spirit of the season with their first ever Christmas concert, live from Vienna, featuring performances of international season favourites by the best-selling and world-renowned trio. Have yourself a warm, sophisticated Christmas with the 3 Tenors as they cradle the classics with their magnificent voices. Cantique de noel (O Holy Night); Ave Maria, Dolce Maria; Oh Tannenbaum; White Christmas, and more.
LSO: Rattle conducts Haydn “The Seasons”
The London Symphony Chorus celebrate its 50th anniversary with Haydn’s ‘nature’ oratorio The Seasons, a stellar cast of international singers and Sir Simon Rattle. The Seasons is divided in to four sections: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter charting a musical year with rousing choruses, a riotous wine tasting with dancing peasants, a loud thunderstorm, even the croaking of frogs. In his old age Haydn achieved fame and fortune in London following visits here in the 1790s. ‘Papa Haydn’ was encouraged to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation, which was performed all over Europe.
Kathleen Battle & Jessye Norman – Spirituals
Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman teamed up with James Levine for this distinctive selection of famous Spirituals. PROGRAM: In That Great Getting Up Morning; Oh, What A Beautiful City; Lord, How Come Me Here; Over My Head / Lil‘ David; I Believe I‘ll Go Back Home / Lordy, Won‘t You Help Me; Ride on, King Jesus; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot / Ride Up in the Chariot; You Can Tell the World; Scandalize My Name; Great day; Oh, Glory; Calvary / They Crucified My Lord; Talk About a Child; Gospel train; My God Is So High; There is a balm in Gilead; He‘s got the whole world in His hands
Mariss Jansons conducts Bruckner 9
As part of a fully fledged Bruckner festival, Mariss Jansons is conducting a series of Bruckner symphonies, each paired with a classical solo concerto – great music by great composers. The series gets under way with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, composed in 1795. The work is, in actual fact, Beethoven’s second contribution to the genre, in which he pushes the boundaries of the instrument. The featured soloist is Lars Vogt. One hundred years after Beethoven had written his Piano Concerto, Bruckner concluded his monumental symphonic œuvre with the unfinished Ninth Symphony, leaving behind three completed movements and sketches for a finale in 1896, the year in which he died. In his swansong – the starkly dissonant Adagio –, Bruckner explores the very boundaries of tonality. —— Program: Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 1, Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 9.
Barbara Hannigan – A Late Night Concert
There are pianists who also conduct, and concertmasters who lead their orchestra from the violin chair. But a star soprano who coordinates a large instrumental ensemble while at the same time negotiating the trickiest coloratura singing is something entirely new. That is, until Barbara Hannigan came along to reveal this remarkable skill. “It’s like walking on virgin snow,” says the Canadian “artiste étoile” who teamed up at Lucerne Festival in Summer with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Next to conducting works by Fauré, Mozart and Rossini she performed onstage, decked out in a daring S&M-style leather bodice, Ligeti’s “Mysteries of the Macabre.”
Beethoven: Violin Concerto – Znajder, Chailly
Muscular yet elegant, eloquent and charismatic – terms that flow from journalists’ pens when referring to Nikolaj Znaider. The Danish artist once again affirmed his reputation as one of the most distinguished violinists of our time with his performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s violin concerto with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of its musical director Riccardo Chailly. Znaider himself speaks of Beethoven’s popular work as “the bible in a violinist’s concert repertoire.”
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2
“Gerstein’s blistering technique is matched only by his deeply soulful connection to standard repertoire,” the Time out New York says about the Russian pianist. With the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Gerstein testified to these qualities: He put emphasis on expression and effect in Sergei Rachmaninov‘s Second Piano Concerto. Thus, the concerto gained a new life in music, whose impact can sometimes be blunted by its own popularity: Finely balancing constructive rigor and thoughtfulness this performance becomes a fresh, fruitful artistic joint venture.
Lucerne Festival: A World Premiere with Martha Argerich and Mischa Maisky
At one of the rare appearances with orchestra, Martha Argerich, the grande dame of the piano, joined forces with world-famous cellist Mischa Maisky and the fabulous Lucerne Symphony Orchestra for the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Russion composter Rodion Shchedrin – ‘Romantic Offering’, a double concerto for piano, cello and orchestra dedicated to its very first soloists. The programme was rounded off by late-Romantic masterpieces by Cesar Franck, Antonin Dvorak and Dimitri Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony under the baton of renowned maestro Neeme Järvi. Also available: Making Of (16′).