Joana Carneiro and James Ehnes in Summer for the City

Joana Carneiro

Joana Carneiro, James Ehnes, Summer or the City Festival Orchestra

By David Wolfson, 06 August 2025

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“Carneiro’s control of tension and release was nothing short of miraculous”

Reviewed at Lincoln Center: Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall, New York City on 5 August 2025

Frank, Elegía andina

Shostakovich, Chamber Symphony in D major, Op.83a (arr of String Quartet no.4 by Rudolf Barshai)

Ravel, Pavane pour une infante défunte

Prokofiev, Violin Concerto no. 2 in G minor, Op.63

James Ehnes, Violin

Summer for the City Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center

Joana Carneiro, Conductor

Karen Kamensek at Lincoln Center's Summer for the City

David Wolfson, 1st August

Karen Kamensek, Gabriella Reyes and the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center turn in a sporadically satisfying performance at Summer for the City.

**111

ENO gives Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots a worthy performance

Nick Boston, 15th February

Musgrave's powerful depiction of a powerful woman at the mercy of male manipulation receives a strong staging from at ENO.

****1

Edinburgh Festival explodes into life with Golijov's St Mark Passion

Simon Thompson, 3rd August

Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos is full of life, but seeing it as well as hearing it definitely helps.

****1

Prescient then, terrifying now: The Handmaid’s Tale at ENO

David Karlin, 1st February

Margaret Atwood’s dystopic novel, masterfully adapted for the operatic stage, is strongly performed at ENO and rings even truer today than it did when it was written.

****1

The SCO bring forward one of their own to play Mozart's Flute Concerto

Simon Thompson, 16th February

André Cebrián dazzles as the flute soloist in a Mozart concerto, but Joana Carneiro's conducting only intermittently draws magic from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

***11

Opera North revives its taut, terrific Tosca

Mark Valencia, 21st January

The director Edward Dick and his designer, Tom Scutt, alternate between realistic and expressionistic images in their creation of grim spectacle.

****1

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David Wolfson

David Wolfson holds a PhD in composition from Rutgers University, and has taught at Rutgers University, Montclair State University and Hunter College. He is enjoying an eclectic career, having composed opera, musical theatre, touring children’s musicals, and incidental music for plays; choral music, band music, orchestral music, chamber music, art songs, and music for solo piano; comedy songs, cabaret songs and one memorable score for an amusement park big-headed-costumed-character show. You can find more information here.

Joana Carneiro and James Ehnes in Summer for the City at Lincoln Center