Frank Speck News
American anthropologist
- United States of America
- anthropologist
Last update
2024-04-23
Refresh
2024-01-15 03:25:29
“Angel Island” by Huang Ruo at the Prototype Festival
The special sauce that has made Prototype, the annual opera/theater festival, a success for over a decade is a straightforward formula: socially relevant, edgy vocal works that are high on drama. Angel Island, a theatrical work with music by Huang Ruo, fits that description. The Speck of land in the middle of San Francisco Bay […]
2022-10-16 23:27:30
William Grant Still (1895-1978)(Courtesy Photo)Third Coast ReviewBob BenensonOctober 15, 2022Classical, ReviewsThe decision by Chicago Philharmonic to open its 2022-23 concert season Thursday with a program focused on diversity was well within character for the orchestra. Diversity had long been a concern for the musician-run orchestra and its conductor, Scott Speck. Its effort to provide better representation for black composers and performers ramped up considerably since national incidents of racial injustice in 2020 prompted a self-examination within the classical music community. Chicago Philharmonic also underscored its sincerity on this issue last year by hiring Terrell Johnson, a young Black innovator, as its executive director.
2022-01-18 07:51:41
The Art of Transformation: inspired by a Scottish Border ballad Alistair White's Woad is very much an opera for our times
Alastair White Woad; Kelly Poukens, Suzy Vanderheiden; Metier Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 January 2022 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★) A metaphysical meditation on the art of transformation, White's latest opera is a dazzling tour-de-force for just two performersAlastair White's Woad is the third in his fashion|opera cycle [see my interview with Alastair for his thoughts othe philosophical underpinning of the cycle], following Wear and Rune. Alastair White's Woad: A Fashion - Opera, Seven Scenes from the Tale of Tam Lin is performed by soprano Kelly Poukens and saxophonist Suzy Vanderheiden on Metier. In the medieval Scottish Borders, a young boy is bewitched – into the form of an ape, an adder, a Speck of dust. But is it his shape that twists and churns, or that of the world around him? These are the questions considered by Woad. The piece is inspired by the Scottish Border ballad Tam Lin a […]
2022-01-15 12:30:21
Barbican, London; onlineExile is the potent theme of a stirring performance of Julian Anderson’s new work. And Grange Park Opera put the glee in Puccini Composers dream of a big commission from a world-class chorus and orchestra. With the delight comes terror: infinite choices, decisions, expectations. Will the work say anything new? Will the quixotic array of options be used to most expressive effect? The British composer Julian Anderson (b.1967) has had more than a few such opportunities. His latest, Exiles, direct, atmospheric, powerful, was commissioned by an elite trio: the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Bayerischer Rundfunk. For a work in part about the enforced “exile” of Covid, it has been tripped up rudely, like much else, by the pandemic itself. Two of its projected five movements were premiered by the LSO and Simon Rattle last September, with a third, for unaccompanied double chorus, added […]
or
- timeline: Composers (North America).
- Indexes (by alphabetical order): S...