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1 month ago | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
ABU DHABI — On paper, the 2025 Abu Dhabi Festival’s chamber music concert “Unique Encounters with Rising Stars” looked precarious. A program that features the nascent works of Schubert, Sibelius, and Glière forecast a light touch. In concert, nothing could have been further from this foreboding expectation.
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2 months ago | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
ADELAIDE — On first impression, traditions, whether they are celebrations, rituals, or customs, have a way of bringing people together and offering a sense of cohesion. Except when it comes to festivals, when keeping to the familiar becomes an Achilles heel. This is the case for the 2025 Adelaide Festival.
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Feb 11, 2025 | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
American Railroad. Silkroad Ensemble; Rhiannon Giddens, artistic director. Nonesuch 075597897586. 43 minutes. DIGITAL REVIEW — American Railroad, the first major project by Silkroad Ensemble artistic director Rhiannon Giddens since taking up her role in 2020, reimagines the idea of a concept album to offer audiences a multi-disciplinary, multi-channel telling of the hidden stories of the culturally diverse army of workers who built America’s coast-to-coast transcontinental railroad.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
Bryce Dessner: Solos. Bryce Dessner (guitar), Katia Labèque (piano), Anastasia Kobekina (cello), Colin Currie (percussion), Pekka Kuusisto (violin), Lavinia Meijer (harp), Nadia Sirota (viola). Sony Classical 19802806551. Total time: 1:16. DIGITAL REVIEW — Bryce Dessner’s newest album, Solos, is deeply personal, but its title is ironic. The album is a series of solo works that Dessner calls an “intimate diary,” yet the miniatures represent more than the compositions at hand.
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May 29, 2024 | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
PARIS — Half a century from now, and beyond, audience members who attend the Opéra national de Paris production this month of Strauss’ Salome will be able to tell their children and grandchildren, “I was in the audience when Lise Davidsen sang Salome at the Bastille.” Davidsen’s Salome is a milestone in opera’s chronicles. Her performance is another remarkable interpretation to add to her already distinguished role debuts this season.
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May 22, 2024 | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
BERLIN — In 2019, when conductor Teodor Currentzis made his North America debut with his 180-member orchestra and chorus MusicAeterna at Manhattan’s The Shed performing Verdi’s Requiem, New York collectively gasped. The remaining concerts sold out within micro-seconds of the final note being played on that dazzlingly memorable opening night. Currentzis instilled a life force into Verdi’s 19th-century work that connected with new audiences. I was among the listeners. Turn to 2024.
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Mar 15, 2024 | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
ADELAIDE — Ruth Mackenzie’s first iteration of the Adelaide Festival of Arts as artistic director is studded with marquee names bringing both safety and instant prestige value: Performance artists Marina Abramović and Laurie Anderson, choreographer Akram Khan, and pianist Vikingur Ólafsson are regular fixtures on the international festival circuit offering the well-heeled patrons the touchstones they know and are looking for.
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Dec 9, 2023 | 
theguardian.com | Xenia Hanusiak
May-Brit Akerholt first heard that Norwegian writer Jon Fosse had won this year’s Nobel prize in literature like many of us: on the news. As one of Fosse’s two Norwegian-to-English translators, she was thrilled. But when the Swedish Academy, the body that gives out the honour each year, called her at her home in Australia’s Blue Mountains to ask if she would translate his acceptance speech and attend the ceremony in Stockholm, she was so honoured that she began to weep. “I cried.
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Nov 3, 2023 | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
AMSTERDAM — If you’re looking for a group that can perform any repertoire from across the contemporary classical-music canon with decisive ownership, look no further than the Netherlands’ Asko|Schönberg ensemble. This multi-instrumental powerhouse, formed by a merger of the Asko Ensemble and the Schönberg Ensemble in 2009, is widely recognized for interpretations of music by Louis Andriessen, but for a Saturday-matinee concert Oct.
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Sep 11, 2023 | 
classicalvoiceamerica.org | Xenia Hanusiak
SYDNEY — On paper, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s program for its September Master Series concerts (Sept. 6-9) promised a night of fireworks. John Adams’ exuberant Short Ride in a Fast Machine — one of the top-10 orchestral pieces performed across the globe and the third most-performed fanfare in the United States — shared the stage with the Australian premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto, featuring Nicola Benedetti in her Australian debut, and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.
