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.
Last year, the upstart Heartbeat Opera impressively reimagined Fidelio for the Black Lives Matter era. Their new Tosca places the tragic opera about an opera singer in a land where women have been banned from singing.
A program of works for soloists and small ensembles proves aurally and visually taxing, emotionally and intellectually exhausting, all in fairly enticing ways.
Davóne Tines makes a very special solo recital debut with a powerful program befitting a singer who seems intent on revolutionizing classical music performance without kicking in its teeth.
Singer Daisy Press performs a set of songs by the German abbess and composer, accompanying herself on a range of tuned bowls, harmonium, chimes and gong.
San Francisco’s Splinter Reeds, echoing the traditional wind quintet but eschews the non-reed instruments, makes its second ever New York City appearance, part of the Earle Brown Foundation’s Time:Spans Festival.
Aaron Siegel’s suite of songs, delivered by the unearthly American countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, are short, elegant and uncluttered, bringing the vocal works of Ives and Messiaen, or even Purcell, to mind.
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.
