Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews: Pianist Yundi Li makes his Miami debut MiamiHerald.com - Miami,FL,USA Preview of the April 1 debut by our headline-grabbing pianist, who discusses his continuing connection to Chopin afer wininning the Chopin competition in Warsaw... Yet Chopin will make up the bulk of Li's program, including four Mazurkas , the Nocturne in E flat major , and the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brillante .  read more »

Things have been very busy in the blog offices of Dr. Dick Plaza, so my apologies to the legions of fans who are checking to read about (1) The Metropolitan Opera movie-cast of Donizettis Daughter of the Regiment with Natalie Dessay and Juan-Diego Flrez last Saturday afternoon; (2) The Alumni Chorale of Lebanon Valley Colleges concert I attended Saturday evening with Gregg Mauroni making his official debut as the choirs new director; (3) The world premiere of Elliott Carters Clarinet Quintet (completed in September, 2007, when he was still only 98 years old) which John Clare and I attended Tuesday evening at Juilliard in NYC; (4) Other events that I may have informed you about but you may have thought I attended.  read more »

After a 278-year hiatus, a long-lost opera by the Italian Baroque master Antonio Vivaldi will be performed in Prague Saturday in a tour de force for a young Czech conductor with a detective's nose.

Argippo", a two-hour drama about a young princess smitten with a dishonest suitor, was scouted out nearly a year-and-a-half ago by 37-year-old Ondrej Macek, who founded and directs a Baroque music ensemble.

— Read more at
Yahoo! News

One can never accuse Algirdas Vizgirdas, the director of Musica Humana, of lack of enthusiasm - he bounds onto the stage like the cat that got the double cream, produces encores at the drop of a hat and generally wheedles his crew into playing more, and more, and yet more. Tonight was the second concert in a series of celebrations of Vivaldi's 330th birthday. Surprisingly, it was in the Filharmonija at 7, rather than, as usual, in the Lutheran church at 6 - where I might have rushed to, had I not looked at the website at the last moment. The Filharmoija's stalls had the audience tastefully sprinkled throughout it. It was all Vivaldi, then, 8 pieces, plus 3 encores - one before the interval!  read more »

Someone has found yet another Vivaldi opera lurking somewhere and finished it using bits of the others. Full story from the Indy here.  read more »

This from an article about the Spitzer debacle:

"Shortly before his pre-Valentine Day's Washington, DC, hotel tryst with the call girl now publicly known as "Kristen," Spitzer asked his aides in the Mayflower Hotel if they had a classical-music CD he could bring to his room, a witness said.

Between 9 and 9:15 p.m. on Feb. 13, Spitzer came down to the hotel bar and asked his contingent of about eight for a CD, which no one had, the witness told The Post.

The governor - normally a rock fan who last year attended a Bruce Springsteen concert in Albany - was said to be wearing a blue sweatshirt and jeans.

"At the time, he claimed it was to help him focus and concentrate," the source said of Spitzer. "He said he was going to work late into the night."  read more »

More opportunities for live music this weekend - just a brief post to point out a few possibilities. The York Symphony holds its final subscription concert of its 75th Anniversary season with violinist Sarah Chang playing The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi on a program conducted by Robert Hart Baker which also includes two revised movements from the symphony William Alexander composed for the York Symphonys 50th Anniversary, along with a work that had been performed during the first full season of the orchestra back in 1934, Sibelius tone poem Finlandia. Spanning the eras in between are Mozarts Linz Symphony and the piratical overture by Hector Berlioz, Le Corsair.  read more »

James R. Oestreich, Vivien Schweitzer, Steve Smith, New York Times, 3/16/2008