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Don Quixote provides the inspiration for songs by Ravel and Ibert, the high point of a bitty programme in contrast to an early evening recital which followed the perfect trajectory.

Conductor Speranza Scappucci led a vibrant programme of orchestral and vocal works, blending Spanish flair and humor in this enjoyable performance.

Baritone Benjamin Appl and accordionist Martynas Levickis tour Europe and the USA in songs and solos demonstrating both the richness and simplicity of 19th- and 20th-century music. 

It's typical that in the last concert in a series that has lasted seventeen years, we had a recital from a talented young singer with a growing reputation, a Rosenblatt classic.

Tézier, with his beautifully full, easy baritone sound and reputation for attention to diction is a singer I have appreciated on stage for some time and was looking forward to his rising to the challenge of a solo evening with his audience. 

At the Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, Dutch baritone Henk Neven and pianist Hans Eijsackers charmed an enthusiastic audience with a programme of Ravel, Ibert, Schubert and Spanish songs arranged by Norwegian composer Arne Dørumsgaard.

Twentysomething Philippe Sly wields an impressive voice. Like the mythical John Henry’s hammer, it rings like silver in the upper register, the middle shines like gold, and his bass is firm as iron. From the second line of Henri Duparc’s “Chanson Triste” Sly interested with his way of rolling out phrases, englobing lines in cavernous spaces.

Centered around the later, lesser-known composers of art song, tonight’s programme started with a first half of melancholy Hugo Wolf Lieder. Both Schubert and Schumann wrote settings of Goethe’s unhappy Harfenspieler, but evidently Wolf was unsatisfied, as, on principle, he avoided setting texts which he thought had been successfully treated before.

Bass-baritone Eric Owens is no stranger to Bay Area voice aficionados. After making his local debut as Lodovico in Otello with San Francisco Opera in 2002, Owens memorably created the diet-regiment-reciting General Leslie Groves there in the world première of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic in 2005. Most recently he did yeoman's work with a smaller role in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi in October.

Vendredi 18 juillet à 20h, sous la direction de Santtu-Matias Rouvali, l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France a interprété un programme consacré à Maurice Ravel. Une soirée inoubliable qui restera gravée dans les mémoires comme un sommet de musicalité. Festival de Radio France - Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon