The Lively Arts (redux)

Could you hear it in Westminster or all the way south in Castle Rock? It was the sound of a standing ovation, the kind that brings a soloist back onstage before intermission for an encore.  Friday night’s CSO opening at Boettcher Concert Hall featured conductor Peter Oundjian and the celebrated pianist Emanuel Ax, whose career […]

The expectations weren’t clear for ‘Iceberg Music with Hypercube’, a name that suggested the frigid February temperatures outside New York’s Tenri Cultural Center. Hypercube, presented genre-bending chamber music by six young composers on February 15th. The Iceberg New Music collective, founded in 2016, celebrates new music with concerts and awards to pre-collegiate composers from under-represented […]

Photo credit Richard Replin Miró String Quartet, winner of the 2005 Avery Fisher Career Grant, celebrated their 25th season in Denver with their third appearance with Friends of Chamber Music. They first appeared with pianist Shai Wosner in 2009 and again in 2012.  The Texas based quartet, formed in 1995, has been in residence at […]

—When did you start piano lessons? While Matthew isn’t clear he knew he was quite young. Sometime in his teenage years, he became “irrevocably obsessed with music.”  He credits great teachers including his piano professor, Kenneth Huber at Carleton College and saxophonist Kenyon Brenner at the University of Northern Colorado for helping him focus on […]

On Monday night January 6th, Matthew Rathkey inaugurated Classical Mondays at Dazzle on Curtis.  The Chandelier Stage welcomed the talents of Jason Shafer, Principal Clarinetist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Joshua Sawicki, who recently performed with cellist Silver Ainomäe at Englewood Arts and Lamont adjunct faculty member Ian Wisekal.   The Trio invited the January wine […]

Sharon Park – violin, Andrew Giordano – violin, Josh Sawicki      – piano Silver Ainomäe – cello and Leah Kovach     – viola Silver Ainomäe, the former principal cellist with the Colorado Symphony, came back to Denver for some snow and a concert with friends. The Artistic Director of Englewood Arts and associate […]

Verdi’s Requiem – musicAeterna Orchestra and Chorus, The Shed, Hudson Yards, NY, November 2019 The Shed: Industrial components; enormous wheels locked into place at the ready to roll back and open the roof to the sky, welded steel staircases and stadium-style seating inside the McCourt Theater. The factory appearance, the bronzed shell and the darkened […]

Francisco Fullano, who grew up on the Iberian island of Mallorca, stitched together a program in inspired by Bach on a 1735 Guarneri del Gesú ‘Mary Portman’ that was owned by Fullano’s idol Fritz Kreisler with steel strings and a more modern instrument with gut strings.  He began his July solo recital on the stage […]

Helsinki There was a plan. If the winds in Espoo permitted racing to commence by 1:00 pm my partner would be off the water in time to take the Metro into Helsinki for a concert, but if the wind wreaked havoc we’d miss the opening piece. In June daylight wasn’t a concern. After my museum […]