Critic’s Choice 2024-25
Terry Riley: The Holy Liftoff. Claire Chase and Juilliard musicians. September 19.
Since 2013, flutist Claire Chase has used her MacArthur “genius” grant to commission new flute music through her Density 2036 project. The results have been not just a substantial body of work, but the single finest collection of contemporary compositions so far in the 21st century. As part of the Juilliard Fall Festival, Chase and an ensemble of Juilliard student performers will play one of the most recent additions, The Holy Liftoff. an evening-length work by Terry Riley, one of the pre-eminent American composers of the post-WWII period. juilliard.edu (GG)
Jeanine Tesori: Grounded. Metropolitan Opera. September 23-October 19.
Opera as first-person-shooter video game? To opera’s long list of heroines under pressure, now add Jess, the former F-16 fighter pilot relegated to operating lethal drones in Afghanistan from a trailer in Nevada. In the Met’s season opener, mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo leads a production bristling with 21st-century technology and moral dilemmas, with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by George Brant. metopera.org (DW)
Meredith Monk: Indra’s Net. September 23-October 6.
Meredith Monk will direct this performance, which features the composer and her eponymous vocal ensemble (along with a chamber orchestra and additional chorus) in the North American premiere of her latest large-scale work. A fully staged production in the Park Avenue Armory’s drill hall that is both performance and media installation, Indra’s Net is based on an ancient Buddhist/Hindu legend of an enlightened king who stretches a net across the universe. armoryonpark.org (GG)
Momenta Festival: Ives at 150. October 18-24
With each member of this leading string quartet programming each night of concerts, the Momenta Festival is an annual dependable pleasure. This year there’s a special focus on Charles Ives, for his 150th birthday, with each concert featuring Ives in the context of his forbears, peers and legacy. Celebrate the birthday itself October 20, with String Quartet No. 2 and music from Telemann, Enescu, and Eun Young Lee (with guest bassoonist Adrian Morejon). The October 24 concert expands to a chamber orchestra and has a world premiere from Stephanie Griffin. momentaquartet.com (GG)
Czech music. Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble. November 18.
Amid the multiple anniversaries this season, there is also the 2024 Year of Czech Music celebrations. While the Czech Philharmonic and conductor Semyon Bychkov will be playing Carnegie Hall, the most intriguing set looks to be upstairs in Weill, where the Met musicians not only play Jańaček’s String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata” and Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings, but Martinů’s colorful, suave Nonet. carnegiehall.org (GG)
“Charles Ives’ America.” The Orchestra Now & Leon Botstein with baritone William Sharp. Carnegie Hall. Nov. 21.
The sesquicentennial of Charles Ives’ birth will not slip by unnoticed, thanks to some recording projects and this concert by Bard College’s fine grad-student orchestra. Performances of “The Fourth of July” from the Holidays Symphony, Central Park in the Dark, Orchestral Set No. 2, Symphony No. 2, and songs quoted in Ives’ music are preceded by a don’t-miss-it discussion of Ives’s place in American life. ton.bard.edu. (DW)
Verdi: Aida. Metropolitan Opera. December 31, 2024-May 9, 2025.
Soprano Angel Blue makes her Met role debut as the Ethiopian princess in Michael Mayer’s new production of Verdi’s Aida, which will feature intricate projections and dazzling animations to recreate Ancient Egypt. Mayer has a heavy lift, as he will be competing with memories of Sonja Frisell’s lavish staging, which was an audience favorite for 35 years. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts with a cast that includes Piotr Beczała as Radames and Judit Kutasi as Amneris. metopera.org (RP)
Messiaen, Dessner and Vaughan Williams. Parlando/Ian Niederhoffer. February 23, 2025
It is rare enough to hear an ondes Martenot, let alone in the intimate setting provided by a Parlando concert. It is par for the course for Ian Niederhoffer, who is known for his imaginative programming and zest for involving his audiences in the concert experience. In a program entitled “Mystic Chords,” the instrument will be heard in Olivier Messiaen’s Trois petites ligurgies de la présence divine performed in the original 1944 version. The program also includes Bryce Dessner’s Aheym and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. parlandonyc.com (RP)
“Palestine Before 1800.” Sabîl with Vincent Ségal, cello. Music Before 1800. March 2.
For its 50th anniversary season, the second under innovative artistic director Bill Barclay, this venerable music series (or should it be venerable-music series?) continues to spread its cultural wings with world-music offerings, including the oud-and-percussion duo Sabîl and cellist Ségal performing traditional Arabic songs and dances. mb1800.org. (DW)
Jake Heggie: Moby-Dick. Metropolitan Opera. March 3-29, 2025.
This is a good season for American opera at the Met, with not one but two new productions. While John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra will likely be more prominent, this staging of Jake Heggie’s 2010 opera promises the ambition and the depths that can come from transforming one of the greatest works in American literature to the music stage. The all-star cast features tenor Brandon Jovanovich as Ahab, tenor Stephen Costello as Greenhorn (the opera’s Ishmael stand-in), baritone Peter Mattei as Starbuck, and soprano Janai Brugger as Pip. metopera.org (GG)
“SurRound II”: music of Allegri, Tavener, Hailstork et al. Musica Sacra. April 1.
Aiming to repeat a success from last season, Musica Sacra returns to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with a new program that both exploits and overcomes that venue’s notoriously reverberant acoustic. Singers move around and through the seated audience in what one reviewer called a “never ending panoply of tone and color,” in the process casting aural spotlights on musical details. The wide historical range and high caliber of works offer music by Gregorio Allegri, John Tavener, Adolphus Hailstork, Sarah McDonald, William Dawson, Perotin, Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, Heinrich Schütz and Morton Lauridsen. musicasacrany.com (DW)
Bach: St. Mark Passion. The Sebastians & Chatham Baroque. Music Before 1800. April 13
Music Before 1800, the longest-running early music concert series in New York City, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this season. A highlight of the series will be the New York premiere of Malcolm Bruno’s reconstruction of Bach’s lost St. Mark’s Passion performed by The Sebastians and Chatham Baroque, two of America’s premiere early music ensembles. Actor Joseph Marcell will appear as the Evangelist. mb1800.org (RP)
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