Category Archives: Concert

After Tragedy in Verona, Catfish Row, and Spanish Harlem, Symphony’s Kwamé Ryan Adds a Jamaican Vacay

Concert

Review: Gershwin & Bernstein @ Belk Theater

By Perry Tannenbaum

April 24, 2026, Charlotte, NC – An evening of music by George Gershwin or Leonard Bernstein can be many things: pop, opera, orchestral, cinema, or a good old Broadway musical. Gershwin wrote a staggering 18 musicals, though he only lived 38 years, twice as many as Bernstein, and most of them are forgotten. Programming these giants at Charlotte Symphony, with musical director Kwamé Ryan at the podium, certainly narrows the options, especially for Gershwin, since Ryan usually confines himself to Symphony’s Classics series and special events. Bernstein is credited with more than twice as many orchestral works as Gershwin, and among his choral works, a genre Gershwin never touched, are numerous sacred options for Ryan and the Charlotte Master Chorale to choose from.

The unifying theme Ryan chose at Belk Theater for his Gershwin-Bernstein pairing was star-crossed lovers, allowing Symphony to dig into the composers’ most-acclaimed works, Porgy and Bess and West Side Story, respectively, at a deeper level than a greatest-hits medley. But first, Symphony set the theme in a most intriguing manner, with a Fantasia for Orchestra, Romeo and Juliet, by Johan Severin Svendsen (1840-1911), a Norwegian composer I’d never heard of. Editions of NPR’s and Gramophone Magazine’s guides to classical music on my shelves omit him, while three others – Oxford, Penguin, the DK Eyewitness, and my ancient International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians – all give him a paragraph.

Finding this piece would have been a waste if Ryan and his ensemble hadn’t given it such punctilious rehearsal. The prep to me was as impressive as the performance. Not only were there sudden or gradual shifts in dynamics as the piece flowed between lyrical and turbulent episodes, but there were numerous gradual shifts within the turbulent episodes where both the string and woodwind sections remained tightly in sync. There were at least four quiet sections, which didn’t seem to be sketching a narrative concept.

Was the end of the dreamy, opaque first episode, a gentle series of pizzicatos, an evocation of the famed balcony scene? As the slow-fast shuttling continued, with turbulent episodes marked by a sudden braking with a brief French horn lament, a repeated whimpering of strings, and finally a weary bleat of pizzicatos from the double basses, it was possible to entertain the idea that Svendsen was offering a dialogue between his protagonists, or back-and-forth character sketches.

The mournful edge to the concluding section swayed me back toward hearing Svendsen’s intentions as narrative, but we would need to hear the whole piece again to appreciate how well the last turbulent section had evoked the climactic double suicide of the newlyweds. By comparison, the Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture, arranged by Robert Russell Bennett, is easily perceived as an extended overture in medley form.  Depending on how well you know the opera, you will likely be able to identify the next song as it clears the distant horizon. These include “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty o’ Nothin’,” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” “Oh Lord, I’m on My Way,” “There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon for New York,” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”

For those already familiar with Gershwin’s own P&B suite, Catfish Row, you may be doubly reassured. It was unquestionably Bennet’s starting point, recycling the percussive opening and preserving a winsome banjo interlude. The piano cadenza, likely reserved for the composer’s hands, is gone, but Bennett is more conscientious in including audience faves, though “I Loves You Porgy,” “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing,” “It Takes a Long Pull to Get There,” “A Red-Headed Woman,” and “My Man’s Gone Now” are still MIA.

Like many others in the house, I presumed that the Porgy and Bess would be the evening’s highlight, since so many jazz greats have covered both the entire opera and the golden songs embedded within. But even though Bernstein put even fewer of his hits in his Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, it seemed that Ryan and the Symphony, no doubt buoyed by the phalanx of six percussionists across the upstage wall, played the Spanish Harlem classic with even more zest than the music rooted in the Carolinas.

Of course, with the opportunities for finger snaps, the whole orchestra could join in on the percussion orgy, and in the Suite’s fourth movement, “Mambo,” they got to shout out the title on multiple occasions. The ration of signature melodies was severely restricted, leaving “America,” “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” “Something’s Coming,” and “A Boy Like That” off the menu. “Somewhere,” a little ballet to begin with, and the finger-popping “Cool,” promoted here to a Fugue, got fuller treatments to make up for the omissions. And the glorious “Maria”! We got to hear a full rhapsodic version and the deliciously delicate Cha-Cha version. With softer finger snaps.

Then the surprise from our maestro, who had every right to be fatigued after busting out so many moves leading the Bernstein. Reasoning that a funeral isn’t a good way to send us home, even at the tail end of an evening devoted to tragic lovers, Ryan announced a more festive Jamaican encore. Eleanor Alberga’s “Celebration Dance” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a danceable dessert.

Evolving Album and Rock Group Shape Stereophonic

Concert, Theatre, , , , , , , ,

Review: Stereophonic @ Knight Theater

By Perry Tannenbaum

Pressure and deadlines are good for creatives. Or as Duke Ellington famously put it, “Necessity is the mother.” What David Adjmi’s Stereophonic explores – at excruciating length – are the consequences of no time pressure at all. Adjmi’s band, not named and not quite historical, closely tracks with Fleetwood Mac in the 1970s as they returned to their studio to cut what would become their megahit Rumours.

With music by Will Butler worthy of a supergroup, Stereophonic was a megahit in its own right, scoring a record number of Tony Award nominations and winning the top prize. For the ensuing national tour, now at Knight Theater for a rare second week, Adjmi and director Daniel Auken have cut into the show’s notorious four-act, four-hour bulk, so that the tourismo model arrives at a trim, but still overweight, 2:45 running time.

The group’s first album climbs to the top of the charts as they go deeper into hibernation, rehearsing, refining, composing, and crafting their more and more eagerly awaited sequel as expectations climb. But producer and lead singer Peter has no deadline to answer to, no set limit on whether the new release will be a single or double album, so new songs can be added on the fly while others, recorded earlier, can be shelved.

For the 1970’s, that was fairly outré. Such highly produced CTI jazz albums as Milt Jackson’s Sunflower, Airto’s Fingers, Ron Carter’s All Blues, and Hubert Laws’ In the Beginning (a double album), all recorded at the famed Van Gelder Studio, were produced in four days or less. Not enough time for an epic Fleetwood Mac soap opera, though no less music was released.

In line with the Sonny & Cher/Ike and Tina Turner/Lindsey Buckingham-Stevie Nicks template, lead singer – and Peter’s life partner – Diana is about to emerge as an industry supernova. That seems to fluster the not-so-subtly controlling Peter, a taskmaster and a perfectionist. Nor is perfectionism confined to the glamor couple. Band manager Simon can obsess for days over a phantom rattle in his drum kit after buck engineer Grover first detects it. And days more after Grover stops hearing it.

We can see that the claustrophobia of a group recording gig that goes on for over a year can wear on Diana and Peter’s already patched-up relationship. Naturally enough, Simon’s ongoing separation from his family pitches him gradually toward depression and moodiness. Less overtly, we can watch Grover’s growing confidence at the control board and his burgeoning influence over the band.

