Thomas May's Blog, page 6

March 18, 2025

Pierre Boulez Tribute at Boulez-Saal

asset_imagePierre Boulez, 1957

Here is my essay on the JACK Quartet’s 20 March program at the Boulez-Saal in Berlin in honor of the Pierre Boulez centenary.

When they initially met as participants in the Lucerne Festival Academy, the members of the JACK Quartet forged a connection with Pierre Boulez, the Academy’s founder, that left a lasting impression. Tonight’s program pays homage to their mentor by juxtaposing excerpts from his landmark Livre pour quatuor with works that resonate with the excitement and idealism that the young Boulez channeled into this radical reimagining of the string quartet.

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Published on March 18, 2025 00:21

March 14, 2025

RIP Sofia Gubaidulina (1931-2025)

“I am a religious Russian Orthodox person and I understand ‘religion’ in the literal meaning of the word, as ‘re-ligio’, that is to say the restoration of connections, the restoration of the ‘legato’ of life. There is no more serious task for music than this.”  – Sofia Gubaidulina

The great Sofia Gubaidulina has died at the age of 93. She passed away on 13 March at her home in Appen, Germany.

From her publisher, Boosey & Hawkes: “Sofia Gubaidulina, the grande dame of new music, has passed away on 13 March 2025, aged 93, at her home in Appen, near Hamburg in Germany. She was considered the most important Russian composer of the present day and a person who drew inspiration from a deep faith. Her interest in the world, in people and in the spiritual touched everyone who met and worked with her. In her work, she always focussed on the elementary, on human existence and the transformative power of music.

She is like a ‘flying hermit’, said conductor Simon Rattle, because she is always “in orbit and only occasionally visits terra firma. Now and then she comes to us on the earth and brings us light and then goes back into her orbit.” Conductor Andris Nelsons has noted that “Sofia Gubaidulina’s music – its intellect and its profound spirituality – is deeply touching. It really gets under your skin”.

According to NPR: “In a 2017 interview with the BBVA Foundation, Gubaidulina talked about the power of music in sweeping terms. ‘The art of music is consistent with the task of expanding the higher dimension of our lives,’ she said. A deeply religious artist, she once described her writing process as speaking with God.” She also said: “The art of music is capable of touching and approaching mysteries and laws existing in the cosmos and in the world.”


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Published on March 14, 2025 19:16

March 13, 2025

The Spasms of History: Inside William Kentridge’s “The Great Yes, The Great No”

Here’s my feature on the new project from William Kentridge, which will be presented this weekend in Berkeley by Cal Performances:

A new production by William Kentridge is always a major event. Few other artists at work today span so many media while at the same time reimagining them: drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, animated film, and musical-theater performance are all encompassed within his practice. But what makes Kentridge especially resonant for a global audience is how his innovations push beyond merely aesthetic considerations to pose big, open-ended questions about history and identity.
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Published on March 13, 2025 12:02

March 7, 2025

Rediscovering French Composer Fernande Decruck

Fernande Decruck

Here’s my recent interview for The Strad with conductor Matthew Aubin on his mission to reclaim attention for Fernande Decruck’s music:

For decades, French composer Fernande Decruck (1896–1954) was known only for her Sonata in C-sharp for alto saxophone, a staple of the classical saxophone repertoire. Many of her compositions were left unpublished at her untimely death at the age of 57 and sank into oblivion. 

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Published on March 07, 2025 11:04

March 1, 2025

Cellist Abel Selaocoe Continues to Redefine His Approach to the Instrument 

Abel Selaocoe, © Christina Ebenezer

I had the privilege of speaking with the unclassifiable musical phenomenon Abel Selaocoe for this month’s Strings magazine cover story.

Any attempt to label Abel Selaocoe’s artistry is bound to fall short. While many of today’s young musicians defy easy categorization, Selaocoe ventures even further into uncharted realms. His expansive philosophy of communication views the cello as the extension of a larger voice—a storytelling device to navigate multiple dimensions of identity and community. Selaocoe uses his cello in tandem with singing, improvisation, body percussion, and ensemble energy to amplify a fundamental impulse to express, to connect, to belong.
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Published on March 01, 2025 15:09

February 26, 2025

“Canon for Racial Reconciliation”

This weekend brings another of my picks for the first few months of 2025: Cappella Romana presents the world premiere of the complete Canon for Racial Reconciliation, a collaboration between composers Isaac Cates and Nicholas Reeves that fuses the sound worlds of Orthodox and Gospel church music.

Cates and Reeves have set a remarkable poem in the form of an ancient Byzantine canon written by Dr. Carla Thomas, one of the leaders of the Fellowship of St. Moses the Black, whose mission is “to share the Orthodox Christian faith with African Americans and people of color.”

Combining two choirs – each coming from Orthodox and Gospel traditions, respectively – Canon also calls for violin, trumpet, guitar, piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and pre-recorded sound samples of sermons and related material.

