Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Robert Spano

In Atlanta, conductor Robert Spano, mandolinist Avi Avital and composer Jennifer Higdon ignite fiery performances.

Robert Spano conducts a fine pairing of Romantic works in his final performance with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra after twenty years as their music director.

New works by Michael Abels and Clarice Assad, coupled with Britten’s early Sinfonietta and Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, with the impeccable Yefim Bronfman, made for an exceptional concert conducted by Robert Spano.

Robert Spano and Kelley O'Connor produce a gossamer Shéhérazade in Atlanta.

Inon Barnatan and Robert Spano perform a taut Mozart piano concerto in Atlanta.

The American violinist has a worthy partner in the ASO under Robert Spano, the opening night featuring a stunning interpretation of the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

Spano marshaled the vast forces with sensitive balance in many moments. But the difficulty of achieving a proper blend amidst the thick timbral texture prevented the performance from reaching transcendence.

The ASO and Maestro Spano have started out the orchestra’s 75th anniversary year with hot-blooded performances that matched Atlanta's weather. 

Violinist Joshua Bell returns to light up the 75th anniversary of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with a fiery performance of Wieniawski's Second Violin Concerto.

Robert Spano’s love of contemporary music was apparent in this program that featured the return of two intriguing recent works, beautifully performed by the ASO and The Brothers Yancich.

Robert Spano leads the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in a powerful performance of Gandolfi's inspired Imaginary Numbers.

The Atlanta Symphony and Conductor Robert Spano pay tribute to one American and one Russian composer, beloved for their reflections on their homelands. 

Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral holds its own alongside more familiar American pieces by Adams and Barber plus the “New World” Symphony.

The cast, sets, costumes and direction of Muhly's opera Marnie impress, but the music somehow falls short of expectations.

A solid season opener for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, with Kirill Gerstein playing Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.

Robert Spano led the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra closed out its regular season with a thrilling Scheherezade.

Violinist Robert McDuffie performs a polished Bernstein Serenade (after Plato's "Symposium") in Atlanta

With Verdi's Otello, Music Director Robert Spano continues a recent Atlanta Symphony Orchestra tradition of presenting grand operatic works in a concert hall version

This week’s subscription concerts of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra featured only British music that was composed in the last century; three very different works in terms of compositional approach and musical language.

Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra play an all-Rachmaninov concert, with pianist Stephen Hough performing in the First Piano Concerto. 

Robert Spano leads a masterfully staged performance of Theofanidis' grand oratorio Creation/Creator.

A powerful performance of a Beethoven piano concerto and a Mahler symphony highlight Robert Spano's return to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

After Knussen's Flourish with Fireworks, a program of mighty works from the early 20th century find Spano and the ASO on superb form.

The summer’s extreme heat and lack of rain have created drought conditions in Atlanta. As fate would have it, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra this week programmed two works drenched with water, albeit of the salty variety.

Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra provide polite Mozart, with soloist Pedja Muzijevic, and a powerful Shoshtakovich Fifth. 

Garrick Ohlsson's performance is the highlight of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's 2016/17 season opener. 

Robert Spano demonstrates his mastery and love of Sibelius with Louis Lortie providing a strong performance of Grieg. 

The Atlanta Symphony, under Robert Spano, share the spotlight with two of its most prominent musicians: David Coucheron and Michael Kurth. 

Robert Spano, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and soloists perfrom Shostakovich's Symphony no. 14. 

In celebration of the Atlanta Symphony's long-term music director Robert Shaw, the orchestra, its celebrated chorus and four effective soloists, presented an aggressive and often loud Verdi Requiem, conducted by Robert Spano.  

With the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, contemporary music champion Robert Spano conducted an electrifying perfromance of Jennifer Higdon's Concerto for Orchestra, followed by Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto with a bravura perfromance by pianist Jonathan Biss. 

Robert Spano is a champion of listenable contemporary classical music like Avner Dorman's Spices, Perfumes, and Toxins!, which was paired with Tchaikovsky's popular and very familiar Frfth Symphony. 

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has an auspicious season-opening concert featuring Mahler's Second Symphony directed by Robert Spano.

Romance and Treachery in a Grand Season Finale for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

The opera, directed by Mary Birnbaum, rotates through a cast of characters including Tonic, Dominant, and Subdominant as well as a be-wigged Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

The main stage of Carnegie Hall was fit to bursting on Wednesday night for Britten's War Requiem, which saw an exquisite interplay of soloists with ensembles, of sacred Latin barely whispered from the chorus and graphic English poetry recited by the tenor and baritone. 

When Alice Tully, the great New York patron of the arts, commissioned a work from Olivier Messiaen to celebrate the American bicentennial, the French composer packed up his sketchbooks and headed West. He found inspiration in the unearthly beauty of Utah’s national parks, among the brilliantly colored landscapes of canyons, cliffs, rock pillars, and arches. Des canyons aux étoiles...

Upon entering the concert hall of Sydney Opera House, I was greeted by a plethora of percussion instruments positioned in all corners of the stage, along with multi-coloured ribbons, which were hanging down from the ceiling. They were in place for a performance of Toru Takemitsu’s From me flows what you call Time, for five percussionists and orchestra.

Many Hong Kong Philharmonic concerts in the 2011-2012 season have descriptions attached to them. The one for Friday was “Story Time.” The stories of the first and last works on the programme, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov were clear enough; though that of the Mozart Piano Concerto no. 9 in E flat, K271, was a little more obscure.

Robert Spano conducted the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus in an ambitious concert in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. The results were as mixed as the programming, which featured J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 and Magnificat, alongside Messiaen's Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine.

‘Intimate symphonic playing’: an oxymoron perhaps, but in the fantastic acoustic of Symphony Hall and with the polished playing of the CBSO, somehow these symphonies, even with the tooting trumpets, blaring bassoons and sonorous strings (not to mention the tonking timpani), had the feel of chamber music.