So yes, songs and takes can grow in polish and cohesion while they wane in energy and spontaneity. Compound that natural entropy with a souring romantic chemistry between two lead singers.

That’s when Grover’s new influence is crucial to the process. After numerous rehearsals and fine-tunings, the engineer at the control board notices that energy, spontaneity, and tempo have all sagged on one of the best tunes. Now Grover, previously a hanger-on who has falsified his resume to land this prestigious gig, grabs the driver’s seat and keeps prodding the band, through retake after retake, towards more authentic fire.

Animosity can be an obstacle or a creative trigger at this point.

By default, another lead singer composer, ace keyboardist Holly, becomes the most stable band member when Simon and his British cool unravel. Her emergence becomes all the more marked as she deals with her husband Reg’s increasing alcoholism, a drag to the whole band since he’s the bassist.

Holly’s relative stability enables Emilie Kouatchou to seize the dubious distinction of being the most consistently under-projecting actor on the Knight stage. Intimate conversations between the women, warmly spotlit by lighting designer Jiyoun Chang, were particularly difficult for me to decipher.

That sets up a bit of a paradox, for the control room/lounge area of the studio is closest to the audience, while the glassed-in recording studio is elevated a third of a flight up behind it. And of course, this actor band is really playing, simulating the 1976-1977 studio conditions, so the music is presumed to be recorded on real 3M reel tape, with multiple tracks mixed down to piddly two-track stereophonic.

Obviously, sound reaching us from that the more distant, highly-controlled electronic environment is cleaner – and more immediate – than the more mundane sound that’s closer to us downstage. You get the feel, since musicians gather there far less frequently than for their more casual, personal, technical, and candid conversations below, that dazzlingly brighter, hazier studio space is a loftier place in every way.

Foremost, because we sense that history is unfolding there.

Leaving the studio for a private argument offstage, Peter and Diana inadvertently demo the improved audibility of the hallowed ground when they leave their mikes on. Not only can Grover and fellow sound engineer Charlie hang on the power couple’s every word, so can we, adding a patina of hilarity to the backstage drama.

Drug use might be considered another bugbear threatening the group’s enterprise, but nobody in the band seems to be worried about the pigs busting in on a raid, despite the readily visible gallon-sized bag of cocaine. The dust makes it inside the studio, where Diana and her bandmates take a snort or three to perk themselves up, but no joints are lit up there. These are professionals.

We wait long enough for this supergroup-in-the-making to begin recording extensively in the studio to be starving for the serious rock we’ll hear – and that enhances the already rich gratification when we finally do. This is one very tight band, both vocally and instrumentally. A slight overlay of suspense when the women began their vocals. With both Kouatchou as Holly and Claire DeJean as Diane facing their respective studio mics in profile, I couldn’t detect whose solo led the take off.

I was more comfortable with the other key undetectables, knowing that virtually all other audience members were equally clueless: about cuts to the script and the playlist that happened in transit from Broadway to the road, and maybe along the road to Charlotte. Neither of the two scripts was available from Blumenthal Arts, so I couldn’t begin to weigh how much Adjmi and Butler’s “Radio Edit” strengthened or weakened the Broadway version that won five of the possible 10 Tony Awards it was up for.

No less than five members of that were nominated for the two Featured Actor laurels, so the record total of nominations was 13.

Sometimes, more is more. At no time would I agree with the NY Times assessment that Stereophonic is “a fiery family drama, as electrifying as any since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Ironic for a drama that dramatizes the pitfalls of an open-ended incubation process, Stereophonic may feel longer because, with so many microaggressions redlined, the “Radio Edit” may never have had the potential of rising to the heights – or rage – of Edward Albee’s masterwork. Or Tracey Letts’ more recent August: Osage County.

Other than their sonic dropouts, a serious matter for me, I couldn’t find any fault with the “Travelin’ Light” cast. They played and sang flawlessly, even on the outtakes. Maybe a blinking metronome, hidden from us, guides those oh-so-gradual increases in tempo. Only the enthusiasm level notches up noticeably when they find the true groove.

As Diana’s confidence, independence, and star power grew, it became more and more difficult to take my eyes off DeJean’s performance. Intermittently, thanks to costume designer Enver Chakartash’s alternating flair and reserve, Diana goes from fretting over the onset of her fame to wearing it. In the studio, there’s a parallel transformation (it may have been more correctly called an evolution in the longer version).

She seemed comparatively glued to the microphone during the first extended studio take. By Act 3 (after the only intermission), Diana roams the studio like the rock diva she has become, deigning to approach the microphone only when she sings. Ascending to rock royalty, she no longer asks Peter what she can do with her hands, no longer pleads with him to pick up a tambourine.

She just does it. From demure to diva, DeJean alluringly navigates all the curves and all the romantic bumps on the road to superstardom as the artistic flame within her burns more and more brightly and defiantly.

To be clear, Peter isn’t nearly as toxic as Ike Turner was in The Tina Turner Musical, so Denver Milord gets to play a far more nuanced role here. Yes, he is more than a little peacock-ish, but from the early moments, if you take notice of his reactions toward the debut album’s continued ascent on the pop charts, he is ambivalent about the band’s success.

This is partly to his credit, though we have more reason to detest Peter’s jealousy. Like Ike, we have to acknowledge that he’s a shrewd judge of talent who fiercely follows his instincts. So that male ambivalence that Milord plays, distasteful as it might be, also stems from his inability to even imagine resorting to Ike-like violence to keep Diana with him.

Ultimately, he sings like a god, she reigns like a goddess, and they produce a masterwork together. We are right to cut Peter some slack, particularly when Milord reveals his ability to earnestly apologize.

Extra kudos go to Milord and Kouatchou, both of whom understudied their touring roles on Broadway. It had to be brain-busting to unlearn so much of the original version while learning the new script and song arrangements.

Otherwise, it’s Christopher Mowod as Reg who garners the most attention, half amusing and half annoying. His pre- and post-alcoholic manifestations were remarkably balanced in drawing my delight and disdain, yet radically different. Even the concept of his character arc had a clever mirror-like reversal.

When he was most boisterous and boozy in the control room, Reg was literally self-effacing in the studio, devoutly facing away from his bandmates and the audience. Flip to the serene Reg 2, with a simplified wardrobe from Chakartash, he’s almost Maharishi-like outside the studio, but much more of a gregarious animal when he straps on his axe.

That’s another advantage of recording a new album within the time pressure of a single week: the same people play on all of it.

NC Baroque’s A Musical Offering Merits Enthusiastic Acceptance

Classical, Concert, , , ,

Review: A Musical Offering @ Davidson Bach Festival

By Perry Tannenbaum

March 7, 2026, Charlotte, NC – Since I hadn’t reviewed a North Carolina Baroque Orchestra performance at Davidson College Presbyterian Church in over 10 years, you are welcome to conclude that my return trip this past weekend was also my first sampling of the Davidson Bach Festival, which launched its first season slightly less than a year ago. In some respects – age, size, duration, number of venues, and variety – the Davidson fest is like the Charlotte Bach Festival in miniature. They don’t import a world-class chorus or perform the mighty masses and oratorios, and they don’t offer noonday lecture concerts with choir, orchestra, AV presentations, and scholarly erudition.

