Kurt Gottschalk is a journalist and author based in New York City. His writings on contemporary and classical music, jazz and improvisation have been published in outlets throughout Europe and America and he has two volumes of short fiction to his name. He is also the producer and host of the Miniature Minotaurs radio programme on WFMU.
The program, set long before Crumb’s death in February, following an implicit logic from Debussy to Stravinsky through Charles Ives and ending in Crumb’s somber lament, Ancient Voices of Children.
Julius Eastman's 1979 Gay Guerilla for two pianos began elegantly and quickly filled in its spaces, building from harmonies and forever looking upward.
Andy Akiho’s Seven Pilllars is a decidedly complex composition, a long palindrome that, as placed by Sandbox Percussion, finds beauty almost in spite of itself.
The violinist talks about her pandemic commissioning project as well the work she does that extends beyond performing concerts as Arco Collaborative’s artistic director and its primary performing artist.
Heartbeat’s Fidelio is a dramatic reworking in every sense of the term. It’s bold and unflinching, borrowing from Beethoven to tell tales too horrible to tell.
Anthony Roth Costanzo and Justin Vivian Bond were authentic to their their dramatic, flamboyant, passionate selves, finding common ground in carefully crafted medleys and duets.
Hell is a cold place with black walls and a black moon in Mary Zimmermann's production, which premiered at Los Angeles Opera in early 2020, and transfers to New York.
The Israeli Chamber Project gave Milhaud's La Création du monde a warm and easy stride, a tactic that didn’t sit well in the second half with the ever-austere Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time.
The program, drawn from Kronos’s 50 for the Future commissions, ranged from the exotic to the complex, with students joining in for a Philip Glass string orchestra finale.
Soprano Gelsey Bell instilled a very human spirit into the role of the troubled widow. The decidedly formal Jeffrey Gavett was well cast as the dead man. Their duets rang with perfection.
