Robert Spano News

San Diego Opera's 2021 2022 will close with the West Coast Premiere of Aging Magician a hybrid opera/theatre piece that combines singing, choral work, puppetry, and performance art to create an incredibly unique theatrical experience.

The Washington National Opera has gathered a company of first rate singers for a portmanteau of four, one-act operas called Written in Stone. Unfortunately, their fine skills and exceptional voices cannot make silk purses out of scores, libretti, and orchestrations that evade aesthetics, emphasize negatives, and ignore the connection implicit in musical theatre between the notes and the text. This world première requires an orchestra to seem to be playing a piece of music that is not the same piece of music as the singers are singing. The last time this many groups of unfriendly instruments had a gig in a first run house was probably PDQ Bach's last show in Carnegie Hall. Gesamtkunstwerk this isn't, and it lasts for two and a half hours.

The concert features mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford, soprano Kearstin Piper Brown, and baritone Jorell Williams, together with pianists Nathaniel LaNasa and Steven Blier, in works by Black composers that include H. Leslie Adams, Margaret Bonds, Harry Burleigh, Adolphus C. Hailstork, Robert Owens, Hale Smith, and William Grant Still..

Newton’s New Philharmonia Orchestra (New Phil) continues the 27th season of “Music for All” with New Phil Reawakened - Sights & Sounds on Sunday, March 27th at 3 p.m. The program will celebrate the sights, sounds and tastes of Italy and Latin America. Led by Principal Conductor Jorge Soto and featuring Venezuelan trombonist Angel Subero, the performance will include works by Mendelssohn, William Grant Still, and Astor Piazzolla. To enhance the Latin American experience, the New Phil will be providing guests with a special treat from Che! Empanada in Newtonville to take home following the concert.

Gounod's masterpiece of grand French opera, Roméo et Juliette, continues San Diego Opera's 2021-2022 season when it opens on Saturday, March, 26, 2022 for four performances at the San Diego Civic Theatre. Additional performances are March 29, April 1, and 3 (matinee), 2022.

Following a nationwide search, Benjamin Manis has been appointed Associate Conductor of the Utah Symphony beginning in the 2022-23 season.

Houston Grand Opera has announced its 2022–23 season, featuring a new production of Dame Ethel Smyth's rarely-performed masterpiece The Wreckers, the triumphant return of HGO-commissioned mariachi opera El Milagro del Recuerdo, the U.S. premieres of Opéra National de Paris and Royal Opera House's production of Werther and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía of Valencia's production of Salome, and beloved HGO classics La traviata, The Marriage of Figaro, and Tosca.

The Curtis Symphony Orchestra makes a dynamic return to the stage for the first time since February 2020 with Strings, Symphonies, and Strauss, led by Peter Oundjian, conductor emeritus of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, for in-person audiences on Sunday, February 20 at 8 p.m. at Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

A surveyor ponders the meaning of memory and monuments. A young girl scout seeks a place for herself in history. A Black father and son find themselves on opposite sides of a same-sex marriage rally. And the vision of 22-year-old Asian American undergraduate Maya Lin is the catalyst for a reappraisal of the Vietnam War.

Sarasota Orchestra's January programs include a Masterworks concert featuring towering giant of the classical piano world, Garrick Ohlsson, and a Pops concert tribute to one of the legendary giants of 20th century rock, The Beatles.

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Board Chair Mercedes T. Bass and President and CEO Dr. Keith Cerny today announced the appointment of German conductor Kevin John Edusei [eh-DU-sseï] as the orchestra’s next Principal Guest Conductor.

For writer, performer, and musician Zorana Sadiq (Towards Youth, Crow's Theatre), sound is the first, last, and most influential sense. In the world premiere of her new solo show MixTape, directed by Crow's Theatre Artistic Director Chris Abraham, Sadiq invites her audience into a life experienced through sounds and an obsession with making them. 

Ahead of its 10th anniversary season, the Young Women's Choral Projects of San Francisco (YWCP) announced today that Founding Director Susan McMane will retire in July 2022. At the end of the forthcoming season, Dr. McMane will conduct her final concerts with the Young Women's Chorus in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 23, 2022, and in Paris on Saturday, July 3, 2022.

The Met’s popular Summer HD Festival returns on Saturday, August 28, featuring a lineup of ten free encore presentations from the company’s popular Live in HD series, as well as a special pre-festival screening of Susan Froemke’s acclaimed documentary The Opera House.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts today announced artistic works celebrating iconic civil rights leaders, accessibility in the arts, and the rich history of dance in New York City coming to Restart Stages this September—the outdoor performing arts center created to champion the revival and recovery of New York City arts.

Individual tickets to all the announced Houston Symphony 2021–22 Classical and POPS concerts are now available via houstonsymhony.org and 713.224.7575. Single tickets to the Symphony's BBVA Family Series are currently only on sale to subscribers.

The Houston Symphony is announcing program details for Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada’s final season as music director, including the five 2021–22 concert weeks he will conduct, and the full Bank of American POPS Series lineup under the direction of Principal POPS Conductor Steven Reineke.

Washington National Opera today announced its 2021–2022 season featuring a triumphant return to the Opera House stage, four world premiere commissions celebrating the Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary, debuts from acclaimed and rising opera stars, the return to the pit for Principal Conductor Evan Rogister and the WNO Orchestra & Chorus, and more.

Today, the Houston Symphony announces its April concerts for the 2020–21 Season, which feature an all-Bach program on Easter weekend with conductor Jane Glover, as well as star vocal and Symphony soloists, Apr. 2 & 3; violinist Caroline Campbell returns to Houston for a fun-filled Bank of America POPS program, Apr. 16–18; and Brahms’ delightful Serenade No. 2 alongside Houston Symphony Principal Percussion Brian Del Signore as marimba soloist in a concerto written by Del Signore himself, Apr. 30–May 2.

On February 26th, Vocal Arts DC presents American baritone Rod Gilfry in a virtual concert with pianist Peter Walsh. The performance will include selections by Francis Poulenc, Jake Heggie, Morten Lauridsen, Charles Ives, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel as well as original jazz arrangements of classic French art songs.