Yet there are aspects of this relative simplicity that can be prized. Unlike the Charlotte fest or the Oregon Bach Festival, its regal template, Davidson hasn’t ventured beyond Bach so far. Nor has it hopscotched around the city or the college campus, cleaving exclusively to the Presbyterian. Upon reacquainting myself with that sanctuary, I found what many would consider an advantage. Although the organ at St. Peter’s Episcopal, in uptown Charlotte, can speak in earthshaking thunder, an organist performing a concert for over an hour at Davidson Presbyterian can be viewed far more comfortably. You have to turn around in your pew to even glimpse the organ and the organist at St. Peter’s. Even then, you’ll only see his back, often at a greater distance, and always in dimmer light.

That was my only pang of regret when I opened the festival program and recalled that the “Bach Birthday Bash” with award-winning organist Chase Loomer was scheduled for the following afternoon. Meanwhile, “A Musical Offering,” with three Bach concertos (culminating in a Brandenburg) and a Trio Sonata from his Musikalisches Opfer, would provide ample consolation for missing tomorrow’s rumble. Playing lead oboe or flute on three of the four pieces, Sung Lee was certainly going to draw the most scrutiny.

On the other hand, harpsichordist Francis Yun seemed destined to lurk inconspicuously behind the other musicians until the opening movement of the treasurable Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. Unless you were already with the epic harpsichord cadenza in the opening Allegro, you had little idea how emphatically Yun would emerge.

The same can be said, of course, for the myriad Bach compositions known to us chiefly by their featured instruments and BWV numbers. Familiar melodies lurk in them that multitudes of music lovers will instantly remember, but only specialist musicians and musicologists can anticipate. For most of us, Bach’s delicious Easter eggs are only further scrambled by the multiple times he might repurpose his best melodies in various compositions.

The Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, BWV 1060r, starting off BC Bach’s “Musical Offering,” is an apt example. Starting out as a concerto for two harpsichords and strings, it was recast into a Violin and Oboe version. Either way, there were sighs of satisfaction – and relaxation – when the melody of the opening Allegro was recognized with its delightful echo motif. Lee was partnered with violinist Jeanne Johnson for the main instrumental interplay, perhaps even more beautifully in the middle Adagio movement, because it sounded less familiar, with a more minor-key flavor. As one becomes more experienced as a listener, one appreciates the variety of Allegro that sensitive and discerning soloists bring to the stage. The closing Allegro here was brisker than the earlier one.

Even if you were sitting in the second row, as we were, the hall was part of the sound, softening it. Yet the second piece, the Trio from A Musical Offering, was more subdued in various ways. The ensemble was reduced by half to four players, and all were seated in a chamber music style. Compared with recent recordings we might sample on Spotify or Apple Classical, NC Baroque’s chamber ensemble played the second movement Allegro conspicuously slower after a perfectly judged Largo with gorgeous counterpoint.

Lee, Yun, violinist David Wilson, and cellist Barbara Krumdieck meshed beautifully throughout, rightly reveling in the sonority of the penultimate Andante, which is always slowed down – even on the Kujiken brothers’1994 recording, the best of the bunch. Less of an outlier than the earlier Allegro, the concluding movement was also a bit lethargic, better propelled by Krumdieck’s continuo. Overall, the interpretation aligned best with the 1974 recording by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, where the middle movements are marked Allegro Moderato and Andante Larghetto.

Everything about the E Major Violin Concerto No. 2 sounded wonderfully familiar to me, even the slow movement. Bach lovers could have come to the catchy melodies through this BWV 1042 violin version, almost perfectly judged at Davidson Presbyterian by soloist Janelle Davis, or a subsequent BWV 1054 harpsichord version, pitched a full step lower. Davis was very close to the speed that unlocks the opening Allegro’s full flair and immersed herself lyrically in the middle Adagio. But it was Davis’s joyful playing in the closing Allegro assai that made this Concerto such a tough act to follow.

In hindsight, Davis’s joyous tempo provided the perfect launching pad for Yun’s prodigious three-minute rampage, climaxing the opening Allegro of the Brandenburg 5. Tempo-wise, the whole movement was perfectly grooved. A little more ardor from Lee in the middle Affetuoso would not have been amiss, but we ascended to a far loftier plane when Bach’s harmonies flooded the music. Though a little less prayerful and sublime than the opening Allegro, the final movement of this immortal concerto – especially appealing with Lee sparkling jubilantly – is no less quintessentially Bach and baroque. Every time we recall these bookended gems, we realize that they’re living inside us all the time.

Duruflé and Respighi Are an Unexpectedly Dynamic Duo at Belk Theater

Concert, Theatre, , , , , , , , , , ,

Review: Charlotte Symphony Plays Respighi’s Pines of Rome

By Perry Tannenbaum

November 14, 2025, Charlotte, NC – Neither Maurice Duruflé nor Ottorino Respighi would rank high among composers that Charlotte Symphony subscribers most wish to hear. The orchestra’s previous two music directors, Christopher Warren-Green and Christof Perick, never performed Respighi as part of the orchestra’s classics series – he remained the province of guest conductors – and the Duruflé Requiem, after concerts by the old Oratorio Singers and Carolina Voices early in the century, hadn’t surfaced at all locally since 2007.

So a pairing of Duruflé’s most highly regarded work with two Respighi favorites, The Pines of Rome and The Fountains of Rome, didn’t figure to fill Belk Theater with rabid enthusiasts. Yet the sheer scale of the Requiem, calling forth the Charlotte Master Chorale under Kenney Potter’s leadership, made the Belk an obvious choice over the snugger Knight Theater.

Although our current music director, Kwamé Ryan, brought us Respighi’s Roman Festivals last spring, a guest conductor was once again on the podium for these more beloved Roman delights by the Italian icon. While a Duruflé-Respighi pairing will never be boffo box office, starting with the Requiem – which likely drew hundreds of the choristers’ family members to these performances – made the host of Master Chorale choristers onstage before intermission available to swell the audience for the Fountains and Pines afterwards. Adding to the electricity in the house, guest maestro Francesco Lecce-Chong deployed two groups of brass players upstairs to opposite sides of the grand tier for the final “Appian Way” section of The Pines.

Based on Gregorian themes from the Mass of the Dead, the Requiem sounded like the oldest piece on the program, though it was the newest. Fortifying that impression was the dominant role of the Chorale compared to the two soloists, mezzo-soprano Megan Samarin and baritone Eleomar Cuello. Most of us likely felt that Cuello’s noble bearing and vocals in the “Domine Jesu Christe” section were all too brief: even there, the choir had the larger share of the singing.

