Can't-Miss Culture: Classical & Opera

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and all this week during the membership drive we're ending the show each day with a guide to some can't-miss cultural happenings. Today, we're borrowing from our sister station, WQXR, for some ideas for classical music and opera performances not to be missed. I'm joined by Elliott Forrest. The weekday afternoon host at WQXR is just the person to guide us for this, and a person who I've been very honored to know for a few years now. Hey, Elliot.

Elliott Forrest: Hey, Brian. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: We're dipping our toes into the events guide business for our pledge drive, but WQXR has a regular feature on its website with classical music happenings in the area, so I'll plug that. How do we find it?

Elliott Forrest: It's called Classical Around Town. If you put that in the search part of the top part of our website at wqxr.org, you're going to get a whole list of live performances of classical music around town. If anything, I just really want to advocate for live music. As you know, there was a dip and of course people weren't going to concerts during the pandemic. It's now stronger than ever, mostly in ticket sales nationally, due to Beyonce and Taylor Swift, but people are coming back to the theater and coming back to the concert hall. We really need to support these venues and these artists.

Brian Lehrer: For me, it was the thing that I missed the most during the lockiest of the lockdown period, not feeling comfortable going out to hear live music. Live music is so special for so many of us.

Elliott Forrest: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Up first, let's talk about the 100th anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue, a reimagined version by the Marcus Roberts Trio with the Philadelphia Orchestra. That's coming up in January. Where is that going to be?

Elliott Forrest: That's Carnegie Hall. Just in case your listeners don't know, 13 times a year WQXR has Carnegie Hall live, and it's literally in the title. Yes, go to Carnegie Hall, yes, be there in person. If you can't or don't want to, we broadcast literally live from Carnegie Hall 13 times a year, and one of them will be January 23rd, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Marcus Roberts Trio. He's reimagined Rhapsody in Blue several times by George Gershwin. By the way, Brian, Rhapsody in Blue fell into public domain just a couple of years ago. You know what that means for United Airlines, right?

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] They can play it on their-

Elliott Forrest: They don't have to pay anymore.

Brian Lehrer: -commercials over and over again.

[crosstalk]

Elliott Forrest: You'll hear it on the airplane, exactly.

Elliott Forrest: This concert celebrates the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Brian Lehrer: Here is a little sample of the Marcus Roberts Trio with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Philadelphia playing Rhapsody in Blue.

[music - Marcus Roberts and Seiji Ozawa - Rhapsody in Blue]

Brian Lehrer: I'm ready to just sign off and listen to that whole track, but what else is coming up, Elliot?

Elliott Forrest: That is on January 23rd. Coming up sooner on November 30th, Miloš. This is 40-year-old Balkan guitarist who goes by one name mostly. Has a new album out called Baroque. We're playing it all this week on WQXR, and he has a concert on November 30th at Carnegie Hall that we will also broadcast live. Then on January 29th, the Boston Symphony Orchestra features a really brilliant young pianist, Seong-Jin Cho. He's actually been at our studios before. We've done a number of different conversations and videos with him at the radio station.

He won the Chopin International Piano Competition 2015. He was the first South Korean to do so. He had one of those moments, those Leonard Bernstein and Andre Watts moments where somebody gets sick and we're going, "Oh, the show must go on. Who are we going to get?" A couple of years ago he stepped in for Denis Matsuev with hours' notice at Carnegie Hall and he just did an incredible job. He'll be on Carnegie Hall Live. You can hear it on QXR or hear it in person on the 29th of January at Carnegie Hall.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. Let's go on to some of the other big venues. I see the Met Opera starts performances of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X next month. This is a Met Opera debut. This is this piece's Met Opera debut, although I see it was first performed in the 1980s. Why do you think it took so long to get to the Met?

Elliott Forrest: Well, it's really hard for me to say, but the folks at the Metropolitan Opera have really upped their game regarding new works, and contemporary works, and bringing in people of theater. X, having nothing to do with Twitter, you're right, it's the life and times of Malcom X, will be directed by Robert O'Hara, who directed Slave Play on Broadway. They've been bringing a lot of theater people to do this. They started with Dead Man Walking, which was a revival of a contemporary piece, then X, and then they're going to follow that up in April with a revival of Fire Shut up in My Bones. This is the Terence Blanchard Opera that is based on the book by Charles Blow.

Brian Lehrer: Nice. Really nice.

Elliott Forrest: In case you missed it too, The Hours is coming back at the Metropolitan Opera as well. That's back in May. What a powerhouse group of singers. It's Renée Fleming, Kelli O'Hara, and Joyce DiDonato all back in the opera, The Hours, also another contemporary work.

Brian Lehrer: Did you mean to suggest that Elon Musk didn't rename Twitter X after Malcolm X? I thought it was. No, I didn't.

[laughter]

Elliott Forrest: I have no idea what's in his mind.

Brian Lehrer: How about the holidays? Can you point us to some holiday concerts?

Elliott Forrest: Always. It's great to have live music during the holiday season. Julie Taymor with The Magic Flute is back at the Met. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center always does a lot of concerts with the Brandenburg Concertos, the complete Brandenburg Concertos and what I like to call a mess of Messiahs. You''re going to have a lot of opportunities for Handel's Messiah this holiday season. Trinity Church Wall Street will do one, the New York Philharmonic will do one as well.

Our friends at the New York Pops will have a big holiday concert as well. It's called The Best Christmas of All. That's December 22nd and 23rd. Steve Reineke is the music director and the guest artist will be Norm Lewis.

Brian Lehrer: Nice. I'll throw in that there are some smaller venues as well that have some smaller things. I already bought tickets for a Chamber Music concert that's going to be happening in the middle of the winter at Town Hall. That happened to be a reasonable ticket price. It's because the string quartet is playing a Bartók string quartet that I happened to be a fan of. Just to say, there are other smaller things around. There's Chamber Music besides the big orchestras and operas, right?

Elliott Forrest: Totally. National Sawdust, if you haven't been out to Brooklyn, harpist Bridget Kibbey will be performing in National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Then out in Nyack, where I live, Bridget Kibbey, the harpist, will be playing there as well. One free concert you should know about at Lincoln Center on November 16th, this is part of their new Latin wave, will feature the music of Raquel Acevedo Klein.

Brian Lehrer: Awesome. Elliott Forrest, host of Afternoons with Elliott Forrest on WQXR, 105.9 FM, or always @wqxr.org. You want to just plug one more time, just going to call it what it is, a plug, the live concert stream that you have for people who, for whatever reason, don't want to or can't go in person to some of these things?

Elliott Forrest: Yes. You can find out about Carnegie Hall live at wqxr.org, and if you want to see the listing of our live concerts, it's called Classical Around Town at wqxr.org.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks, Elliot. Keep it up.

Elliott Forrest: Thank you, Brian. Love you.

 

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