with Leonidas Kavakos under Herbert Blomstedt Well, add one more to the list. Yet another world-class orchestra comes through Taipei, with a world-class conductor and soloist. I’ll be honest. When I heard about this concert many months ago, my first … Continue reading Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in Taiwan
with the NSO under Kahchun Wong It’s all Mahler tonight. Another performance of Mahler’s first. But that wasn’t the only first on the program. The terribly charming, famous, and very talented Thomas Hampson made his very first visit to our … Continue reading Thomas Hampson in Taiwan
featuring violinist Paul Huang (黃俊文) It’s been a little while since I’d seen the TSO. I wasn’t able to attend the all-Sibelius concert with Okko Kamu, unfortunately, but Varga was back in town tonight. Not for long, though. As the … Continue reading TSO’s Pre-Tour Concert
Featuring: Taiwan’s 國家交響樂團 (NSO) Wotan- Jukka Rasilainen Fricka- Jamie Barton Hunding- Andrea Silvestrelli Sieglinde- Anja Kampe Siegmund- Simon O’Neill Brünnhilde- Jennifer Wilson (and more) Carlus Padrissa, Esteban Muñoz, Roland Olbeter, Chu Uroz, and the crew of La Fura dels Baus … Continue reading NSO’s Die Walküre
featuring Jan Vogler Programming is so important. And our NSO is sounding incredible this season. Some of you likely enjoyed, depending on your generation, making mixtapes, burning mixes on CD, or creating playlists to distribute or enjoy via various media … Continue reading NSO’s Poem of Ecstasy
performed by the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra under Lan Shui, with: Emma Bell, soprano 左涵瀛 (Hanying Tso), soprano 黃莉錦 (Li-Chin Huang), soprano Charlotte Hellekant, alto 陳珮琪 (Pei-Chi Chen), alto Barry Banks, tenor 巫白玉璽 (Wu Bai-Yu-Hsi), baritone … Continue reading Mahler’s Eighth in Taipei
What is Mozart’s music if not naked, pure, exposed, unadulterated, magnificent beauty? A few weeks ago, we had the TSO’s season opener with accomplished pianist Kirill Gerstein making his first appearance in Taiwan, and it was a fine one. The NSO’s … Continue reading NSO’s 2017 Season Opener
featuring Igor Levit “If you’re ever in that part of town, you should try…” It’s a small world, but it isn’t that small. You probably won’t accidentally find yourself in Taipei anytime soon, but if you were to, you might learn that … Continue reading Bayerisches Staatsorchester in Taipei
featuring Kirill Gerstein Welcome back, everyone! I met a certain fellow concertgoer (and at least occasional reader) formally for the first time this evening while we stood in line to meet Gerstein and Maestro Varga. The gentleman, who I see … Continue reading TSO’s Season Opening Concert
The TSO continues their presentation of Carl Orff’s operatic works, which began with last year’s performance of Die Kluge in their old stomping grounds the Zhong Shan Hall. That was the primary reason I didn’t go… But tonight we got Der Mond, a … Continue reading TSO’s Der Mond
performed by Taiwan’s 國家交響樂團 a.k.a. National Symphony Orchestra a.k.a. Taiwan Philharmonic, or below in a trailer for the work from The Royal Opera This is a concert (opera) review, and less so a discussion of the opera itself, but I’m … Continue reading NSO’s Il Trittico
Lan Shui has featured in here and there in my experiences with concerts. He’s a respected conductor, and conducted what is currently the only live performance I’ve heard of Mahler’s magnificent second symphony (but that will change next year, as … Continue reading NTSO: Gil Shaham and Lan Shui
I feel like we’ve been waiting for ages for this concert. And what a concert it was. Fazıl Say seems to be everywhere lately, literally and figuratively. He’s performing all over Europe, having recently played Beethoven’s Emperor concerto somewhere in Turkey, I … Continue reading TSO & Fazıl Say
featuring Wen-Sinn Yang (楊文信 ), cello; May-Lin Ju (朱玫玲), clarinet; Chaio-Han Liao (廖皎含), piano Oh, how rarely we have local, affordable chamber music. The vast majority of the string quartet concerts we see are all from foreign ensembles, some … Continue reading NSO’s Trio Cantabile
featuring Wen-Sinn Yang, cello The NSO finished their concert season two years ago, in the spring of 2015, with Bruckner’s eighth symphony, a monumental work with which I was unfortunately not familiar enough to appreciate in full at the time. … Continue reading NSO’s Bruckner 7
featuring Rudolf Buchbinder and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra The short version of the story is that I had high expectations for this event, and I was still blown away. Magnificently wonderful. About three months ago, I was able to hear all … Continue reading Buchbinder plays Beethoven
featuring Sabine Meyer and Michael Sanderling I skipped the NSO concert last week. We were supposed to have the Labèque sisters come to perform Glass’s double concerto for two pianos, but something happened and the program got changed. While the … Continue reading NSO’s Extreme Classical
featuring cellist Pablo Ferrández and conductor Robert Trevino It’s been quite some time since I’ve paid the Taipei Symphony a visit, in fact more than four months. They spent a little time traveling down south for some concerts, and had one or two … Continue reading TSO’s Don Quixote
featuring Pascal Rophé, guest conductor; Sharon Bezaly, flute; Taipei Philharmonic Chorus I’m not sure why Nielsen’s flute concerto was included in an otherwise decidedly French program. A Danish composer spent some time in Germany and Austria and wrote a concerto … Continue reading NSO’s French Masterpieces
featuring Yu-Chien Benny Tseng (曾宇謙), violin After a very hot day in Taipei and a train ride back down to the new(ish) opera house, which I haven’t visited for almost exactly four months, I find myself yet again in one of … Continue reading Esa-Pekka Salonen & Philharmonia Orchestra
featuring Kolja Blacher (subtitled ‘The Arts of Play & Lead’) Beethoven, Brahms, Britten and Blacher. But not in that order. That ‘Play and Lead’ title refers exactly to what made this concert so special, the almost unbelievable feat that Blacher … Continue reading Blacher & NSO
Fugue for Thought 