Modern dance choreographer Pam Tanowitz' first commission for New York City Ballet proved unruly yet fascinating, sandwiched between George Balanchine's enduring Valse-Fantaisie and Western Symphony.
Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle at the top of their game in Diamonds. A smoking performance from Sara Mearns in Slaughter on 10th Avenue. Strong debuts from Emma Von Enck and Taylor Stanley and a memorable classical turn by Aaron Sanz in the Barber.
The Minnesota Chorale does Leonard Bernstein and Sir William Walton proud, with the Bernstein Chichester Psalms a particularly impressive presentation.
A colourful concert from the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Litton, which included two world premières and the fourth Proms appearance of Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova.
Andrew Litton and the BBCSO and the BBC Singers create order out of chaos at the Barbican Hall in a challenging programme including Charles Ives monumental 4th Symphony.
Never failing to provide an interesting programme, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra performed the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich under the baton of the BSO’s Conductor Laureate Andrew Litton.
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).
Judging by this evening’s performance, the future of music-making in Birmingham is in safe hands. Following an intensive half-term week’s training, including sectional coaching by musicians from the parent orchestra, 100 eager and accomplished 14- to 21-year-olds brought the Symphony Hall stage to life.
The extended applause and stamping proved that the Leeds audience loved the visitors from Bergen with their popular programme, which was part of the Leeds International Concert Season.
The Bergen Philharmonic opened their concert very aptly, with a piece by an English composer that evoked their homeland. Delius took regular holidays in Norway and an early meeting with Grieg had helped Delius on his way to becoming a serious composer.
Britain is a country not often historically associated with great composers, repertoire or music: apart from the occasional early music programme peppered with Purcell or production of Peter Grimes, there is a great tendency to overlook British classical music, both past and present, in favour of its Germanic and Slavic cousins.
Beginning with a work sprung from the minds of not one, but two great Russian composers, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Litton opened their latest distinctly Slavic programme at the Southbank Centre with Rimsky-Korsakov’s revised version of Mussorgky’s Night on Bare Mountain.
The programme read a little like a musical version of Kim's Game: not one but two full-scale symphonies, the same number of prefatory pieces, and then a piano concerto to boot: a test for the audience as well as the orchestra. The principal connexion between the works – apart from their contemporaneity – was the celebrated conductor, Serge Koussevitsky.
La riqueza y variedad de ideas musicales que pueblan la Sinfonia espansiva de Nielsen encajó como anillo al dedo en la dirección intensa y dramática de Litton.
Tras dirigir la OSG en el Musika-Música y de vuelta en La Coruña, Litton optó por un monográfico dedicado a dos clásicos del ballet: el Cascanueces de Tchaikovsky y Romeo y Julieta de Prokofiev. El Acto II completo en el primer caso, y en el segundo, diez números seleccionados y ordenados por el propio director, buen conocedor de la obra.
Andrew Litton se puso al frente de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia y la Sociedad Coral de Bilbao para interpretar Alexander Nevsky de Sergei Prokofiev.
