Mahler, Mahler, Mahler! Performances of Mahler symphonies aren’t rare, nowadays, by any stretch of the imagination, but locally, in one area, it may not be so often to be able to walk in on a performance of such a mammoth work as Mahler’s … Continue reading NSO’s Titan Arise
featuring tenor Stephen Gould and mezzo soprano Dana Beth Miller under Okko Kamu The list of Mahler symphonies left to see live is narrowing, and tonight’s program showcased the two (one and a half? quarter?) pieces of Mahler’s that I’m … Continue reading NTSO: Kamu’s Mahler
featuring Freddy Kempf, conducted by 張尹芳 (Zhang Yin Fang) Midweek concerts are always a bit tougher to get around to, especially in rainy weather, and tonight’s turnout showed it. As a heavy-duty subscriber to the NSO, I get some perks, … Continue reading NSO’s Concerto for Orchestra
Interesting program. In a rare case where I thought I knew what I was hearing, I walked in and sat down to music I was not only completely ignorant of, but didn’t even anticipate. I was under the impression that … Continue reading TSO’s Nielsen Third
Is there any other? with Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra (國家交響樂團) under Maestro Shao-Chia Lü (呂紹嘉), stage director Carlus Padrissa, a co-production of Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, with full credits shown below This performance on … Continue reading Wagner’s Das Rheingold
with the Ensemble Quatrain Cologne and 陳必先 (Chen Pi-Hsien) Connections are a good thing to have. It took me some time to get into the system, to figure out how the ticket buying and membership-ing all works, but once you … Continue reading 2016 Innovation Series: Klassic Kindheit Concert
30th Anniversary Season Opener, featuring Leonidas Kavakos Well, I’m a bit late in coming with this. The concert was almost a week ago, and came at the end of an extremely long day (and weekend, involving a national holiday, two typhoons, a … Continue reading NSO’s A Hero’s Life
It was almost six months ago to the day that I first knew that the Quatuor Diotima would be visiting Taiwan, and that was the same week I posted an article I spent a lot of time preparing for, only to share … Continue reading Quatuor Diotima in Taipei
As described in passing in a recent article on musical programming, I’ve had a pretty good run of hearing the Beethoven symphonies performed live by some wonderful orchestras. That perhaps isn’t a surprise. Beethoven’s symphony cycle is one of the … Continue reading TSO’s Mahler 7
featuring violinist Ray Chen The concert season is starting back up. It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve been in the concert hall, and I guess it has been. With the exception of an outstanding Othello at the beginning of July, the last … Continue reading TSO’s Heroic Voices
The salon concert is here! I had the privilege of attending last year, and as usual, it was a highly-anticipated event. It’s the NSO’s 30th anniversary this coming season, and we had the privilege of enjoying comments and thoughts from … Continue reading NSO’s 2016/17 Salon Concert
as below: The end. Opera is one of the best things ever. And it’s something we don’t get nearly enough of here in Taipei. Unfortunately, we’ll likely be getting even less of it now that the opera house, built in … Continue reading Opera: Verdi’s Otello
Maybe a little cliché, but it was an all-Russian program. And a good one. The program was originally to consist of Rachmaninoff’s Capriccio on Gypsy Themes followed by his fourth piano concerto and Shostakovich’s sixth symphony. Maestro Gennady Rozhdestvensky was to … Continue reading NSO’s 100% Vodka
We’re coming up on the end of the concert season. I attended my last TSO show last week, and there are only two more left in this season from the NSO, so this began the countdown of the final three. … Continue reading NSO’s The Planets
Who doesn’t love chamber music? I’m not much for midweek concerts, because they usually involve first running home to care quickly for a dog, then rushing to a concert, then rushing home to get ready for work the next day, … Continue reading TSO’s Playful Music Adventure
We’re coming up to the end of the year. I can count down on one hand now how many NSO concerts there are left, only three after this before the end of the season, which is sad, but it’s exciting … Continue reading NSO’s Dual Faces of Jörg Widmann
Could it, should it, be the job of every conductor and every orchestra with every concert to convince their audience that the piece being performed is the greatest symphony or concerto or whatever ever written? I’d say perhaps so. And … Continue reading NSO’s Two Great Seconds
I feel bad for being a bit lazy with writing a concert review, but to be honest, I’m being a bit concert-ed out. There’s another one tomorrow that I was debating whether to go to, since I have quite a … Continue reading Kun Woo Paik and Friends
As you have perhaps been able to tell, it’s been a busy month for concerts. A few highly anticipated events were earlier this month, but it also seems to be the month in which the conductors (Gilbert Varga and 呂紹嘉) return to … Continue reading NSO’s Evening of Symphonic Blast
This concert didn’t have a swanky title. But (either because of these upcoming TSO concerts or not, I can’t recall) I’ve recently been a bit more curious about Enescu, Martinu, and others. One of the defining characteristics, I feel, of … Continue reading TSO’s Berezovsky & Varga
I had started this article before the concert with a small introduction and basic thoughts. Scratch it all. But if you don’t get to anything else, look at the program and jump to the subtitle below. There’s something inexplicably magical … Continue reading Hélène Grimaud’s ‘Water Reflection’
Fugue for Thought 