James Bash has written an excellent preview for Oregon.live here, which includes this observation from co-composer Nicholas Reeves: “This piece was not a response to anything specific that is happening at the moment. It touches on issues that have been part of America for a long, long time. There are no political positions in the piece. The Canon of Racial Reconciliation comes from a compassionate and reconciliatory perspective. It recognizes misdeeds and violence and justice and tries to find a way forward that moves everyone ahead. The goal is healing in America. We move ahead even when there is no forgiveness or justice present. The music is an expression of mutual and peaceful co-existence.”

Performances are Friday 28 February at 7.30pm at Town Hall in Seattle and Saturday 1 March at 7.30pm at First United Methodist Church in Portland. Go here for tickets or call 503-236-8202 (use the code CANON for a 20% discount in advance). There will be a conversation with the composers and conductors right before the performances (free with registration).

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Published on February 26, 2025 09:53

February 24, 2025

“The Magic Flute” at Seattle Opera

Brandie Sutton as Pamina, In Sung Sim as Sarastro and Duke Kim as Tamino with members of the Seattle Opera Chorus in “The Magic Flute” at Seattle Opera. (David Jaewon Oh)

My Seattle Times review of opening night of the popular production of Mozart’s final opera by Barrie Kosky and 1927 Theatre:

A remarkable synergy of musical and visual storytelling enlivens Seattle Opera’s current production of “The Magic Flute,” running through March 9….

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Published on February 24, 2025 20:04

February 19, 2025

Adès Conducts Adès

Here’s the essay I wrote for the Cleveland Orchestra’s program this week featuring guest conductor and composer Thomas Adès:

Among the preeminent composers of our era, Thomas Adès has likened the practice of creating art — whether music, literature, or painting — to fashioning “a simulacrum of the real world, a reflection”…

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Published on February 19, 2025 17:56

February 15, 2025

Upcoming at Seattle Opera: Barrie Kosky’s “Magic Flute” Production

Image from Barrie Kosky’s production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” taken from a revival of the original production at Komische Oper Berlin in November 2023. Seattle Opera presents this “Magic Flute,” which mixes live performance with projected animations and references to the world of silent film, Feb. 22-March 9. (Jaro Suffner)

Here’s my Seattle Times preview of the well-traveled production of Mozart’s opera that arrives in Seattle for the first time this weekend:

The Magic Flute has enchanted audiences ever since it opened in 1791, just months before Mozart’s untimely death. 

On the surface, Flute is a fairy tale about a prince who sets out to rescue a supposedly kidnapped princess — only to discover that both are destined for a journey of enlightenment. Along the way, the Queen of the Night loses her struggle to topple the high priest Sarastro, who is revealed to be a benevolent ruler….

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Published on February 15, 2025 21:12

February 10, 2025

Seattle Opera Announces 2025-26 Season

Today Seattle Opera announced the lineup for the company’s first full season with General and Artistic Director James Robinson at the helm.

I’m especially pleased to see Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers – more timely than ever – among the three company premieres. Last summer’s Santa Fe Opera season included The Righteous, a collaboration between Spears and poet Tracey K. Smith, and the production knocked me out. Fellow Travelers is set during the McCarthy era and is based on the Thomas Mallon novel about the “Lavender Scare” that affected workers in the federal government.

Budget tightening obviously plays a big role here, but the rest of the season is quite a mixed bag:  Seattle Opera’s first venture into Gilbert & Sullivan territory with The Pirates of Penzance; a Richard Strauss rarity, Daphne, but in concert format, which will star Heidi Stober as the mythic protagonist and with David Afkham conducting; and the perennial Carmen, which will star Sasha Cooke in her role debut (alternating with J’Nai Bridges in one of her signature parts). Another plus: Ludovic Morlot will conduct.

So we’re now done to just four mainstage productions, one of them in concert format, and no more season opener in August – when the Ring used to be the center of attention, so long ago.

Here’s the complete program:

Performance Information (see full cast lists at seattleopera.org)

The Pirates of Penzance
Music by Arthur Sullivan

Libretto by W.S. Gilbert
Conducted by David Charles Abell
Directed and Choreographed by Seán Curran
October 18, 19, 24, 26, 28, 29, November 1, 2025
McCaw Hall (321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109)
seattleopera.org/pirates

Gay Apparel: A Holiday Show

December 12 & 13, 2025
The Opera Center (363 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109)
seattleopera.org/gayapparel

Daphne in Concert
Music by Richard Strauss
Libretto by Joseph Gregor
January 16 & 18, 2026
McCaw Hall (321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109)
seattleopera.org/daphne

Fellow Travelers

Music by Gregory Spears
Libretto by Greg Pierce

Conducted by Patrick Summers
Directed by Kevin Newbury

February 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, & March 1, 2026
The Opera Center (363 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109)
seattleopera.org/fellowtravelers

Carmen
Music by George Bizet

Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Conducted by Ludovic Morlot
Directed and Choreographed by Paul Curran
May 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, & 17, 2026
McCaw Hall (321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109)
seattleopera.org/carmen

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Published on February 10, 2025 19:39

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