Upcoming Tours
Cotswolds
Merry Ole England at Christmastime (11-17 December 2024)
Catch the Christmas Spirit with this fun-filled tour. With Upper Slaughter as our base, we explore the Cotswolds and Oxfordshire. Both a 'Downton Abbey' High Tea at Highclere Castle and thousands of twinkling lights and sparkling baubles at Blenheim Palace will enchant you. En route to Winchester, we visit Stonehenge and tipple at the Bombay Sapphire Gin distillery. The tour ends in Canterbury, the destination of Chaucer’s pilgrims and many others for over a thousand years.The beautiful sounds of two of England’s superb cathedral choirs shall sing of the coming joys of Christmas. A Christmas pantomime in Oxford will provide the laughs. Fully Booked
Giverny
France - Glorious Gardens, Grand Châteaux & Great Music! (29 March - 7 April 2025)
Gardens are the focus of this springtime tour that starts in Paris. Charles Day, the former Horticultural Interpreter at Wave Hill in the Bronx, NY, and a well-known consultant for private gardens, estates and museums, has chosen an array of jardins à la française to explore: urban gardens in Paris, enchanting Loire Valley chateaux gardens, the splendors of Versailles, the water garden of impressionist painter Claude Monet at Giverny, and the private garden of a maestro.There is music as well — a concert at the high-vaulted Sainte-Chapelle with its dazzling medieval stained glass windows, and a performance at the Opera Royal du Chateau de Versailles.
Łazienki Park
Poland - Experience its History, Cuisine and Culture (12-21 June 2025)
We begin in Warsaw, a 21st-century city where vestiges of the past are ever present. Relish a private Chopin concert at the Palace on the Isle in Łazienki Park and enjoy the Warsaw Philharmonic’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth at Orchestra Hall. Next, we go south to Silesia, a region whose destiny was fueled by coal, to sample its wines and taste its cuisine. In Katowice, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs a program of Scandinavian music. The tour ends in the grand city of Krakow renown for its splendid architecture and vibrant cultural life. Unscathed by the ravages of war, Krakow was one of the first places designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978.
Performance Reviews
New York, NY
Violinist Avsharian’s unique concert mixes music with brainwave education
Violinist probes connection between music and brain function with timeless classics.
New York, NY
Superb singing in “Rigoletto” highlights return of Met’s Weimar Verdi
Quinn Kelsey reprises his finely crafted, richly sung Rigoletto.
Philadelphia, PA
Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners hums along at Opera Philadelphia
Great cast and imaginative production fail to surmount convoluted plot.
San Diego, CA
Show Time! Renovated Movie Theater Set For Concert Hall Close-Up
Acoustics drove renovation of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra's indoor home.
New York, NY
Kurzak brings fresh vocal richness to Met’s “Tosca”
SeokJong Baek makes for a gallant Cavaradossi with an impressive voice.
New York, NY
Emily D’Angelo soars in Tesori’s gripping and powerful Grounded on the Met’s 2024/25 opening night
Michael Mayer’s extraordinary production centers incredibly powerful, moving tragedy.
New York, NY
A romantic Roman holiday opens season for Music Before 1800
Wine and music flow from Amanda Forsythe and Pacific MusicWorks at Riverside Church.
Sun Valley, ID
Spreading the joy with music new and old at the Sun Valley Music Festival
James Ehnes soars in Brahms Violin Concerto under Alasdair Neale's baton.
Sun Valley, ID
Celebrating 40 years of free, top-notch music in Sun Valley
Alasdair Neale leads Mahler Sixth in the great outdoors.
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Extravagance and excellence vie in Meyerbeer’s 'Le prophète' at Bard SummerScape
Leon Botstein conducts thrilling, dramatic performance of French Grand Opera masterwork.
All of my reviews for Seen and Heard International can be found here
Recordings Reviews
Ventura, CA
Requiem for the Enslaved
Carlos Simon and Marco Pavé offer a searing, transcendent memorial to past sins and hopes.
Goshen, NY
Aaron Jay Kernis's Elegy (For Those We Lost)
Elegy (For Those We Lost) is dedicated to the families of those who have died from COVID-19. Aaron Jay Kernis originally composed the piece for solo piano, but arranged it for harp and trumpet was made at the request of the Grammy-nominated harpist Yolanda Kondonassis.
Berlin
Vince Mendoza's Freedom Over Everything
To the Edge of Longing for soprano and orchestra is one of the most stunning musical creations inspired by these troubled times.
Lawrence, Kansas
dwb (driving while black)
Of the three recorded versions of Susan Kander and Roberta Gumbel's dwb (driving while black), this recording is the purest one.
Chicago
Archetypes
In their new release, Grammy Award-winning Third Coast Percussion joins with celebrated Brazilian guitarist Sérgio Assad and his daughter - vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Clarice Assad - to portray in music twelve of these universal characters that defy time and place.
Paris
The Freischütz Project
Conductor Laurence Equilbey is the first to present Carl Maria von Weber’s opera using the principles and original instruments of historically informed performance with a stellar cast.
New York
Brooklyn-based ensemble and songwriting collective Founders releases Songs for the End of Time
Ben Russell and Brandon Ridenour, members of the new music ensemble Founders, radical rework of Olivier Messiean’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps is faithful to both the spirit and the austere beauty of the original.
Warsaw
The songs of René de Boisdeffre - A nineteenth-century master of melody
Acte Préalable’s recording of reveals that at his best, René de Boisdeffre could fashion a song to rival those of his greatest contemporaries, including Fauré.
France
Contralto - Nathalie Stutzmann / Orfeo 55
Stutzmann’s last recording with Orfeo 55, the chamber orchestra which she founded and performed with as soloist and conductor simultaneously, celebrates the legacy of the great Baroque contraltos and the music that they inspired.
New York
Once and Again
Once and Again, the most recent recording of Edward Smaldone's music, features a sampling of his smaller-scaled works, including two for voice and instruments.
About
I got the travel bug from my parents. As a boy I had crisscrossed the US with them and my younger brother on the classic American Road Trip to California. At 16, I went to Europe for the first time. The destination was Germany, a country that I have returned to many times. In addition to business and personal travel, I have lived in Switzerland, Singapore and China. So far, it’s been a wonderful life of travelling the world and experiencing its wonders..
A musician for most of my life, first a trumpet player and then a singer, I have a degree in music from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2013, I began reviewing for Seen and Heard International and have posted reviews from the US, Europe and Asia. In addition, I regularly contribute program notes to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and have had music and travel articles published in the Global Times, Shanghai Daily, MusicWeb International, Broad Street Review and other publications.
Although I am thrilled to have press privileges in many of the world’s great concert halls and opera houses, it is the offerings in the more out-of-the way places that excite me the most. There one still finds great music, often at its national, indigenous best, in theaters, whether ancient or modern, that are as grand and beautiful as any in the world. More importantly, these venues not only preserve the past, they embrace the new, keeping classical music current and vital. That is the world that I invite you to explore with me on my tours.
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