LocalArtsLive

What can a bunch of geeks and artists produce in a 24 hour marathon development session?  The mission of "Music Hack Day" is to answer this question during events in various cities held on on the same day.  Philadelphia participated for the first time on May 18th - 19th at Drexel University.  I decided to check out the demonstrations held at the end of the marathon and there were some very creative projects.  With only 24 hours to develop their projects, not all of teams produced a…

In The Beginning

            Joseph Conyers, assistant principal bassist for the Philadelphia Orchestra, inherited the love of classical music from his mother, “I grew up in the Baptist church. I was constantly surrounded by music, and my mother at the time was very in love…

Tempesta di Mare’s Great Books program offered a large audience a high-spirited glimpse of baroque works inspired by literature and written for the theater.   This concert was especially engaging because instruments were the stars; they alone set the scenes and related the action that would have otherwise been sung or viewed onstage. 

Henry Purcell’s opera based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream included incidental music from the wedding scene at the end of…

The chorus began the first part of the mass with an exquisitely shaped phrase on Kyrie eleison that suggested more distinctive singing in this work, a promise realized throughout the performance.  The small baroque orchestra was just as admirable and expressive, whether in tutti sections, in…

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society (PCMS) presented baritone Jonathan Beyer and pianist Spencer Myer at the American Philosophical Society on May 3, 2013.  While most of the repertoire was standard to some extent, I particularly enjoyed Mr. Beyer’s curated song set of “popular” ballads that all confronted the theme of loneliness, concluding with Gershwin’s “Someone to…

Singing City­—An Introduction (Part 1)

On Friday, April 26, I had the privilege of witnessing the Singing City— a group comprised of mixed races, old and young telling story through narrative and song. Their philosophy since 1948 has been, “that the differences between races, religions, and cultures…