Cameron Kelsall is a classical music critic based in Philadelphia. He has been writing for Bachtrack since 2019. In addition to his career in journalism, Cameron teaches in the Theatre Arts Program at the University of Pennsylvania. You can follow him on Twitter at @CameronPKelsall.
With a potential strike looming, Yo-Yo Ma joins Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin for a surprisingly tame performance of Shostakovich's psychologically dense Cello Concerto no. 1.
Arab-American tenor Karim Sulayman devises a thoughtful pastiche that centers the perspective omitted from Early Modern depictions of the Middle East in music.
In this world-premiere work, which opens Opera Philadelphia's Festival O23, composer Rene Orth and librettist Hannah Moscovitch dramatize and deconstruct the true story of Nellie Bly's commitment to a mental asylum.
Director Louisa Proske refracts Handel's tale of warlords and witches through the prism of a juvenile dream world, aided by a game cast headed by Anthony Roth Costanzo.
Conductor Leon Botstein and director Jean-Roumain Vesperini treat this Tudor soap opera with appropriate grandeur, while a top-notch cast deliver the vocal goods.
Artistic advisor James Conlon presents a triptych of works by Adolphus Hailstork, Alvin Singleton and Joel Thompson next to an edgy, ironic reading of Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony.
The Philadelphia Orchestra closed its season by pairing Berlioz's epic Symphonie Fantastique with Walkabout, a concerto for orchestra that investigates composer-in-residence Frank's Peruvian heritage.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin combines the composer's unfinished Ninth Symphony, Te Deum and the motet Christus factus est to create an ultimate realization of religious faith and artistic expression.
Guest conductor Matthias Pintscher pairs Webern's "idyll for large orchestra" with Richard Strauss' Oboe Concerto, featuring an elegant Philippe Tondre as soloist.
Ernő Dohnányi's Symphonic Minutes made its first appearance on a Philharmonic subscription program since 1940, followed by a stirring account of Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto with Sir András Schiff.
The ARD International Music Competition holds a yearly Winners Festival for its laureates. Violinist Alexandra Tirsu and horn player Yun Zeng speak about the transformative experience of participating.
“Years ago, I composed for the great Chaliapin. Now he is dead, and so I compose for a new kind of artist, the Philadelphia Orchestra.” Cameron Kelsall explores the relationship between Sergei Rachmaninov and the orchestra he composed for in exile.
The Ukrainian-Finnish conductor finds fresh insight in Sibelius' Fifth Symphony and introduces local audiences to the living Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi.
