Classic Ross Amico

Tag: New Jersey

NJ Classical Music Concerts 2016-2017 Season

With Labor Day weekend upon us, the whirring flywheels and pistons of the area’s cultural institutions are nearly up to speed.

In today’s Trenton Times, I take a look at some of the orchestral concerts poised to open the 2016-2017 season. Included are representative programs of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra, the Westminster Community Orchestra, and Sinfonietta Nova.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/08/classical_music_2016-17_concer.html

There wasn’t room to mention additional orchestral concerts in New Brunswick, just a half an hour’s drive to the north, courtesy of the State Theatre New Jersey – which will host the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (9/24, 10/9, 10/29/11/13, 11/27, 1/8, 1/15, 1/28, 2/12, 4/8, 4/23, 5/14), the Warsaw Philharmonic (10/23, including Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Symphony No. 4!), the Bamberg Symphony (2/12), and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (2/19) – and the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, which performs excellent and diverse programs under the direction of Kynan Johns.

The RSO’s opening concert will feature Mason Bates’ “Mothership” alongside Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” with pianist Michael Bulyachev-Okser, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (Nicholas Auditorium, Mason Gross School of the Arts, on 9/24). You can find the complete season schedule by clicking on the PDF file at the bottom of this page:

http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/music/rutgers-symphony-orchestra

I was also remiss in not mentioning the Princeton University Orchestra (as I had intended to do), which begins its season on 10/22 & 10/23 with Samuel Barber’s “School for Scandal Overture,” scenes from Berlioz’s “Romeo and Juliet,” and Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. The complete schedule, including a springtime Mahler 5, can be found here:

Current Season

All in all, a well-orchestrated season.

PHOTO: Violinist Daniel Rowland will be soloist and conductor as the Princeton Symphony Orchestra opens its season with works by Antonio Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla, at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on 9/15 at 8 p.m.

September 2, 2016
Raritan River Music Festival Returns to NJ

Change your music, change your mind. That’s the slogan adopted by the guitar duo of Michael Newman and Laura Oltman for this year’s Raritan River Music Festival.

Now gearing up for its 27th season, the festival has provided a stimulating mix of new music, world music, jazz, folk, and straightforward classical repertoire, in intimate venues across one the state’s most beautiful regions. Concerts this year will take place in Stockton, Lebanon, Stewartsville and Pittstown.

The couple, which has strong ties to the area – they make their home in lower Warren County along the Delaware River – uses their connections as teachers and performers to draw world-class musicians to semi-rural New Jersey.

This year’s festival will include concerts by the period instrument ensemble La Fiocco (at historic Prallsville Mills in Stockton on May 7), the genre-fluid trio BeBimBop (at Stanton Reformed Church in Lebanon on May 14), a trio made up of pianist Thomas Sauer, violinist Carmit Zori and cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, being billed as the Sauer-Zori-Gerlach Trio (at Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Stewartsville on May 21), and The Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo, with soprano Rochelle Ellis (at Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Pittstown on May 28).

Raritan River Music has always been the robin redbreast of music festivals, arriving well ahead of the traffic snarl of off-season musical attractions that settle in with the haze of summer. You know what they say about the early bird (and there are discounts for advance sales). Get a leg up by reading my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/04/classical_music_raritan_river.html

April 29, 2016
Chamber Music Abounds This Weekend in NJ

Plenty going on this weekend, with chamber music concerts all over the place. Of course, Gabriel Crouch’s Princeton University Glee Club will be celebrating the 300th anniversary of the coronation of George I at Richardson Auditorium tonight at 7:30 p.m., with music by Purcell, Handel and Walton, among others, but I feel like I write about him and them all the time, so I thought I’d give some other groups a chance.

If you’re looking for something to read over breakfast (or lunch), here’s my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/02/classical_music_chamber_music.html

February 27, 2015

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