News Robert Turner

Handel: Tamerlano - James Laing, Leila Zanette, Christopher Turner, Caroline Taylor - Cambridge Handel Opera Company (Photo: Jean-Luc Benazet) Handel: Tamerlano - James Laing, Christopher Turner, Thalie Knights, Caroline Taylor, Leila Zanette, director: Dionysios Kyropoulos, conductor Julian Perkins; Cambridge Handel Opera Company at The Leys9 April 2022 (★★★★½) Cambridge Handel Opera Company (CHOC) debuted in 2018 with Handel's Rodelinda (but the company inherited the mantle of Cambridge Handel Opera Group which ran from 1985 to 2013). CHOC's follow up production was intended to be Handel's Tamerlano in 2020, but events got in the way and the production finally debuted last week at the Great Hall, The Leys, Cambridge (seen 9 April 2022). The opera was directed by Dionysios Kyropoulos, conducted by Julian Perkins (CHOC's artistic director) and designed by Rachel Szmukler. James Laing was Tamerlano and Christopher Turner was Bajazet with Caroline Taylor as Asteria, Thalie Knights as Andronico, Leila Zanette […]

Eric Conway: Morgan State University Choir sings concert with Lisa Fischer (with surprise appearance by Roberta Flack) 

[…] choir was required to present a COVID negative test result within 24 hours of the concert, especially since we were singing maskless during the concert. Lisa Fischer, may be most known by her 1991 Best R&B grammy-award winning single “How Can I Ease the Pain." However, many may know Lisa Fischer because of her four-decade career of singing as a featured background artist with Luther Vandross, The Rolling Stones, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, and Nine Inch Nails. In 2013, she was the featured artist in the Oscar winning Best Documentary film: “Twenty Feet from Stardom”. Ms. Fischer gave a generous two-hour program which included her grammy award winning single. She also paid tribute to Roberta Flack and Luther Vandross, via extended medleys of their compositions during the concert. These were the choir’s favorite songs that we sang. We were quite surprised […]

Aldeburgh Festival 2022 

[…] All the performers taking part have connections to Knussen as a composer and conductor and the trio of concerts offers an introduction to his world and an upbeat to a concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth, comprising three pieces inspired by pictures and objects at art exhibitions by Mussorgsky, Respighi and, indeed, Knussen, whose unfinished work Cleveland Pictures will receive its first performance. From Rodin and Fabergé to Goya and Turner, each movement of Cleveland Pictures brilliantly translates a different item from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, into sound. Even in its incomplete form (15½ minutes) the work ranks as one of Knussen’s most extensive orchestral statements. Of seven projected movements, four exist complete, two exist as fully orchestrated fragments and one exists only as a ten-bar sketch in short score.  The American première is currently being planned by the Cleveland […]

Ronald Turner Obituary (1937 - 2022) - Plymouth, MI - Legacy.com