Talea Ensemble casts Berio’s Sequenze against recent works

By Kurt Gottschalk, 14 December 2025

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“in a barbed wire nest rather than among passing clouds”

Reviewed at Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew: St. Bartholemew Hall, Brooklyn on 9 December 2025

Houben, Romantische Streiflichter (Jean Paul)

Jõeleht, Chant Harmonique

Berio, Sequenza I, for flute

Berio, Sequenza VI, for viola

Talea Ensemble

Laura Cocks, Flute

Hannah Levinson, Viola

Maya Bennardo, Violin

NYC's Time Spans festival closes with rhythms from the north

Kurt Gottschalk, 21st August

For 2019, Time Spans doubled its number of concerts, culminating in an evening of works by composers born in or relocated to Canada, conjuring Banksy moods and inadvertent confusion.

Immersive OAE submerged at Southbank’s Multitudes festival

Mark Valencia, 22nd April

The road to immersion is paved with modish deflections as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment performs 20th-century English string music.

**111

A dream of a Gerontius from Pappano, the LSO and Chorus

Roy Westbrook, 21st April

Giving their 27th performance of the oratorio, the London Symphony Chorus excel as angelic angels and demonic demons.

****1

Benedetti ablaze with the Philharmonia

Christopher Woodley, 19th April

As gifts to the Philarmonia's 80th birthday season, Nicola Benedetti gives a barnstorming account of Elgar's Violin Concerto before Cristian Mӑcelaru gets emotionally drained by La Mer.

*****

Nicholas McGegan brings delicacy and elegance to Mendelssohn

Erica Miner, 18th April

The Seattle Symphony offers an enchanting evening immersed in the joy and brilliance of both the young and the mature genius of Felix Mendelssohn.

****1

Wrangling the octopus: Mahler’s Ninth with Sir Simon Rattle

Chanda VanderHart, 17th April

Less a symphony, more a force of nature, Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in a turbulent, yet spacious reading of Mahler's Ninth Symphony in the Musikverein.

****1

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Kurt Gottschalk

Kurt Gottschalk is a journalist and author based in New York City. His writings on contemporary and classical music, jazz and improvisation have been published in outlets throughout Europe and America and he has two volumes of short fiction to his name. He produced and hosted the Miniature Minotaurs radio programme on WFMU and currently hosts Afternoon New Music on WKCR.

New York’s Talea Ensemble casts Berio’s Sequenze against challenging recent works