Samarin’s conquest in the middle “Pie Jesu” section, an ethereal solo, also seemed too fleeting, though here the Chorale was silent. Sampling recorded versions of the Requiem on Spotify and Apple, you’ll probably conclude that the orchestral version performed at the Belk packs more wallop than the organ scoring, which was probably the version that Carolina Voices chose 18 years ago at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. Another reason for the guest vocalists to make a more muted impression this time.

The fourth section, the “Sanctus,” decisively upstaged Cuello as Lecce-Chong rallied the forces of the orchestra and the Chorale together, but the baritone returned for a second cameo during the first half of climactic “Libera Me,” fueling the fires of the choral “dies irae” that followed. Somehow, the sublimity of the concluding “In Paradism” doused those fires. The beatific loveliness of the women’s voices certainly made for a heavenly arrival, yet the men miraculously eclipsed them in their visionary entrance, truly a mystic chorus of angels.

Instrumental excellence peeped in occasionally during the Requiem, chiefly in Timothy Swanson’s oboe obbligato for the “Kyrie” section, in bassoonist AJ Neubert’s “Lux Aeterna” intro, and in the exquisite welcome to “In Paradisium” from yet another principal, harpist Andrea Mumm Trammell. Even more play was afforded to the players in the Respighi pieces with all their resplendent colors and shadings.

Memories of hearing Respighi are invariably more sugary to me than the actual music, which under Lecce-Chong’s baton, especially in The Fountains of Rome, was refreshing and exhilarating – and, of course, effervescent. Neubert probably made an even stronger impression on oboe in his lovely, languid sketching for “The Fountain of Valle Giulia at Dawn,” with principals Taylor Marino on clarinet, Jon Lewis on cello, and Victor Wang on flute following eloquently in the same opening section.

The sunnier middle sections, depicting “Triton Fountain” and “The Fountain of Trevi,” were more impressively orchestral and brassy, Triton’s horn issuing an early proclamation at the beginning of his section and a rampage of brass, chiefly trombones, heralding midday at Trevi, Rome’s most majestic fountain. No doubt the audience was a bit surprised by the delicacy of the Fountains finale, “The Villa Medici Fountain,” and its sprinkling of percussion, celesta, and soft chimes, simulating a distant church at twilight.

My mind had first been changed on Respighi way back in 1997 when Daniele Gatti had led the London Royal Philharmonic into town with diva pianist Alicia de Larrocha. His rendition of The Fountains with the Londoners was sufficiently revelatory for me to place a rush order for Gatti’s recording of Respighi’s complete Roman trilogy, where additional revelations awaited: Roman Festivals and Pines of Rome were both more powerful, varied, and grand. Though The Pines had popped up on my calendar at the dearly departed Eastern Music Festival in 2011, this was my first opportunity to hear – and compare – Fontane di Roma and Pini di Roma in the same live concert.

With a feel as sure for Respighi as Gatti’s, Lecce-Chong’s performance was worth the long wait. “The Pines of the Villa Borghese” had a marvelous orchestral bustle before principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn was dispatched to the wings for the signature eerie effect in the solemn “Pines Near a Catacomb.” Even more quietude came with “The Pines of the Janiculum” as piano, clarinet, cellos, and a soft oboe anthem enhanced the magic. But the epic build and variety of “The Pines of the Appian Way,” seasoned with prerecorded nightingale chirruping and crowned, at the end of a satisfyingly long and majestic crescendo, with the outbreak of brass from the balcony, surpassed the grandeur of the Respighi we had heard before and joined the peaks of the Master Chorale as the pinnacles of the evening.

Listen! Charlotte Symphony Has Launched Its 94th Season With a Truly Musical Logo

Review: Charlotte Symphony Plays Shostakovich Symphony No. 5

By Perry Tannenbaum

October 10, 2025, Charlotte, NC – It’s a bit of a mind-bending concept, so after launching Charlotte Symphony’s 94th season by leading his orchestra and audience in the National Anthem, music director Kwamé Ryan needed to take a couple of minutes to explain what exactly a musical logo is. Symphony also has a new conventional logo, a graphic see-through C with a top seraph that reminds one of a bass clef. But Symphony’s musical or sonic logo, Ryan explained, is akin to the six notes you hear on your iPad when you get a fresh sports bulletin from ESPN or the sonic boom that blasts you off your couch when you sign in to Netflix.

Ryan joked that Symphony had gone to John Williams to write the new theme but he wasn’t available. So he settled for Mason Bates, the second most-performed living composer (by American orchestras), who accepted the commission. The timing was auspicious, for Bates’s acclaimed new opera, The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, opened at the Met less than a month ago.

Ryan proceeded to lead his orchestra in two versions of the new logo, the world premiere of an extended concert version followed by the abbreviated five-second version concertgoers could expect to hear in the Knight Theater lobby, summoning us back from intermission. Tell me I’m wrong, but Bates also seemed to have Williams in mind, in a heraldic vein, when he fulfilled his commission. And if musical or sonic logos become a thing among orchestras, Bates, Ryan, Symphony, and its subscribers can all claim to have been on the ground floor at the Knight.

Bates also took honors for composing the first piece to appear on our printed programs for the new season, Attack Decay Sustain Release. Premiered 12 years ago on the Left Coast, this lively five-minute appetizer was written, Ryan revealed, in 7/4-time. Bates’s title was likely onomatopoetic, describing the flow of his primary melody, for the seven beats often ended with a sustained crescendo. In its multiple episodes, the five-minute piece also boasted plenty of space for highlighting Symphony’s strings and brass section, sprinkled with an assortment of woody and frond-y percussion.

The remainder of the evening would be devoted to Dmitri Shostakovich, if our printed programs were to be trusted. In greeting us, however, Symphony president David Fisk told us to expect an extra musical moment after intermission. Surprises galore! Maybe the biggest went unmentioned by Fisk and Ryan: the turnout at the Knight. Compared with the “disappointing” turnout I reported last November for Shostakovich’s Ninth, the first and only previous occasion that Shostakovich topped the bill of a Symphony program, our 2025 crowd for the composer’s Fifth was robust, few empty seats across the orchestra section and seats sold in the balcony to the uppermost row.

Guest soloist Joshua Roman may not have been apprised of the surprisingly enthusiastic crowd awaiting him, appearing slightly wary as he seated himself for Shosty’s Cello Concerto No. 1. With good reason. The piece, written for Mstislav Rostropovich in 1959 is bold and daring from the brash onset of its opening Allegretto movement, not at all a timid or apprentice composition. Roman’s part in the Allegretto was precociously modern; so driving, repetitive, and mechanical that it seems to antedate the minimalism of Philip Glass and John Adams. The comical interjections from brass and clarinet upstaged the soloist somewhat in my first live audition of this piece.

Roman could have told himself to be patient about winning us over, for his role became more complex and impressive after the only pause in the piece, when he tackled the cluster of three final movements, delivered without further pause. At the heart of this cluster, between a soulful Moderato and a joyous Allegro con moto, Ryan and his orchestra observed a reverential silence as Roman played the Rostropovich-worthy third movement cadenza. There were bowed sections featuring a melody and a bassline simultaneously and, deeper into the virtuosic display, interludes of counterpoint where he bowed with his right arm on open strings while plucking a second melody line with his left hand. You couldn’t miss the difficulties here even if you closed your eyes. Nor was the final movement anticlimactic, featuring the return of the orchestra and a more decorative and colorful return of the march motif from the opening movement.

