Susan Hall
Bio:
Recent Articles:
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One Step Closer to Carnegie Hall Music
Rising Artists Perform Chamber Music
By: - Dec 12th, 2012A wonderful clarinetist, Joseph Rosen, performs with a small chamber group every month or so during the season in New York. In addition to being a delightful musician himself, he invites guests on the cusp of their musical careers to join in. While you still have to practice, practice, practice to get to Carnegie, these days practice not enough. Winning competitions and getting good reviews help, but in the end it's a mix of all of the above and luck. To help find a nitch, trial runs in salons like Rosen's are an indispensable aid to young artists.
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Inon Barnatan, Great Pianist, at Kaufmann Hall Music
The Premier Pianist of His Generation
By: - Dec 07th, 2012Inon Barnatan stands out among his contemporaries as a master of music. He takes imaginative leaps into music as it should be. No divo dramas to arrest the eye. He effortlessly makes you sit up to hear familiar music as though it were being introduced for the first time. He serves music first and foremost.
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The Collegiate Chorale Presents Bellini Music
Tanglewood's Own Jamie Barton Stars
By: - Dec 06th, 2012The melodies are glorious, but this performance of Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda featured the chorus, a character in the opera, and a magnificent performance by the Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie.
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The New York Philharmonic for Very Young People Music
Ears Wide Open, Mouths Zipped
By: - Dec 03rd, 2012Classical music takes exposure and if it is to continue to thrive in this country, children have to start listening early. The New York Philharmonic serves up a perfect introduction.
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Wes Anderson's Moonlight Kingdom Film
Film Wins Five Independent Spirit Awards
By: - Dec 01st, 2012Earlier this week, Moonlight Kingdom received back-to-back honors with five independent Spirit Awards after winning the best feature film award from Gotham. Academy members are taking note. Anderson’s films, rooted in meaning, accident, marginalia and idiosyncratic, handcrafted details, are rich in reference and also in dark humor. They defy description. One is left with a lingering satisfaction, surely the mark of great filmmaking.
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Massenet's Werther at Lyric Opera of Chicago Music
Matthew Polenzani Wows in Title Role
By: - Nov 24th, 2012Debussy wrote in his obituary of Massenet that he was the most beloved of musicians, but his colleagues never forgave him his power to please. He painted in pastel colors and whispered melodies in works composed. In this mounting at the Lyric, Werther's suave melodies, the intimacy of his characters, and the elegance of the music were realized in a fresh, apt and highly entertaining production.
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Joyce DiDonato Captivates Carnegie Hall Music
Il Complesso Barocco Accompanies Our Premier Mezzo
By: - Nov 20th, 2012Joyce DiDonato returned to Carnegie Hall to perform scenes and arias of Drama Queens from Cleopatra to Poppea. Sweeping onstage in smashing power red silk, her bustle suggesting an important avoir du pois. DiDonato, like current pop star Beyonce, appears to have attended every detail of her performance.She then focuses on her songs on stage. She is both imposing in her talent and her demeanor.Warm, inviting the $10 student rush attendees in the rafters to enjoy.
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Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Beethoven Ninth Music
Revolutionnaire et Romantique Triumphs at Carnegie Hall
By: - Nov 17th, 2012Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has been compared to the greatest of all human achievements: the pyramids, Machu Pichu, and Angkor Wat. None of the myriad of appropriations by popular media, "A Clockwork Orange" among them, has diminished Beethoven's testament to man’s freedom.
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Thomas Pasatieri's World Premier at DiCapo Opera Music
Catherine Malfitano Sings On
By: - Nov 10th, 2012A compelling monopera with libretto by Daphne Malfitano is mounted by Di Capo. In a small setting, but with big music, words writ large and the score beautifully sung, a great evening of opera as it should be.
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Louis Armstrong: Jazz Ambassador in New York Theatre
Jeremy Giraud Abram is Satchmo in Myla Churchill's Play
By: - Nov 05th, 2012Satchmo's part in the Little Rock Nine, his world ambassadorship, and his Time cover all zing in this terrific production, in which Jeremy Giraud Abram becomes Louis. The band, featuring Queens College’s Hot Six and aptly selected Armstrong songs are just what you want to hear as you wait for God to make up his mind about the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century.
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The Wasteland Resonates in a Timeline Production Theatre
Chicago Gets Another Hit in Susan Felder's Play
By: - Oct 30th, 2012Timeline consistently delivers great theater, historical settings often provide a jumping board to bigger ideas of the human condition. But never at the sacrifice of entertainment. The playwright Susan Felder and the director William Brown succeed in suggesting a broad message without in any way burdening the specificity of the performance.
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Simon Boccanegra Rules at the Lyric Opera of Chicago Music
Lessons in Superior Opera Production
By: - Oct 29th, 2012Elijah Moshinsky directs, Sir Andrew Davis conducts, and the singers, each and every one, including Thomas Hampson, Krassima Stoyanova, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Frank Lopardo and Quinn Kelsey keep you in their thrall. A report on Lyric Opera of Chicago.
