Susan Hall
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Recent Articles:
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Maestro Misses its Mark Front Page
Bradley Cooper Needed a Director
By: - Jan 02nd, 2024The film Maestro reminds us that classical music can be accessible to a wide audience. This is not because the film makes the music accessible. In fact, Bradley Cooper conducting is a bad joke. You wonder what Yannick Nezet-Seguin, credited with teaching the actor to conduct, was doing.
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The English Concert at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Watching a Female Leader Triumph
By: - Dec 17th, 2023The English Concert led by Harry Bickett performs an annual Baroque opera, semi-staged at Carnegie Hall. These performances are highly anticipated, for good reason. This year's was no exception.
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Victoria Bond's Illuminations Front Page
Byzantine Chants at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
By: - Dec 11th, 2023Victoria Bond is a composer who has experimented with many styles. Over the years she has worked with Dr. Paul Barnes, a pianist and Greek Orthodox chanter, developing Illuminations on Byzantine Chant. Barnes had hoped to capture the wide emotional range and spiritual message of Orthodox Christianity, Bond is captivated by this mystical world.
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Opera at the Lyric in Chicago Front Page
Daughter of the Regiment, Perfect. Jenufa, Not So
By: - Dec 06th, 2023In the lobby of the Lyric Opera House in Chicago, you hear griping about management. Yet it is hard to imagine what people are talking about when you watch and hear the fall production of Gaetano Donizetti’s "Daughter of the Regiment. " A perfect production.
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Unsilent Night by Phil Kline Front Page
North Adams and New York are Both Treated to His Special Holiday Event
By: - Dec 04th, 2023Phil Kline created a magical holiday event thirty years ago. This year, Unsilent Night in North Adams, MA was presented by MCLA Gallery 51/MOSAIC, nbCC, North Adams Chamber, Anna Farrington, Andrew Fitch, Isabelle Holmes & Todd Reynolds In collaboration with LumiNAMA Holiday Lights Walk.
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Rhiannon Giidens Broadends the Silk Road Front Page
In San Diego The Trancontinental Railroad arrive
By: - Nov 28th, 2023The Transcontinental Railroad connected the Eastern and Western United States the same way that the Silk Road of Asia connected the Orient to Europe. Upon completion of the railroad, goods that would take six months to travel by boat around the Horn from the West to East Coast now were transported across the country in days. Most importantly, ideas and culture were transported. This crisscrossing changed the United States and made it the superpower it is today.
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Musing on Women in Classical Music Front Page
Kim Noltemy CEO of the Dallas Symphony, 21 years at the BSO
By: - Nov 19th, 2023The Women in Classical Music Symposium in Dallas was not acrimonious. No one whined. Instead, the spirit was exploratory. There was some feeling that 'what you heard here should stay here' in Dallas. This was odd because many of the problems that were raised and then discussed were common to men and women across the color and gender spectrum.
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Babbitt at La Jolla Front Page
Matthew Broderick in a Star Turn
By: - Nov 18th, 2023The La Jolla Playhouse adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's classic novel Babbitt tells the story of George F. Babbitt, played by Matthew Broderick. Set in a sleek modern library, the ensemble cast, scattered around the library reading the novel, tells Babbitt’s story. It is. a smash hit.
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Waiting for Godot at Theatre for a New Audience Front Page
Arin Arbus Directs Brilliantly
By: - Nov 15th, 2023Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) and Park Avenue Armory are the two New York venues you can count on to deliver. Arin Arbus’ new take on Waiting for Godot is no exception.
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Dallas Presents Women in Classical Music Symposium Front Page
Kim Noltemy CEO of the Dallas Symphony
By: - Nov 10th, 2023Kim Noltemy, the Ross Perot President & CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, joined the Dallas Symphony Association (DSA) in January 2018. (She had worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 21 years). One of her first initiatives was a symposium for Women in Classical Music. Noltemy moved fast and the first conference was held in 2019
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Kronos Quartet Turns Fifty at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Celebration is a Cause for Joy
By: - Nov 07th, 2023The Kronos String Quartet and their collaborators, among them Carnegie Hall which presented this evening, celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of this radical and exciting group.
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Artist Carol K. Brown is Something Else Front Page
At Nohra Haime Gallery in New York
By: - Nov 03rd, 2023Carol K. Brown’s latest work "Someplace Else" consists of watercolor paintings and a series of drawings titled "Modified Husband." This exhibition is a culmination of Brown’s desire for detail, layered with humorous subject matter.
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New Federal Theater Telling Tales Front Page
Woodie King Jr. Directs Wesley Brown's PLay
By: - Nov 02nd, 2023The New Federal Theater is producing a brilliant production of Wesley Brown’s play, Telling Tales Out of School. A quartet of famous and not-so-famous writers from the Harlem Renaissance, all women, three Black and one white, attend the funeral of Alain Locke.