Undoubtedly, the audience perceived the military triumph they had witnessed, rising for a lusty standing ovation. This triggered a final pre-intermission surprise, for after being cheered back onstage a couple of times, Roman sat himself down for an encore and, before the tumult died down, launched into the Prelude to J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, maybe the most familiar solo he could possibly offer.

Pure negligence prevented me from sampling the sounding of the musical logo prompting our return after intermission for our most touching surprise, played in tribute to three dearly departed members of the Charlotte Symphony family. Thankfully, it wasn’t Samuel Barber’s Adagio but rather a piece that necessitated some fresh sculpting and rehearsal, Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten. Beautiful!

We’ve heard a lot from Ryan in recent years, though many Symphony subscribers might say we should have heard much more. In preparing what Shostakovich subtitled “A Soviet Artist’s Practical Creative Reply to Just Criticism” – from renowned music critic Josef Stalin – Ryan trampled on the notion that Symphony No. 5 was in any way servile, apologetic, or conciliatory. All the true moods of Shosty’s 1937 portrait of Soviet Russia were vividly rendered, beginning with the bleak, haunting, and ultimately aching qualities of the epic opening Moderato. This battlefield desolation was not altogether relieved by the comical marching of the ensuing Allegretto, which combined sourness with merriment, along with a delicious dancing interlude from concertmaster Calin Ovidiu Lupanu. The Largo reverted to the weepy and misty grumblings and dyspepsia of the opening movement. Then we transitioned wonderfully – especially in ghoulish October – to the surreal, manic phantasmagoria of the concluding Allegro non troppo. My happy memories of Christopher Warren-Green conducting this work have faded since 2013, so I offer no comparisons. But this was no doubt the finest performance I

Three Women Empathize Historically With “Stabat Mater” on a Historic Night

Review: Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at The Mint Museum

By Perry Tannenbaum

September 11, 2025, Charlotte, NC – With its stained-glass windows, high ceiling, and resonant wooden flooring, the Uptown Mint Museum proved to be an unexpectedly apt venue for Opera Carolina and Charlotte Symphony to join in commemorating mournful, horrific events with sacred music. Reflexively, we look to the past – and to religion – to express our feelings amid present woes, but neither of the musical organizations could have anticipated the extra layers of calamity earlier in the week that would pile onto their memorial to the victims and heroes of 9/11 on its 24th anniversary. The work they performed, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, has always had a tragical tinge. Pergolesi composed his most-performed work near the end of his life, all too suddenly ended in 1736 by the onset of tuberculosis at the age of 26.

The Italian was casting his eyes across the centuries in scoring his Latin text, which had already existed for four or five hundred years, depending on whether it was written by Jacopone da Todi, a Franciscan friar, or by Lotario de’ Conti di Segni, better known as Pope Innocent III. The “Stabat mater dolorósa” poem, 20 three-line stanzas written in trochaic tetrameter, meditates on the sorrows and sufferings of Jesus’ mother, more than a millennium further back in time, standing by her son during the agonies of crucifixion. While the Oxford Dictionary of Music describes the piece as originally written for male soprano, male alto, and orchestra, most of the vocalists on the 60 or so recordings of the work have been female sopranos and mezzos.

Marie Van Rhijn was the first woman to conduct a recording of Pergolesi’s chef d’oeuvre in 2021 on the Chateau de Versailles label, so Emily Jarrell Urbanek was almost a pioneer in adding her special empathy toward the grieving Virgin Mary as she stood on the podium leading the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Ensemble. But wait: the Van Rhijn recording was done with two male vocalists! Samuel Mariño and Filippo Mineccia, listed on the album cover as the “deux costrats,” also perform the Vivaldi Stabat Mater on that release with Van Rhijn conducting. So together, Urbanek, soprano Corey Raquel Lovelace, and mezzo Leyla Martinucci may have been making feminist history after all.

Of course, the Van Rhijn recording remains a great place to begin if you’re wishing to hear how Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater actually sounded at its premiere in Naples. Yet it didn’t take long for the first all-female version ever led by a woman in Charlotte – and the first Symphony concert we’ve heard at The Mint – to impress. Pergolesi divided the twenty-stanza text into 12 compositions, and the opening “Stabat Mater dolorosa” duet is by far the most beloved. While the orchestral intro was engaging enough, though recordings with an organ yield more heft, the blending of Martinucci’s voice with Lovelace’s was sublime.

The first five sections of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater fully demonstrate the composer’s strengths in solo and duet writing, his lithe capacity for transitioning back and forth between those modes, and his perverse disregard for the stanza couplings of the text’s rhyme scheme. After hearing Lovelace and Martinucci, I sampled Van Rhijn’s recording, then a starry version with Anna Netrebko and Magdelena Kožená, and finally ancient music specialist Christopher Hogwood’s prestigious recording with Emma Kirkby and James Bowman. My admiration only grew for both Lovelace and Martinucci’s approach to the music. Less vibrato and ornamentation seemed more in keeping with the sacred music and the solemn occasion.

Martinucci was the more unique find overall because of the creamy richness of her sound, though Lovelace sang equally well and matched her purity. Not long after Martinucci’s luscious and revelatory “Quae moerebat et dolebat,” Lovelace’s most affecting solo was the “Vidi suum dulcem natum,” two sections later. Between them came Pergolesi’s fifth section, “Quis est homo qui non fleret,” perhaps the apex of the concert. Lovelace launched into this section at some length, so it briefly seemed like this was a solo and Martinucci had neglected to take her seat. But Martinucci had an equally gorgeous solo afterwards and Lovelace didn’t return to her seat, either. We would be ascending heavenwards once more when the two voices soon intertwined.

The tone of the special occasion was nicely prefaced with words from OpCarolina general director Shanté Williams and Profit Insight senior advisor Duncan MacNichol, who a tolled a bell for each of the four planes that crashed in 2001 when the Twin Towers fell. The only discernible shortcoming at the Mint Museum was the lack of supertitles keeping track of where we were in the text. Though Lovelace was often difficult to follow, Martinucci usually lost me. Better to luxuriate in her voice than to decode her Latin.

Xuefei Yang Thrusts Herself Into the Classical Vanguard

Review: Xuefei Yang at The Parr Center

By Perry Tannenbaum

It wasn’t until my third time around with the Shuman Public Relations press release that it hit me. A national solo tour by any classical guitarist – let alone a Chinese female guitarist – is a rather unique event. No other pre-publicity had registered on my radar, so my curiosity was doubly piqued. To my eagerness to determine whether Xuefei Yang would live up to the hype was added fresh worries.

What kind of audience do we have in Charlotte, NC, for classical guitar? Would people be able to find the Parr Center, the two-year-old venue that had only been used once before for classical music – by Opera Carolina over 18 months ago?

