John Corigliano and William Hoffman’s opera “The Ghosts of Versailles” comes in three sizes.  According to Corigliano’s website, there’s the original Metropolitan Opera version from the 1991 debut, which boasted about 300 performers.  There’s the standard version (“eliminates the onstage orchestra by incorporating those parts into the regular pit orchestra, re-assigns roles played...

Robert Wood, founder of UrbanArias opera company, believes that new opera presented in smaller venues using nominal forces at reasonable ticket prices can be successful. Last weekend (4/14/12) he was proved right, with a solid premiere of “Positions 1956,” commissioned by the DC-based group from composer Conrad Cummings and librettist Michael Korie. “Positions 1956” uses various 1950’s instructional manuals, all...

“Positions 1956″ is called a “self help” opera.  How helpful!  How polite! It was written in 1988 and first heard in concert by the Cummings Ensemble at the Knitting Factory and PS 122 in New York.  The world premiere staged version takes place this month in the Washington DC area thanks to Urban Arias, a two-year old company that’s also commissioned the piece.  Six performances run April...

As part of its 29th appearance in the Union College Concert Series in Schenectady on Sunday afternoon (4/1/12), the Emerson String Quartet brought a recent work by the acclaimed British composer Thomas Ades. “The Four Quarters” was written in 2010 for the Emerson and commissioned by Carnegie Hall, during Ades’ tenure as its composer in residence. Get used to Ades’ name, if you don’t already know it.  Next fall,...

David Del Tredici turns 75 on Friday and celebrations are in full swing. Here’s what’s upcoming in New York: March 15: DDT and Courtenay Budd will perform two song cycles: Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter and Miz Inez Sez (Symphony Space) March 23: Four Hand Piano recital DDT and Marc Peloquin. DDT will premiere the big new solo Ray’s Birthday Suit. (The Barge under the Brooklyn Bridge) March 25-26: American...

This blog is not quite 2.5 years-old and the counter says that as of today it’s had 100,000 unique visitors and more than 334,000 total hits! Thanks to all of you, my readers. Or maybe I should say my viewers – hopefully you’re not just dropping by but also reading and listening.  Considering that the primary focus here is a niche within a niche – the GLTB community in classical music – I’m most gratified. What...

“Lou Harrison:  A World of Music,” Eva Soltes’ documentary, will have its west coast premiere at the Castro Theatre on Tuesday March 6.  Before the screening starts, Terry Riley will improvise on the theater’s Wurlitzer organ. Then, on Thursday March 8 begins the latest and greatest installment yet of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony’s American Mavericks program.  Concerts...

A death watch is the simplest way to describe the months leading up to New York City Opera’s curtailed and displaced 2012 winter season.  The company’s financial crisis caused it to abandon the David H. Koch Theater (formerly the New York State Theater), it’s long-time home at Lincoln Center, and to be at such loggerheads with the musicians union that the season itself was in jeopardy. But a new production of “La...

Spong and Stern-Wolfe In the new documentary “All The Way Through Evening,” filmmaker Rohan Spong gives a thoughtful depiction of an important group of New York composers who died of AIDS and one woman’s efforts to keep their music alive.  It’s been 20 years now since the era when Kevin Oldham, Chris DeBlasio, Robert Savage and others died, but Mimi Stern-Wolfe continues to produce concerts of their...

When Julius Eastman died in 1990, most of his music was thought to be lost. But an all-Eastman concert was given on Friday February 10 in Berkeley, produced by Luciano Chessa and Sarah Cahill. It’s only the latest chapter in the on-going revival of Eastman’s music.  Mary Jane Leach pulled together three CDs of his music from archive recordings and released it all on New World Records about five years ago and...