Concert programming can be mysterious business. On paper last weekend’s Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert appeared to be a hodgepodge mix of American music. In practice it turned out to be an emotional rollercoaster with satisfying, accumulative effect. Aaron Copland’s El Salón México paints a wonderfully colorful picture of a Mexico City dance hall visited by the composer. My guess is that there was limited...

When listening to classical music, acoustics and where you sit in the hall are almost as important as the performance itself. At the Sunday afternoon Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert I was seated in row J on the main floor, about eight or nine rows closer than my regular seats. That doesn’t seem like much, but the difference was enormous. Further back in the hall the sound...

When commissioned by the eminent conductor Walter Damrosch for a new orchestral work for his New York Philharmonic, little did composer George Gershwin (1898-1937) know that he would produce one of the most endearing...

Shortly after 1800, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) told a friend he would soon “pursue a new path” in music. Heretofore his output—though quite distinctly his own—was clearly indebted to the Haydn-Mozart tradition. As great as Beethoven’s early works...

The Danceworks Performance Company’s enjoyable new show “Lights, DPC…Action!,” playing through March 7 at Danceworks Studio Theatre, is such a work of love...

About 10 years ago I wrote that Nicholas McGegan should narrate a PBS series on classical music. His witty remarks...

Danceworks Performance Company will present a new concert—“Lights, DPC…Action!”—in its Studio Theatre, 1661 N. Water St., from Feb. 26 through March 7. Artistic Director Dani Kuepper asked the company to explore the collaborative process commonly used in the group’s early years. Taking film genres as inspiration, Danceworks’ resident...

A year and a half since its acquisition, the new Steinway piano at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra has quickly become a welcome friend. I was again reminded of the instrument’s quality of sound and touch in John Lill’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s...

The artistry and range of the Milwaukee Ballet was vividly displayed in “Innovative Motion,” a showcase of works by three generations of choreographers. With little narrative to follow, I could focus on how well the dancers work together and how different they are. The cheers at the final curtain were for them at least as much as for the choreographers, who must have been deeply gratified...

When you see that Nicholas McGegan is the guest conductor of a Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert, you can expect that the Baroque-through...

Chamber Music Milwaukee presented an engaging concert last Thursday evening at the Zelazo Center at UW-Milwaukee. As is usually the case with CMM, the program was a potpourri of various works and UWM faculty performers, enlivened by the presence of soprano Susanna Phillips, a guest artist. Phillips has a captivating, creamy, clear lyric voice. She is currently singing a leading role in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at Lyric Opera of Chicago. A highlight...

As is often the case with Present Music, the well-attended concert on Saturday night at Turner Hall Ballroom was a mixed bag, roaming from contemporary chamber works to...

The accomplished dancers of the Milwaukee Ballet are the unifying thread to three radically different new works in a program called “Innovative Motion” at the Pabst Theater, Feb. 11-14. Salvatore Aiello was the artistic director and choreographer for the North Carolina Dance Theatre before his death in 1995. His work, especially Clowns and Others (1978), is steadily gaining recognition under the care of his ballet master, Jerri Kumery...

Distinguished opera composer Dominick Argento once said to me, “The characters in The Marriage of Figaro are so rich, in both text and music, that I know them better than I know my own family.” There are plenty of reasons to see the new production of Mozart’s opera (sung in English) at Skylight Opera Theatre. Bill Theisen’s direction keeps the characters clear and the complex story moving forward...

Out of necessity and limited resources true creation can emerge. Witness the case of a young Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) who had but two violinists, a violist and cellist at hand to fulfill the desire of a royal patron for new music. Haydn essentially became the founder of the string quartet—one of the fundamental genres of Classical Music...

As a creative artist, Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) was perhaps the most accomplished of the late-19th-century Russian nationalist composers; his remarkable gifts were evident in nearly every work he wrote. Alas, there aren’t very many, for composing was always merely his part-time job. Indeed, it often took years for works to be finished...

The effect of location on a composer’s works cannot often be overstated. Witness the output of late-Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli (1553-1612), who succeeded his uncle (and fellow composer) Andrea Gabrieli as music director of Venice’s St. Mark Cathedral in 1586. Therein, he purposely...

The dark, cold winter has always been a good time for listening to substantial music, such as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert heard last Saturday night. Johannes Moser...

The works on the upcoming Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert all stem from the tumultuous 20th century, descending back in time as the program progresses. In 1991, Scottish composer James MacMillan (b. 1959) composed his...

I think choreographer Catey Ott, a student of yoga, wants to honor that practice for its power to center, calm, strengthen, renew and summon the courage to go on. The full title of the program presented by her Catey Ott Dance Collective at Danceworks Studio Theatre last weekend, Total Emersion = Emotion Emission Immersion...

Combining aerialists, jugglers and acrobats with classical music played by an orchestra is the most exciting idea to hit the symphonic pops circuit in some time. Cirque de la Symphonie played three concerts with Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra last weekend to large and diverse audiences. The best thing about the Saturday evening performance was...

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra presented a run of five performances of Messiah last week at three locations. I caught the Saturday evening performance at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, our city’s traditional, grand and elegant space. The cathedral is also Milwaukee’s most acoustically satisfying among its large churches...

The Milwaukee Ballet’s Nutcracker creates a child’s world without condescension. It charms like a happy youngster running up to you with open arms. Michael Pink’s choreography is also intellectually satisfying in that careful attention is paid to narrative logic...

The old adage “the show must go on” came to mind Saturday evening when one member of the vocal quartet Anonymous 4 was hospitalized not long before the 5 p.m. Early Music Now concert at St. Joseph Center Chapel. If the remaining three members were agitated by circumstances (and who wouldn’t be?), it was not apparent...

Our community needs young artists to show us with candor their sense of our time, and to grapple with formal traditions and invent new styles. So the Dance Department of UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts is providing a vital service with New Dancemakers: Insight, two programs of rigorously developed choreography on the subject...