Timed to coincide with the release of her new Chapeau Satie album – itself chiming with the centennial of Erik Satie’s death – the Yang tour isn’t running on fumes. Yang is one of the first artists to be signed onto Apple’s Platoon label, another encouraging sign alongside lossless music files that Apple Music is committed to classical. Enough Yang videos are on YouTube to suggest that she is quite savvy about marketing.

Her Parr concert quickly dispelled my fears of an empty house. Because of Yang’s impressive technique, her winsome rapport with the audience, and her wide-ranging repertoire, the evening was a buoyant mix of retro intimacy and decorum counterbalanced by an open-armed diversity and eclecticism: classical, jazz, tango, and Tin Pan Alley. Gleaned from four continents.

Aside from the finely calibrated sound, the deep Apple pockets behind Yang’s tour were out of sight. No printed programs were handed out at the entrance, and no QR codes lurked in the house. No poster-sized signage for selfies loomed in the lobby, and no merch was on sale. The prerecorded announcement introducing the guitarist was as slick and primetime as Yang’s best videos, yet efficiently brief.

With nobody else onstage to greet her, Yang walked in from the wings, acknowledged the enthusiasm of what turned out to be a good-sized audience, sat herself down on an adjustable piano bench, and positioned herself – and a rather fluffy red skirt – on her foot rest. Though the applause was robust, there were no jumpers, no double-time clappers, and no whoopers in the crowd to indicate the presence of rabid fans.

Six minutes later, things would be different. Yang opened fire with Isaac Albeniz’s Asturias (Leyenda), a piece that you never forget once you’ve heard it. Nor do you have to see it being played to appreciate its rapidly compounding difficulties. It begins with a flamenco-styled bassline, layers on a trilling treble, and peaks with repeated strums stomping as the third layer – the fiercer, the better – as the bass and treble keep going, seemingly uninterrupted.

Or at least the flow sounds steady, undeflected by the ferocity, in the John Williams recording of 1974, which made me fall in love with the piece. Gradually, the sublimity of the slow middle section etches itself into memory after repeated hearings, the more so as you appreciate how perfectly it circles back to the opening bassline, trills, and strums.

At the Parr Center, Yang played better than she had in either of her 2022 studio recordings, first on the Decca label and then on a rushed and misjudged retake on Warner. She set the land speed record for the Asturias on Warner but surrendered her grasp of the argument. Now she was just a tad slower than Williams in the bravura sections, still in a thrilling groove, and only marginally swifter in the malagueña middle, her lucidity abounding and connecting both sections, with sublime harmonics perfectly timed.

An audacious beginning, to be sure. Now there were whoops aplenty, a couple of them uncomfortably close to my ears. Yang stood up with a bigger smile, holding her beautiful guitar in her open hands in a way that surely plays well at the seven churches on the 15-city tour. But she didn’t begin speaking to us until she reset herself and swiveled a second microphone her way.

We had begun our four-continent journey in Spain, she told us, and would continue to Paris with a couple of pieces from the new album. Again, these were transcriptions of pieces originally composed for piano that showed two sides of Satie, the spare and contemplative Gnossienne No. 3 and the unexpectedly frisky “La Diva de l’Empire.” Prepare for a cakewalk, Yang told us.

Of course, the cakewalk was the more adventurous Satie setting, especially since Yang is contriving on tour to replace vocalist Héloïse Werner, who sings with her on the recorded track. She soloed with a beautiful lilt, especially jaunty and supple where she was replacing Werner’s vocal.

Onward to Asia, where we were given a Japanese treat, an excerpt from Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence film score, my first gratifying discovery of the evening. You can actually check out the final track on Yang’s 2023 X Culture release and see how her version improves upon the composer’s soundtrack album – sadder, moodier, and poignant. To my ears, the Parr Center performance was even better, adding dimensions of foreboding as the tempo quickened, heartbreak and disillusion as the performance climaxed, crowned by a beautifully delicate coda.

Those in the audience who knew Sakamoto’s original could more fully appreciate the extras that Yang had imaginatively lavished upon it. For me, Yang’s excellence as a composer did not become apparent until she unveiled her own Xinjiang Fantasy. The tempo changes and the trilling treble might tell us of Yang’s desire for more pieces like Asturias in the repertoire – and perhaps more room for improvisation. Compared to the version she recorded on the same Decca album where her Asturias first appeared, the Parr version was more thoughtful, contemplative, and impressionistic, all of the percussive embellishments banished.

Perhaps because of the scarcity of flights from China to South America, Yang stopped over in Mexico for a couple of pieces by Manuel Ponce before crossing the equator. “Scherzino Mexicano” was an adorable departure from the broodings that had preceded, and “Estrellita” was like a sentimental homecoming, played ardently with touches of the sublime and Yang’s bell-toned harmonics.

The rest of our stay in the New World was more casual, relaxed, and jazzy. Astor Piazzolla chipped in one of his multitudinous tangos, “La muerte del ángel,” and Luiz Bonfá welcomed us to Brazil with his famed “Manhã de Carnaval” from Black Orpheus. We lingered in Brazil, in bossa nova, and in Black Orpheus with Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “A felicidade” before arriving at last in the USA.

So you can’t name a single piece written in America for classical guitar, right? Yang to the rescue with three superb transcriptions of tunes by Erroll Garner, Jerome Kern, and Billy Strayhorn. Garner’s “Misty” was the most innovative of the three, most adventurous in its bravura variations on the midsection (or bridge) of the familiar melody. Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train” was probably the most popular selection of the evening, delivering Duke Ellington’s familiar keyboard intro transposed to guitar, along with some of the familiar big band riffs. Nor did “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” disappoint.

These American arrangements may indicate a new direction for Yang in upcoming releases, since there are no studio parallels to be found on Spotify or Apple Music. It’s tempting to think that Yang is also at the vanguard of a new wave of national tours by solo classical artists. That Apple and its new Apple Platoon label are at work preserving and recording classical music in higher fidelity and promoting live performance is as amazing as it is encouraging.

Heinichen Highlights NC Baroque’s “Magnificent” Concert

Review: Magnificent Baroque at St. Mark’s Lutheran

By Perry Tannenbaum

August 8, 2025, Charlotte, NC – Baroque music may not be synonymous with magnificence, but magnificence was arguably what baroque composers strove for most ardently in their music, particularly in a sacred setting. Little wonder, then, that over 80 percent of baroque music concerts in the Metrolina area are performed in churches – or that St. Mark’s Lutheran Church has now hosted the area’s three foremost baroque ensembles, Carolina Pro Musica, Bach Akademie Charlotte, and The North Carolina Baroque Orchestra.

Though based in Davidson, musicians in the Orchestra hail from more than ten different states across the US. Currently in their fifteenth year, they are still led by their sister co-founders, artistic director Frances Blaker and executive director Barbara Blaker Krumdieck. Ailing in San Francisco, Blaker yielded her conducting chores to concertmaster Martie Perry. Titling their St. Mark’s concert “Magnificent Orchestral Music of the Baroque,” NC Baroque wasn’t obliged to stray far from familiar composers or their warhorses. Yet even with J.S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi on the program, the selections were all adventurous, with works by Johann David Heinichen and Joseph Bodin de Boismortier in the mix.

