George Frideric Handel's timeless Messiah is a December inevitability. Last week the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra presented five performances of its annual Messiah in three locations. I heard the oratorio on Saturday evening at the Cathedral...

The art of collaboration between humans is a continuing life lesson. Sometimes when individuals come together, even with shared ideals, things can go south. Other times people work together in a happy and rich process, and remarkable...

Albert Einstein stated about music, “I never like a work if I cannot intuitively grasp its inner unity.” Architectural unity came to mind listening to J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations at Frankly Music last week. A soulful aria theme is taken through...

I was working in Europe for the past nine weeks, and experienced many performances in several cities. In the time-honored expatriate tradition, a renewed perspective on our classical scene in Milwaukee emerged from an ocean away...

There is pure joy in Kirke Mechem's new comic opera The Rivals, premiered at Skylight Opera last Friday evening. Mechem's bubbly score sings. Voices take to it happily and gratefully. Freely adapted from Richard Sheridan's...

Present Music (PM) celebrated its 30th anniversary last Saturday evening in a daring and big way: a free concert at Uihlein Hall, in collaboration with other local groups, preceded by the audience gathering at the Milwaukee River. It was a marketing and logistical feat to pull this off, and especially...

Amy X Neuburg's unique combination of talents was on advantageous display at the Present Music concert on Saturday evening at Turner Hall. I don't know of another composer/poet/soprano like her. Though many artists in every genre aspire to individuality, few fit that definition...

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra season ended with a bang last weekend with Gustav Mahler's inspired and titanic Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”). Not unlike many others, I'm sure, I approach a performance of this music with high hopes. Will it take me on an expansive journey of tragedy and...

There was an understandable spirit of anticipation in the air at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra on Friday evening. Andreas Delfs returned to the podium, his first appearance in this city since leaving the position of MSO music director in June 2009. Delfs decidedly earned a beloved status in his 12 years with the...

More than Zsa Zsa Gabor, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney or any other often married public figure, Henry VIII of England is perennially intriguing. In the final concert of the Early Music Now season, the Flanders Recorder Quartet constructed a program, with narrative, of the king and his six wives, heard...