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Joyce Di Donato Teaches at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Master Classes for Artists and Listeners Too
By: - Oct 26th, 2023Joyce Di Donato offered three master classes at Carnegie Hall. Di Donato discussed something she learned during that long-ago City Opera performance of "Dead Man Walking." You have to leave space for the listeners to enter the music. This space is created by not answering all the questions the listening ear may have. That is something for all of us to think about – particularly people committed to the long-range success of classical music.
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Handel at the Hudson Opera House Front Page
Rondelina Directed by R. B. Schlather Goes Local
By: - Oct 25th, 2023The future of classical musical performance in America may well be local. One marker of the trend is the Hudson Opera House in Hudson, New York. They are currently producing Handel's Rondelinda.
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Krymov Continues at La Mama Front Page
Russian Director Stirs up Theater
By: - Oct 23rd, 2023There is new a theater in town, have you noticed? Krymov Lab NYC was started in 2022 by the prominent Russian director in exile Dmitry Krymov, with a residency in LaMama Experimental Theatre Club in East Village.
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The Crossing Named Ensemble of the Year Front Page
Special Choir Honored by Musical America
By: - Oct 22nd, 2023The Crossing has been named Musical America's 2024 Ensemble of the Year. Musical America's article states: "The Crossing is one of the most innovative choirs on the planet. Not only are they committed to issues of social justice, but the music they sing is brand spanking new. Under conductor Donald Nally, their performances have increasingly embraced theatrical elements, while their recordings have notched up a staggering three Grammy wins in under 20 years."
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Sumo at the La Jolla Playhouse Front Page
Lisa Sanaya Dring's Play on Wrestling
By: - Oct 18th, 2023Lisa Sanaya Dring’s "Sumo," playing at La Jolla Playhouse, tells the story of six sumo wrestlers living and training at an elite facility in Tokyo.
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San Diego Symphony at Carnegie Hall Front Page
Rafael Payare and Alisa Weilerstein Entrance New York
By: - Oct 15th, 2023Many adjectives have been thrown at or glued to the conductor Rafael Payare, who came to Carnegie Hall with the San Diego Symphony he conducts. We haven't heard him live. He has a life-and-death urgency to his music-making. Carlos Simon and Shostakovich seemed so present, so thrilling and so important.
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The Defiant Requiem Foundation Explores Survival Front Page
Verdi Requirm Was Performed at Terezin
By: - Oct 13th, 2023The Defiant Requiem Foundation, has a signature concert performance of the Verdi Requiem, as it was performed in the Terezin concentration camp over and over again. The original chorus changed constantly as members were transferred to Auschwitz.
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Wim Wenders at Lincoln Center Front Page
Film Festival Premieres The Tokyo Toilet
By: - Oct 13th, 2023Wim Wenders new film, "The Tokyo Toilet," had its New York premiere at the New York Film Festival in Lincoln Center in New York. A Tokyo toilet cleaner, Hirayama, is played brilliantly and subtly by Yakusho Koji. Hirayama steps out of his small Tokyo home and looks up at the sky. Another perfect day begins. Now. Not Next. These phrases pepper the film often.
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Noted Russian Director Arrives at LaMama Front Page
You've Never Seen This Eugene Onegin!
By: - Oct 11th, 2023"Eugene Onegin in his Own Words" was created by noted Russian director Dmitry Krymov and presented at LaMama in New York. Dmitry Anatolyevich Krymov (born 1954, Moscow, Russia) is a Russian artist, scenographer, teacher and theater director, five times Laureate of the Golden Mask award. He left Russia for USA the day after invasion into Ukraine started. Seven of his plays were quickly banned in his country. In 2022 he started Krymov Lab NYC, his new theatrical endeavor.
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Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Front Page
The Maestro Takes Us on an Italian Journey with Philip Glass
By: - Oct 06th, 2023Riccardo Muti’s long and winding road in this country has led him from Philadelphia to Chicago. He is always rooted in Carnegie Hall whose acoustics benefit the micro-miniaturizing attention to a music’s score. Even Philip Glass, whose repeated phrases sometimes merge one to the other, seemed as clear as the strings that dominate in Glass’s composition dedicated to the Maestro.
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Hungarian National Ballet Performs Don Quixote Front Page
Gorgeous Production. Gorgeous Opera House
By: - Oct 05th, 2023The Hungarian National Ballet’s production of Don Quixote at The Budapest Opera House was a joyful presentation. The energy and mirth emanating from the stage was infectious and intoxicating: I was practically jumping out of my seat with excitement by the end of the Act III pas de deux as Kitri, danced by Tatyjana Melnyik, balanced on pointe for what seemed an eternity.
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The City Without Jews Screened in New York Front Page
An Important Silent Film With Wonderful New Music
By: - Oct 04th, 2023What a silent film can teach us – about history and the relationship between the visual and the auditory. The City Without Jews is a famous 1924 silent film directed by H. K. Breslauer who would go on to become a Nazi, probably out of convenience. In this film, he actually seems to like Jews, to find them charming, bright and funny. Presented at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York.
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