It’s never a terrible idea to begin with Vivaldi, but the Concerto in D minor was especially apt, since it allowed opportunities for both our co-hosts, Perry and first cellist Krumdieck, to immediately swing into action. Indeed, the chief delights of the opening Allegro were the exchanges between the two violinists, Perry and Annie Loud, and the phalanx of four cellists led by Krumdieck. The slow movements, an Adagio and a Largo, were charming, but the Allegros following them underscored one of the chief characteristics we cherish in Vivaldi, his abrupt changes in tempo and dynamics.

Vivaldi wrote over five hundred concertos in his lifetime, hundreds more than the famously prolific Georg Philipp Telemann, so NC Baroque had no problem unearthing repertoire that we had never heard before – or outside the familiar keyboard and string orbit. Fourteen oboe concertos and over 40 bassoon concertos are out there, to cite a couple of examples. Still, it’s a labor of patience, endurance, and discernment for the ensemble to settle on a single Concerto for Two Flutes in C (RV 533) – and from that three-movement concerto, to single out the opening Allegro molto. For the occasion, Sung Lee and Barbara Norton rose from the front pew of St. Mark’s, took their places centerstage between the violins and the cellos, and played flawlessly on their authentic instruments. What a lovely blend.

Krumdieck did the honors in introducing the double flute Vivaldi, but it was Perry who introduced the rarely-heard Heinichen, perhaps being offered for the first time in the region. Our Cultural Voice index mentions the German just twice over the years, both at performances in the Triangle Area: a Sonata for oboe, viola, and harpsichord, played in Raleigh by Mallarmé Chamber Players in 2015, and two unspecified Dresden Concertos played at the American Dance Festival in Durham two years earlier – likely through loudspeakers – accompanying a new work, Perpetual Dawn, by the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

If Spotify and Apple Music are to be trusted, virtually nobody knew about Heinichen until 1993, for that was when the much-lauded 2-CD collection of 11 Dresden Concertos was released on the Archiv label, performed by the Musica Antigua Köln led by Reinhold Goebel. My own familiarity with Heinichen, many of whose works were destroyed in the Dresden bombings of 1945, began shortly after reading a rave review of the recording (and Goebel’s introductory essay) in Gramophone.

On this night, the Concerto Grosso in G major (S. 215) and the Concerto Grosso in F (S. 232) – apparently Heinichen’s favorite keys – were the highlights, delivering the most magnificence. They were rightfully presented in ascending, chronological order, the G major after the Vivaldi works and the F major as the program finale after a sheaf of Bach Sinfonias. Again we would hear Lee and Norton on their flutes, but both Heinichen scores added a pair of oboes, played by Will Thauer and Sarah Weiner, that clashed rather than blending with the other winds.

After the first Heinichen, the two movements from Boismortier’s comic ballet, “Don Quichotte chez la duchesse,” were more than pleasant. My only problem with the performance was finding myself oversold on Perry’s tasty intro. Never did detect the promised windmills or underworld in the music, and if Mendelssohn had done Sancho Panza’s donkey, I’m sure little Rucio wouldn’t also have eluded me. Yet the Overture and Chaconne by the Frenchman provided a nice transition to the unique Bach segment of the program: four introductory instrumental pieces from four Bach Cantatas, an interlude comprised of four preludes.

All of these pieces were well chosen, none of them coming off like background Divertimentos or lackadaisical baroque elevator music. They offered fresh opportunities for soloists to take on different instruments. Subbing for Blaker on recorder, Weiner intertwined beautifully with Trauer’s oboe in the contrapuntal passages of the opening Sinfonia from the Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn (“Step onto the path of faith”) Cantata.

Trauer and Lee both switched from oboe to recorder for Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt (“Just as the rain and snow fall from heaven”), bringing the Sinfonia set to a sparkling finish. Other versions you may audition on Spotify won’t sound as crisp, for it seems they’re fronted by oboes. Not that the oboes were slighted in the Sinfonia set. Weiner switched back to her customary instrument, playing beautifully on the Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (“Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing”) Sinfonia. Yet she had already been upstaged by Lee’s achingly lovely rendition of the Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe (“I stand with one foot in the grave”) Sinfonia, likely repurposed from a previous concerto and subsequently recycled into the Harpsichord Concerto in F minor. Nectar of the gods.

Berko’s “Sacred Place” Is the Chief Revelation at Master Chorale’s Wholeness Concert

Review: Wholeness Concert at First Presbyterian Church

By Perry Tannenbaum

May 17, 2025, Charlotte, NC – Noted singer, conductor, and educator Helen Kemp (1918-2015) was most concerned with the musical training and development of children through children’s choirs when she coined her beloved mantra, “Body, mind, spirit, voice. It takes the whole person to sing and rejoice.” But in times of widespread warfare, terrorism, societal fracturing, and political upheaval, the Charlotte Master Chorale aptly adopted these words to subtitle its final concert for the 2024-25 season. Their “Wholeness” concert, conducted by Kenney Potter and Philip Biedenbender, affirmed the First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte as a place of healing, harmony, and communal gathering.

With Alex Berko’s Sacred Place as the centerpiece of the program, ecumenical engagement became the most salient feature of Wholeness for me. Between Shabbat morning services at Temple Israel of Charlotte and a Charlotte Symphony concert at dusk with works by Jewish composers Bernstein and Copland topping the marquee, Wholeness – and especially Sacred Places – proved to be a surprisingly perfect bridge. Berko’s six-part service is modeled on Jewish liturgy, with four of the six sections bearing the Hebrew title of a foundational prayer. These core elements of this prayerful suite were framed by an identical opening and closing prayer, excerpted from Wendell Berry’s 1966 poem, “The Porch Over the River.”

The prayers became a distillation of the poem, where Berry’s porch was the most benign human intrusion upon the primeval serenity of nature at a wooded riverfront. As for the Jewish service, texts chosen by Berko were only obliquely connected to the original Hebrew – actual connection in the instance of “Amidah” vestigially retained only in the composer’s introductory note. The music echoes the transition in Berko’s chosen texts from the hushed tranquility of Berry’s riverscape to John Muir’s evocations of majesty and glory in his eloquent description of Yosemite. It was originally sent to Theodore Roosevelt, urging the president to preserve this magnificent temple of nature. Only the connection between text and the literal meaning of “Amidah,” mostly a silent prayer said while standing, remained obscure.

Musically ranging from solo vocals to grand choral proclamations – accompanied by violinist Sarah Case and cellist Peter Case, with Biedenbender at the keyboard – the “Amidah” was only slightly eclipsed by the ensuing “Shema,” which superbly referenced the cornerstone of all Jewish prayer. Orthodox Jews will have the words of the “Shema” on all their doorposts and say them at least two times daily, if not three, biblically enjoining Israelites to listen and hear that the Lord is their god and the Lord is one. For this pivotal section, Berko chose William Stafford’s 1961 poem, “In Response to a Question: ‘What Does the Earth Say?’” Unlike the voice of the Lord, thundering from the peak of Mount Sinai and proclaimed by Moses to the people below, Stafford strains to hear what the earth says. Presumably, the poet has divined its message: “The earth says have a place, be what that place requires…” So again, Berko’s music roars and whispers.

