Atlanta Ballet: Director’s Choice

Posted on May 11, 2019 by Robbie

I can’t say that I thought much of Director’s Choice, last night’s production by Atlanta Ballet. If I hadn’t gone to this then I’d have gone to the MAD Festival on Friday and been able to make the ASO performance on Saturday, which would probably be enjoyable enough despite featuring Oliverio’s double-timpani concerto. Normally I’d just go on Thursday, but Richard Prior’s …of shadow and light… isn’t quite enjoyable enough to offset the Oliverio and I honestly don’t feel that I can trust Spano to do a serious reading of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 on a program like that. (Hence my willingness to skip it in favor of the MAD Festival to begin with.)
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ASO: Lionel Bringuier with Lise de la Salle

Posted on May 5, 2019 by Robbie

I really enjoyed last night’s concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Guest conductor Lionel Bringuier brought a remarkably good sound out of the musicians. Prokofiev’s fourth symphony and Stravinsky’s Firebird were both dramatic, fun and, just really well played. It was Ravel’s piano concerto in G minor where I really appreciated his conducting, though. It was like he molded the orchestra around the sound of pianist Lise de la Salle to bring out the best in the piece and also to bring attention on the best of her playing. And de la Salle’s playing definitely deserved the attention: from the speedy, jazzy fireworks to the smooth and soulful slow parts, de la Salle brought out every bit of character and charm from the piece that a soloist could. All in all it was a wonderful concert.

ASO: Carlos Kramer with Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Posted on April 28, 2019 by Robbie

I honestly didn’t get much out of last night’s Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert. I found that much of the music on the program sounded either rushed or plodding under guest conductor Carlos Kramer’s baton and odd cuing gestures. It wasn’t completely dry, but it seemed that any expressive nuance was brushed over, making the music sound particularly shallow and uninteresting. The orchestra didn’t sound that great, either: often sounding muddy with one musician or another noticeably coming in late here or early there.
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ASO: Thomas Søndergård with Daniel Moody, Jessica Rivera, Stephanie Lauricella, Thomas Cooley, & Andrea Mastroni

Posted on April 14, 2019 by Robbie

The last time that I heard Thomas Søndergård conduct the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, I wasn’t terribly pleased with his interpretations of the French Impressionist works on the program but thought that he might actually be pretty good with a program of German works. Well…I’m not quite ready to completely write him off, but between that concert and the one I attended last night, I’m thinking that he may have a pretty narrow range and some pretty bad ideas. The concert wasn’t a disaster by any means, but it also wasn’t very good and it’s largely due to his interpretations of the pieces on the program.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Elizabeth Koch Tiscione, Laura Ardan, Andrew Brady, Brice Andrus, & Jeremy Denk

Posted on April 7, 2019 by Robbie

This weekend’s concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra featured good performances of works that aren’t necessarily my favorite. It opened with Gandolfi’s Imaginary Numbers. When I first heard it in 2015, I thought that it had some interesting ideas but that a concerto for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn wasn’t entirely the best thing ever. I felt more or less the same way this time: I did enjoy it and appreciate the performances by ASO principals Elizabeth Koch Tiscione, Laura Ardan, Andrew Brady, and Brice Andrus; but I frequently just felt that the music wasn’t quite taking me anywhere.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Daniel Hope, David Finckel, and Wu Han

Posted on March 30, 2019 by Robbie

Last night’s Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert was particularly festive. The concerto for the evening was Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and the triplets for this performance were Daniel Hope, the associate artistic director of the Savannah Music Festival, along with David Finckel and Wu Han, who are the founding artistic directors of Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival. Robert Spano, the music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School, conducted. Even the concertmaster, David Coucheron, is the Artistic Director of the Kon Tiki Chamber Music Festival. This program will be performed again tonight at the Savannah Music Festival. With that much festivity on one stage, there really should have been a lot more sequins.
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Atlanta Ballet: Look/Don’t Touch

Posted on March 24, 2019 by Robbie

Atlanta Ballet’s Look/Don’t Touch began with a piece by Mark Morris titled Sandpaper Ballet. It was set to the music of Leroy Anderson and featured a large cast of dancers dressed in full-body costumes by Isaac Mizrahi that were mostly green with a little bit of blue sky with random cloud shapes at the top of the torso. If you were to line everyone up, it would look like a rolling meadow on a nice spring day. If you didn’t line everyone up, it looked like the strangest super-hero gang ever. They were lined up through much of the piece, though.
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