Filmmaker and journalist Tim van Beveren’s documentaries Women Composers and DORA – Escape into Music explore the lives and music of composers whose work has largely disappeared from the standard classical repertoire. Made in collaboration with pianist Kyra Steckeweh, the films focus on composers

This landmark 2026/27 season celebrates the Elbphilharmonie’s 10th anniversary while aligning with USA250. Accordingly, the Hamburg operator ambitiously gathered nearly all top-tier American orchestras in the programme. However, just a week before taking the stage at the Elbphilharmonie, anxieties of

This year’s 124th season opener of the Minnesota Orchestra on September 25th in Minneapolis was a smash. In fact, the packed audience leapt to their feet as did I. Conducted by Music Director Thomas Søndergård, the program included George Walker

Passing through the steep black slate roof of the gatehouse, the outside world fades into lush forest. At its heart stands the Romanesque Basilica, its weathered stone and austere towers rising over quiet, sunlit courtyards. The monastery remains a living

The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, located on the southwest side of the Museumplein, has a certain gravity and looms large in my professional career. Not only is the hall considered one of the best in Europe, if not the world, but

Few halls would be ambitious enough to fill an entire Saturday with three consecutive concerts of György Kurtág’s piano music, but Wigmore Hall does just that, presenting three “Breaths” with the splendid Pierre-Laurent Aimard to celebrate the centenary of this

Complete Bach Cello Suites are not foreign to concert halls, but playing all six in one concert in sequential order remains rare. I have always believed that the six suites progress sequentially in difficulty and depth, and it is unusual

When the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy published his 1889 novella on the ideal of sexual abstinence and jealous rage, he surprisingly titled it The Kreutzer Sonata. That title initially comes from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Sonata, Op. 47, which