Naxos News

Alastair Willis conducts the Florida Orchestra through a stirring rendition of The Italian Girl in Algiers during a coffee concert.

Cyrano de Bergerac -- I have heard boring opera scores in my time -- especially those in so-called 12-tone style -- but never have I heard one so incompetent as the one Franco Alfano composed for the opera "Cyrano de Bergerac!" Alfano has before now been known mostly for completing his master Puccini's "Turandot" . But since the Metropolitan Opera ...

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is ending the year on high and low notes. The high is yet another Grammy nomination - this time in the best-engineered classical album category for "Respighi: Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions, Rossiniana." The performance on the Naxos label was conducted by Music Director JoAnn Falletta and engineered by John ...

For the second time in as many years, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is up for a major Grammy award.

You really had to be there. In 2005 the Detroit Symphony Orchestra gave the world premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe's 'Dear Mrs.

The sizzling Naxos recording of Leonard Bernstein's epic "Mass" by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop, is among the 2010 Grammy nominees for Best Classical Album.

The Nashville Symphony has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Album for its recording of Maurice Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilges and Shhrazade , which were reorded at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in 2006 an 2007 and released this year.

It's holiday music time for area classical organizations, with plenty of opportunities to attend concerts throughout the suburbs over the next two weeks.

The charismatic St. Petersburg-born Vasily Petrenko has really been turning things around at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra since he took over as Principal Conductor in 2005.

John Adams: "Nixon in China"; Robert Orth, Maria Kanyova and others, with Opera Colorado Chorus and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop .

October 18, 2009, 6:42 AM / R&B/Pop Hall&Oates, "Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall and John Oates" . What's so striking about the music spread across this four-disc box set is just how timeless it is.

Amazon.com is running a huge classical box set sale featuring hundreds of sets from EMI and Universal labels, as well as DVDs.

The brilliant young pianist Xiayin Wang will be heard in recital on Friday evening, October 30th at 8 p.m. at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, 14 Shelton Cove Lane.

This month brought the release of box sets of the original Beatles albums, remastered and available in both stereo and mono.

THEATR Clwyd's Classical Concert Season recommences on Sunday with a visit from the exciting violinist Chloe Hanslip with pianist Ashley Wass.

Several fascinating threads come together in this week's Detroit Symphony Orchestra concerts: new music by intriguing Russian-born composer Alla Borzova, a major symphony by Rachmaninoff that will morph into the first recording of the DSO and music director Leonard Slatkin for the Naxos label and an overdue DSO debut by guitarist Sharon Isbin.

Michael Daugherty: Fire and Blood; MotorCity Triptych; Raise the Roof The Motor City is the scene and the theme on these three pieces from Daugherty's tenure as the Detroit Symphony's composer-in-residence . Fire and Blood is a violin concerto inspired by paintings by Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo done there.

Although Catania is the closest major city to Mount Etna, the finest views are from the town of Taormina Photo: REUTERS Villa Silvia in Acireale: a Coastal villa with traditional interiors, terrace and large grounds Sicily has a variety of interesting historical houses to rent, so finding a good villa to stay in is not difficult, even in peak ...

Deems Taylor: Peter Ibbetson DEEMS Taylor was an American composer and critic best remembered as the "host" in Disney's Fantasia .

STRAVINSKY'S Firebird and Petrushka are well established as popular repertoire pieces, and yet the music-loving public has problems with this composer as he develops through the various phases of his compositional life.