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Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts the Dallas Symphony in a Sibelius tone poem and a Shostakovich symphony, both works of great tragedy.

Two minor key works, performed before a – limited – live audience in Dallas, and streamed online. 

A new bel canto opera, a pro football team, and the future of American Opera--all in a day's work for Heggie, McNally, DiDonato, and von Stade.

Two mountain-themed operas were performed recently in Dallas, including the much-anticipated world première of Joby Talbot's Everest. 

Margaret Barrett's new work Universal Language explores the linguistic basis of oppression. This Fine Arts Chamber Players concert featured musicians of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and The Obscure Dignitaries.

The Dallas Opera adds a light touch to a Richard Strauss' decidedly unfunny opera Salome, featuring soprano Deborah Voigt in the title role. 

With an artistic director forced to cancel in the middle of a weekend of concerts, duty called on his assistant conductor - and she clearly had done her homework.

The Winspear Opera House in Dallas hosted violinist Itzhak Perlman for the penultimate performance on this season’s recital series, performing sonatas by Beethoven, Franck and Debussy. 

Evan Mitchell reviews Voices of Change in a performance featuring works by Iturbide, Martino, Pärt, Turina, and Fung at City Performance Hall in Dallas.

Extreme dynamics explored in Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé and Boléro presented by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Jaap van Zweden, complemented by Louis Lortie's Mozart. 

Dallas Symphony Orchestra, led by Jaap van Zweden and featuring baritone Matthias Goerne, performed music by Britten, Mahler, and Brahms, in a concert where not enough was ultimately said, despite a strong return from Goerne.

New York Polyphony brought Dallas residents a refreshing interlude to the post-Thanksgiving consumerist madness, with a recital of Christmas music old and new.

Silence spoke volumes in this tribute to John F. Kennedy at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, which contained pieces by Messiaen, Steven Mackey and John Cage.

The Dallas Symphony, now in its sixth season under Music Director Jaap van Zweden, welcomed his predecessor Andrew Litton back to conduct a weekend of Stravinsky and Saint-Saëns (music from two ballets and a violin concerto, respectively).

Like most performing arts organizations have already done, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra have realized that classical music is not tremendously popular among young people.

For the first time in recent memory, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra presented a program this weekend without any blockbuster audience-favorite to be found on it.

“It’s a contra-alto clarinet,” explained Ben Goldberg to an audience puzzled at the first sight of this long, coiled silver instrument. “But it can be used to clean your sink in an emergency.

Pianist Orli Shaham was in Dallas Thursday night for a recital at Hamon Hall, a small space located within the AT&T Performing Arts Center. Her performance of works by William Bolcom, Brahms and Mussorgsky, though uneven and hampered by a bad instrument, was full of humor and sensitive moments, and her spoken remarks helped add a personal touch to the already intimate setting.

“Please silence all electronic devices and refrain from talking. This evening’s program will be presented without intermission or breaks for applause. It is our hope that this structure will assist in providing a meaningful experience...

Caught completely unawares – hearing a group I wasn’t familiar with, and on a Monday evening at that – I ended up seeing the Artemis Quartet give the best performance of any kind that I’ve experienced in quite a while.

After a series of Pops concerts featuring John Williams’ film scores, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra returned to standard classical fare this weekend with Canadian guest conductor Julian Kuerti. Debussy’s Ibéria never really got off the ground, but Mr Kuerti and the DSO had better luck in music by Joaquín Rodrigo and Prokofiev.

Capping off their two-weekend Mozart Festival, the Dallas Symphony played three minor-key masterworks this weekend, plus one major-key selection. Music in minor keys is the exception to the Mozartian rule – only two each of the 27 piano concerti and 41 symphonies are in minor.

Verdi and Wagner may be turning 200 in 2013, but certainly that doesn’t make their music any more or less worth celebrating than it was last year, or will be in five years’ time.

Mirroring the January ritual of all who indulge in one final dessert-binge before dieting to honor ill-fated New Year’s resolutions, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra got plenty of Romanticism out of their system this weekend before their Mozart Festival, set to last the remainder of this month.

The Dallas-area series Chamber Music International presented its second program of the season this Friday and Saturday evening. (This review is of the second concert, at St Barnabas Presbyterian Church in Richardson, Texas.

Two Viennese masters, Beethoven and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, shared the stage in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s concerts this weekend. Maestro Jaap van Zweden conducted Beethoven’s Leonore Overture no. 3 and Symphony no. 5 in C minor, and in between these was joined by violinist Hilary Hahn for Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D major.

The Soundings concert series opened its season Tuesday evening at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, with violinist Midori and pianist Özgür Aydin. Although the series typically focuses more on contemporary music, Midori offered the program she’s been touring with in celebration of the 30th anniversary of her debut, and it did not disappoint.

Chamber Music International kicked off its 27th concert season on Saturday evening at Southern Methodist University. The centerpiece of the program was John Williams’ Quartet La Jolla, and the other works all used various combinations of these instruments.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra have had a couple of high-profile guest performers in town for their most recent series of concerts. They presented works by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, a piano concerto and a symphony respectively, in a program that, although disastrously designed, was redeemed by some stellar playing.

Why establish a new orchestra, to perform in a new hall, across the street from an eminent opera company as well as one of the country’s premier symphony orchestras? It’s a good question with many possible valid responses, and I wish I had more of an answer after attending the grand opening concert of the Dallas Chamber Symphony this Tuesday evening.

The fifth year of the Jaap van Zweden era at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra began this weekend with a program comprising audience favorites both flashy and serene. According to the printed program notes Mr. van Zweden, Music Director since 2008, selected “a program that demonstrates the superb technical and musical heights our orchestra has reached under his baton.

For its season finale, Soundings: New Music at the Nasher presented violinist Anthony Marwood and pianist Aleksandar Madzar in a program advertised as “a dialogue of caprice and masterpiece.

Christmas may have inspired much of the greatest holiday-related popular music, but in the Classical tradition, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (to say nothing of his St. John Passion and Easter Oratorio) points toward the influence of Easter.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra opened their latest series on Thursday with works by John Luther Adams, Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Shostakovich. The German baritone Matthias Goerne joined the DSO and Artistic Director Jaap van Zweden for a performance that was moving and powerful enough to far outshine a couple of puzzling managerial decisions.

It was your standard evening at the symphony: a brief standalone selection for orchestra, a flashy concerto, and, after intermission, a weighty symphonic masterpiece. Well, it seemed so on paper at least.

In a concert featuring two works of Richard Wagner (one a concert piece, the other an adaptation from an opera score), the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jaap van Zweden made their biggest statements in works by Mozart and Debussy. The fascinating program paired the Wagner works, one in each half, with those of the supposedly more “demure” high-classicist and arch-Impressionist.

On the two hundred and fifty-sixth birthday of Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, a voice over the loudspeaker announced the arrival of the more succinctly-named Emmitt Smith to the stage of Dallas’s Meyerson Symphony Center. Mr.

Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu made a big impression in his début with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in a colorful program of Ravel, Chopin, and Stravinsky – Le Tombeau de Couperin , the Piano Concerto no. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21, and Petrushka, respectively.

The standing ovation seemed to come with a good-natured caveat: “…but you didn’t need to show off!” This opening concert of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s 2011-12 season presented a program of daunting scope, challenging both to the musicians and their audience, with Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 1 and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony side by side.