Text for the “Mi Shebeirach” had a smidge of Hebrew in it, but contrary to Berko’s belief, it was not a translation of the actual prayer. Instead, it was taken verbatim from a setting that Debbie Friedman had written for the prayer in 1993, using the English she had interspersed with the original Hebrew. The Friedman version has amazing popularity, widely replacing the original “Mi Shebeirach” prayer across the English-speaking world, so Berko’s mistake is not unusual. Nor is it the worst.

A drama that was judged for the 2013 Jewish Plays Project, The Man in the Sukkah, presumed that the song, with its mishmash of Hebrew and English, was sung by persecuted Jews during the days of the Holocaust. When Berko’s setting reached the brief Hebrew phrase in Friedman’s lyric – “Bless those in need of healing with r’fuah sh’leimah” – the section, which had been more like recitative until this point, swelled with melody and feeling. The section that followed, “Kaddish,” retreated briefly toward the quietude of “Closing Prayer” with a snippet from Rabidranath Tagore’s Stray Birds (No. 273). It was good to have the delayed final words, “at the margin of starry silence,” printed out in the program booklet for the sake of clarity – and to fully savor the music’s sublimity.

Although the other nine pieces on the program didn’t benefit from the favor of being printed out – or credited, when the lyricist was not the composer – they were all worthy of the Wholeness theme. None of them were at all too brief, cute, or at all bouncy. The closest to rejoicing was Reginal Wright’s “We Are the Music Makers.” Less facile and more propulsive was the Adam and Matt Podd arrangement of “How Can I Keep from Singing,” with touches of melancholy throughout, especially in its concluding decrescendo.

The most intimate and solemn of the short works was Don Macdonald’s “When the Earth Stands Still,” with lyrics by the composer that merited inclusion alongside Berko’s texts. But the most remarkable piece of the afternoon was arguably Craig Hella Johnson’s beauteous, slightly sugary “Psalm of Life,” set to one of Mattie J.T. Stepanik’s Heartsongs. Before succumbing to a rare form of muscular dystrophy at the age of 13, the astonishing prodigy appeared on TV with Larry King, Oprah Winfrey, with former president Jimmy Carter on Good Morning America, and on New York Times bestseller lists on multiple occasions with his books of poetry and essays. Like all the other composers and writers behind the Wholeness concert, I’d never been acquainted with Stepanik before. He was a revelation to me among revelations.

Must-See Classical Abounds at Spoleto Festival USA

Reviews: Opera, Chamber Music, Orchestral Music, and Alisa at Spoleto

By Perry Tannenbaum

Three different sea changes have reshaped Spoleto Festival USA since Nigel Redden, responding to the WSYWAT turmoil that followed in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder, departed after the 2021 season. Redden saw himself in the crosshairs of the 2020 We See You White American Theatre manifesto, though he wasn’t strictly a theatre person, and felt that steeping as aside was the honorable thing to do.

Diversity has never been inimical to Spoleto, which has always looked more Euro and Afro than American. Yet as Spoleto 2025 concludes, a near-total change of artistic leadership has transpired – with an unmistakable lean toward diversity. Mena Mark Hanna has replaced Redden as general director. Paul Wiancko has filled the void left by the charismatic Geoff Nuttall’s sudden death, taking over the reins of chamber music programming. When John Kennedy was abruptly dismissed after the 2023 season, Timothy Myers became music director, wielding the Spoleto Orchestra baton.

And Joe Miller, after 20 seasons as director of choral activities, is resigning to lead the Vocal Arts Ensemble in Cincinnati. His Spoleto farewell, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, will be followed soon by an announcement of his successor in Charleston.

Conversely, Spoleto is responding to fiscal, box office, and government funding pressures to be more self-sufficient. While Kennedy’s programming arguably made the  festival America’s chief hub for 21st century classical music composition, his afternoon Music in Time programs were as much box office poison as they were cutting edge. That experimental ghetto has disappeared while Wiancko and Myers have integrated more infusions of contemporary, new, and world premiere music into the festival’s chamber music and orchestral offerings.

Beyond shrinking the outré and avant garde, Spoleto is expanding its pop, punk, folk, and R&B presentations to no less than a dozen Front Row events with Patti Smith, Band of Horses, Mavis Staples, Lucinda Williams, and Jeff Tweedy among the headliners. The strategy is to “expand the aperture” in Hanna’s words, offset the losses of more adventurous fare, and make Spoleto more accessible to a wider audience. Hopefully, these newbies may be tempted into tasting the 17-day festival’s higher protein offerings.

Other belt-tightening measures include offering 15%-off discount packages of tickets to multiple events, and ending of the longstanding tradition of inviting a theatre company from abroad to co-tenant the Dock Street Theatre with the lunchtime chamber music series. Wilder still, two of the Dock Street chamber music concerts were staged during evening hours! Sacrilege.

Finally, little touches in the festival brochure and the program booklet underscored a deepset commitment to making Spoleto more navigable and customer-friendly. Jazz fans could gorge on all the Spoleto headliners within the space of 10 days, while theatre lovers could get their fill in seven.

While both of these lineups were tilted toward the latter half of the festival; opera, dance, and orchestral music could be largely traversed within the first 10 days; along with seven of the eleven chamber music programs. As compacted as the scheduling was for festivalgoers devoted to one genre, omnivores like me who preferred a mix found themselves stretched. For us, the scheduling was scattered and fragmented.

How appropriate, then, that the most awesome classical music event this season, intertwining 27 new works by living composers with J.S. Bach’s Six Cello Suites, was Alisa Weilerstein’s FRAGMENTS. Conceived during the global pandemic, FRAGMENTS has some of the randomness and the quirky, curated individuality of a mixtape. Weilerstein did not commit herself to playing the Suites in their entirety or – within each Suite – in their traditional order. Or tempo.

Beyond that, in commissioning 27 three-part compositions roughly 10 minutes long, Weilerstein obtained the right to shuffle the order of the parts and to slice and dice the new works to create smooth transitions into each other and the Bach. Layering on stage direction at Sottile Theatre by Elkhanah Pulitzer, scenic and lighting design by Seth Reiser, and costumes by Molly Irelan, Weilerstein crafted her FRAGMENTS into a creation you literally had to see.

As revealed in an interview event moderated by Martha Teichner, Weilerstein has no intentions of releasing an audio recording of FRAGMENTS. Video only. However, the cellist will honor the composers she commissioned by recording their works as written. All in all, Weilerstein was onstage soloing and fielding interview questions for more than seven hours spaced over six days, capped with world premiere performances of FRAGMENTS 5: Lament and 6: Radiance on her final day.