Blake Allen’s Insomnia is a cerebral, enigmatic, and mystifying artistic creation chronicling a night of an insomniac narrator. Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Sleep and Waking” (1934), Allen mobilizes the power of music to dramatize and intensify the import of the conflicting tensions of the restive, lone sufferer.
The Punta Gorda Symphony celebrates the summer months with the Summer Chamber Music Series that begin with a String Quartet.
This superb venue in beautiful Neidorff-Karpati Hall at the Manhattan School of Music concluded a three-week festival featuring dance choreography set to the music of J. S. Bach performed by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, conducted by Donald York.
Les Arts Florissants at Versailles performed exquisite polyphonic masterpieces in the magnificent setting of the Chapelle Royale.
At Bryant Park in Manhattan, the American Symphony Orchestra String Quartet gently pierced the air with beauty, peace, and pathos.
Henry Purcell’s inventive Chaconne opened the program, performed with superb musicianship by the ACO’s performers, thereby setting the standard of sublime artistry to follow, beautifully filmed, recorded, and produced in the magnificent Harlem Parish setting. How delightful to hear, see and experience representative 17th-century works performed on period instruments. The imaginatively engaged listener propelled by their suspension of belief is anachronistically transported into a magical musical experience.
