Brian and Roger Eno have performed their first-ever live show together, taking place in August 2021 as part of the Athens Epidaurus Festival in Greece. The event see the brothers perform atmospheric musical landscapes from legendary productions that includes ambient records, television soundtracks and film scores, visualised images applied to the stones of the legendary Odeon of Herodes Atticus amphitheatre. It is also one of the very rare occasions that Brian Eno has ever performed live.
Opus 19 – Jan Vogler & Hélène Grimaud
A year since the Covid-19 pandemic halted live musical performances, world-renowned cellist Jan Vogler drives across the United States – from New York City to California – to visit his friend and frequent collaborator, the prodigious pianist Hélène Grimaud. Desiring to make music again, the duo plans to perform a piece, which they have never played together. With his Stradivarius cello along for the ride, Vogler finds inspiration in the diverse natural beauty of America. He stops to play pieces by Bach in an Indiana forest, snow covered mountains in Colorado and the desert of Utah. The experience causes Vogler to reflect on his career, and approach to music. Grimaud, meanwhile, caring for her horses, also articulates her feelings on performing and her craft. When Vogler arrives in California, the duo plays Rachmanioff’s Cello and Piano Sonata, Op. 19, in one marvelous, emotional take.
Anna – Stage of Emotions
Anna – Stage of Emotions, is part documentary, part abstract and visually stunning response to some of the powerful themes that run through this music, from love and hope to death and despair. It captures Anna Netrebko’s portrayals of five operatic heroines – Aida, Lisa, Dido, Cio-Cio San and Isolde – all of whom are brought individually to life thanks to the director’s – renowned filmmaker Elena Petitti di Roreto – unique visual language and style. Interwoven with the five music videos is an insightful interview with Anna Netrebko, who discusses both the roles and her own life. Shot largely in the majestic setting of La Scala’s famous auditorium, the film forges connections with the opera house’s venerable history (it staged the world premiere of Madama Butterfly) and its continuing artistic excellence today under Maestro Chailly’s direction.
RCO Opening Night 2021: Daniel Harding & Leonidas Kavakos
The Royal Concertgebouworkest is celebrating the new season with a grand gift to the city, the country and the world. On Friday 10 September, the Concertgebouworkest opens the 2021/2022 season with a festive concert open-air in the heart of Amsterdam – that evening, music sounds through the streets from Dam Square. In this way, the musicians and the public bring the city back to life, ringing in the new season with you in this spectacular way! Daniel Harding is not only a conductor but also a pilot for Air France. Tonight, he leads us on a musical journey through Europe, ending in Paris. PROGRAM Roukens: CHASE; Strauss: DON JUAN; Paganini: LA CAMPANELLA; Verdi: LA FORZA DEL DESTINO; Boulanger: D´UN MATIN DE PRINTEMPS; Ravel: TZIGAN; Gershwin: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS + encores
San Francisco Symphony – Season Opening Gala 2021
Feel the energy as the great San Francisco Symphony welcomes its new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen with its 110th season Reopening Night, filled with jazz and dance from special guests. To kick of the evening, Slonimsky’s Earbox is a virtuosic piece composed in 1995 by Bay Area composer John Adams, full of cascading phrases of minimalist patterns being played with remarkable precision and energy by the orchestra. Alonzo King’s choreography for the four movements of Alberto Ginastera’s Ballet Suite Estancia is a joyride. The dancers of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet excel themselves at athletic jumps and limber, airy movements within the explosive last dance of the suite, the ‘Malambo’. Gaia, a 27-minute opus by the jazz legend Wayne Shorter forms the centerpiece of the evening and features the extraordinary bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding. The evening evolves into a true night of enchantment with ‘Noche de incantamiento’ by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas who wrote a percussion extravaganza with his music to the film La noche de los Mayas in 1939.
Winterreise: Ballet by Christian Spuck
Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise” is not only regarded as the zenith of Schubert’s song composition, but as the pinnacle of German art song in its entirety. German composer Hans Zender arranged the cycle in 1993 with the title “Schuberts Winterreise – a composed interpretation”. Zender’s version for tenor and chamber orchestra reveals the cycle’s potential to disturb, and approaches Wilhelm Müller’s poems in its own way. Like Hans Zender, Christian Spuck’s production, which was awarded the renowned «Prix Benois de la Danse» in 2019, undertakes a journey into the innermost self.
John Williams – The Berlin Concert
The history of film music would be different without him: John Williams. Cinema classics like Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter are inextricably linked with his soundtracks. They have unforgettable, radiant themes, an impressive range of atmospheres and sounds and, at the same time, the always unmistakable style of the composer. John Williams makes his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker at these concerts. The programme includes several of his most famous scores – and of film music in general. Film music from Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, E.T., Jurassic Park, Far and Away and Star Wars.
Beatrice Rana plays Bach, Debussy and Chopin
Italian pianist Beatrice Rana has been captivating listeners worldwide with electrifying performances that marry exhilarating power and precision with a startling sensitivity to the poetry underlying a musical score. “Her startling technique remains among the most faultless of young pianists today, and it was displayed, in this recital, in some dazzling repertoire.” — The Washington Post The Oratorio del Gonfalone in Rome is a former church of the 16th century. It is a jewel of the Roman Renaissence, with frescoes showing “The Stories of the Passion of Christ”, made by prominent artists such as Federico Zuccari, Cesare Nebbia and Livio Agresti between 1569 and 1576. The building is now profaned and and the site is used for many of the concerts by the Coro Polifonico Romano. PROGRAM Bach: French Suite No. 2; Debussy: Études, Book 1; Chopin: Scherzo Nos. 1-4
Daniil Trifonov – Bach: The Art of Life
Captivating the audience from the very first moment, Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov brings deep insight into the music-making of J.S. Bach at the Philharmonie in Berlin. Traversing the entirety of the keyboard with just his left hand, he performs a stunning rendition of Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor, before moving seamlessly into the monumental Art of Fugue. Trifonov navigates the 14 fugues and four canons with technical prowess, intimate understanding, careful detail, and exquisite touch and offers a self-composed conclusion of the final contrapunctus worthy of Bach’s genius, a performance of Dame Myra Hess’s moving transcription of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and three encores by three of Bach’s sons, performed between bursts of thunderous applause. PROGRAM Bach: Chaconne in D Minor, Art of Fugue and encores
Chucho Valdés at Bayfront Jazz Festival
The 2021 inaugural edition of the Bayfront Jazz Festival takes place in Miami’s Bayfront Park. The festival’s mission is to honor and celebrate the current and future giants of Jazz, Afro-Cuban, Latin and electronic music. This year’s unique line-up includes Chucho Valdés, Roy Ayers, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Aymée Nuviola and Mark Guiliana’s Beat Music. Winner of six Grammy and three Latin Grammy Awards, the Cuban pianist, composer and arranger Chucho Valdés is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban Jazz. In a rich career spanning sixty years, Chucho has pushed boundaries in pursuit of new expressions in Afro-Cuban music. His influence in the genre is immeasurable, his work establishing the standard by which younger generations set out to create their own.