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World Peace Orchestra Celebrates Solti Centennial Music
Lady Solti Presents Solti's Life in Music
By: - Oct 21st, 2012Prince Charles writes of his admiration for George Solti, a committed humanitarian and passionate advocate of the cause of international peace and understanding. Carnegie Hall was the setting of his centennial celebration.
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The Sessions: A Sexual Conversation Film
John Hawkes and Helen Hunt in Ben Lewin's Film
By: - Oct 19th, 2012Director and writer Ben Lewin, who is disabled himself, found an article by poet Mark O’Brien, a man crippled by childhood polio who sought out a sex surrogate to help him experience life more fully. He created a wonderful film.
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The MET Orchestra at Carnegie Music
Slow Flows the Don Under Semyon Bychkov
By: - Oct 17th, 2012A world-reknowned conductor, Semyon Bychkov, led the Met Orchestra in Wagner and Strauss. James Levine has been announced as conductor of the May Carnegie concert. Fabio Luisi has said he is not available as a back up.
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Rock Wilk's Broke Wide Open at 45th Street Theatre Theatre
Monodrama Brings You Home
By: - Oct 14th, 2012Rock Wilk is mesmerizing in his monodrama “Broke Wide Open.†The image of his arm pumped up in a power gesture immediately gives hope to a bleak beginning. Wilk was turned over by his birth mother to be passed, swadled, from foster home to foster home, and finally settled in a wonderful Jewish family, where he was treasured. Love or no love, he grapples with his identity as he tries to find home
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Argo Celebrates Hollywood Film
Or What Boston's Ben Affleck is Doing Post Season
By: - Oct 11th, 2012Argo tells the story of 6 American Embassy hostages who are rescued in Teheran in 1980. Sort of... "The script is in turnaround" drew howls from an industry audience at a screening in New York. Ben Affleck introed the film looking to all the world like a CIA agent.
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The Chicago Symphony at Carnegie II Music
Muti Continues Our Musical Education
By: - Oct 08th, 2012School has never been more fun and moving than it is with tutor Riccardo Muti introducing his native composers, Martucci and Respighi, and also Dvorak, who helped to jump start his career.
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Muti Magic at Carnegie Hall Music
Chicago Symphony Precise, Passionate, Compelling
By: - Oct 07th, 2012Riccardo Muti and his Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened the Carnegie Hall Season. And what a splendid welcome. Featured was Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. When Muti conducted it in 1980, the composer declared the performance a "second premier." Orff went home and made changes which he autographed and then sent to Muti. Such is Muti’s gift.
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Gotham Chamber Opera at Poisson Rouge Music
Neal Goren Combines East and West
By: - Oct 03rd, 2012The stage at Poisson Rouge thrust out for the meeting of East and West. The performers were in thrust mode too. From the first pavonne danced bare-chested instead of bustled up in the back, a contrarian view to classic forms was often on display. When the dancers from Company XIV accompanied the singers, they added a visual line to the musical one, and emphasized the emotion of an aria or recitative. The effect was delightful, moving and, at the right times, frightening. The erotic and exotic in a special mix.
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Peter and the Starcatcher on Broadway Theatre
High Camp for Everyone
By: - Sep 30th, 2012Peter and the Star Catcher is a prequel to Peter Pan and won five richly deserved Tony’s this season. If you want to see what J. M. Barrie was dreaming about before he put pen to paper to write Peter Pan, try this terrific show. .
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Rachvelishvili Ravashing as Carmen Music
Tomer Zvulun Directs at the Metropolitan Opera
By: - Sep 28th, 2012Merimee started his novella Carmen by remarking that women are as bitter as gall. They have only two good moments, in bed and in death. We get Carmen in both positions, but she resists subservience. Here she is, Rachveslishvili larger than life.
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New York's Chamber Music Society Serenades Music
Mozart, Kodaly, Strauss and Dvorak Welcome the Season
By: - Sep 26th, 2012Chamber music well-done is an intimate dialogue among musicians. No one does this better than the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which appears in New York, but also at Harris Theater in Chicago and across the country.
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Red Dogs Howls at the New York Theater Workshop Theatre
The Great Kathleen Chalfont in a Commanding Performance.
By: - Sep 24th, 2012The Armenian genocide hasn't gotten the attention either the holocaust or Darfur have. This play tells its story in very personal terms. Chalfont playing a survivor is brilliant.
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Sondra Radvanovsky as Anna Bolena Music
Washington National Opera Begins its Season
By: - Sep 18th, 2012Radvanovsky has one of the most beautiful voices in the world. She is also a talented singing-actress. She makes Anna Bolena live. Radvanovsky not only sings with her naturally large and pure voice, but she has conceived the role to fit her vocal characterization into her gestures and expression.
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