Neophonia: Tête-à-Tête

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Robbie

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that my favorite pieces on a program of new music were all over thirty years old. Then again, I am also over thirty years old and I’m your favorite, right? Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed Neophonia’s “Tête-à-Tête” at the Rialto last night. It was a woodwind-heavy program with fewer works by French composers than I’d have expected for a concert that was part of France-Atlanta 2017. With two world premiers and some very engaging music and should have been much better attended given the fact that it was free. Then again, maybe people wanted to steer clear of anything involving the French embassy after the French government’s Romani ethnic cleansing program at the beginning of this decade.
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Ailey II

Posted on October 22, 2017 by Robbie

I didn’t really know what to expect of the performance last night by Ailey II at the Rialto Center. I knew that Spelman professor and local choreographer Juel D. Lane had a piece in the show, but I otherwise didn’t know who else was programmed. It’s a junior company for developing dancers, so I didn’t expect the level of performance that I’ve seen come from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company, but I was pretty sure that it would be an enjoyable show. I had some complaints, but I wasn’t disappointed at all.
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ASO: Ludovic Morlot with Ray Chen

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Robbie

Thursday’s concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was a good one. The program was made up of four wonderfully mad pieces from the 20th century, composed on either side of WWII. It also featured a less impressive chamber concert before the main performance that I’d have been okay with missing.
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Ensemble Chaconne: European Masters in 18th Century England

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Robbie

There were so many concerts going on this afternoon that it was hard to pick one. I ended up going to hear Ensemble Chaconne, a HIP baroque trio, at the the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Midtown who played a program that focused on the concert music that could be heard in Restoration period London. The trio consisted of a flautist, a bass gambist, and a lutist who doubled on English guitar. Each of the three at some point introduced the works being performed and, at times, spoke about the history of their instruments, adding a bit of welcome context to the music.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Dejan Lazić

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Robbie

Saturday’s performance of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was a good one. It began with the world premier of two new movements of Michael Gandolfi’s “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation” that, together, were titled “A Garden Feeds Also the Soul.” The first of these two movements was titled “The Bone Garden.” It came across as a sort of stately pseudo-march from dark to light, where it lingered somewhere pretty, with a lighter motif supported by the rhythms that brought the music there. Then it turned back towards a last memento mori with an overlay of mystery rather than dread underlying the beginning of the work. It was a beautiful journey guided by some pretty cool music.
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Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre: Extasis

Posted on October 14, 2017 by Robbie

Every time that I see the TMBT abbreviation on Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre’s logos, I can’t help but read it as standing for “Teenage Mutant Ballet Turtles.” This weekend, Atlanta’s newest ballet company came out of their shells for the first time to present “Extasis,” choreographed by company cofounder Tara Lee. It was a strong debut for the company, with a polished staging and general presentation that really showed the benefits of their good fortune to fall in with Westside Cultural Arts Center and Serenbe. Their support, along with the company members’ existing connections established through their time with Atlanta Ballet, allowed the Ballet Turtles to hit the ground running in their first season.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Russell Thomas, Mary Elizabeth Williams, and Nmon Ford

Posted on October 8, 2017 by Robbie

I was excited when I saw that the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was doing a semi-staged production of Verdi’s “Otello” this season. It’s among my favorite operas as much because of the wonderful orchestration as for anything sung by the soloists. The orchestra really tells the story almost as well as the libretto such that I think that you could strip the singing from it and still have the makings for a solid ballet. I suspected that a semi-staging would let me focus more on the musicality of the work than the dramatic aspects without reducing the emotional impact of the work on me. I’m happy to report, I was correct: this was a wonderful way to hear the opera.
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