Month: July 2026
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Here are two essays well worth your time if you’re looking for something excellent to read. The first is Garth Greenwell’s recap of his time at the Des Moines Metro Opera’s summer season. While most of the piece centers on King Roger and its distinctly queer presentation, it also dives into a larger question about…
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For the nation’s 250th anniversary, Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra has spent its summer festival surveying the American classical music tradition. The ensemble’s music directors have long possessed an appetite for discovery, unearthing obscure or overlooked corners of the repertoire. But the American works that have graced the Pritzker Pavilion in recent weeks suggest that this…
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A belated note on Marin Alsop stepping down as Ravinia’s chief conductor. It’s not entirely unexpected. Hannah Edgar dives deeper in her piece for the Tribune. The news isn’t a shocker. The maestro hits 70 this year and juggles commitments in the US and Europe. Could the shifting artistic leadership at the CSO be a…
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What draws a critic to one performance over another is entirely subjective. For me, it is sometimes the chance to hear a specific performer; other times, it is the opportunity to encounter a piece that is new, recently composed, or uniquely relevant to a city’s cultural life. When a concert promises both a compelling ensemble…
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An immense censer hung motionless over the stage, illuminated by four standing candelabras and suspended above the pit orchestra. The scale of it was unsettling. For a long moment, those were the only visible objects. Then, one by one, members of the chorus filed stately into the Pote Theatre, their measured procession lending the scene…
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I am headed to Indianola this week for Des Moines Metro Opera’s production of Szymanowski’s King Roger, a piece I recently previewed for Seen and Heard alongside the rest of the company’s festival season. There is a small irony in this trip. I spent seven years in central Iowa, four at Iowa State and three…