Brahms may not have been the most enterprising of composers. The first of his four symphonies was 20 years in the making, a gestation period culminating in an initial performance in 1876 when the composer was 44 years

 Anyone who cares about theater or opera needs to see the Skylight production of The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess (through June 9). I was skeptical beforehand, since this grand scale opera with a large orchestra, cast and chorus

 Frank Almond, one of Milwaukee’s most admired musicians, performed in an unusual role at the Frankly Music season finale last week. Rather than playing violin, he was conductor for a chamber orchestra concert

 In most versions of Swan Lake, the white swan pas de deux represents the first meeting of Prince Siegfried and the swan queen Odette. He's obliged by virtue of his birth to marry and carry on the line, but no available

 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) composed one of the great masterpieces of sacred choral music, the “German Requiem,” by astutely, even assiduously, avoiding standard requiem texts and references. Its emotional power was drawn from the deaths of Brahms’ mother as well as his

 The Florentine Opera’s season finale, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, was an unqualified delight. Not only was it a tribute to this gentlest of the great composers, but a reminder that the tendency to “reinvent” operatic

 In rehearsal for Milwaukee Ballet's Swan Lake, Luz San Miguel dances the delicate curved arabesques of the White Swan with more than grace and perfect technique; she seems endlessly apologetic. The mournful girl knows that

 The young Italian-German violinist Augustin Hadelich is the rare artist who can make Mozart sizzle. Many musicians find the refined style of Mozart by containing expression. Hadelich seemed released by it. At Milwaukee

 While the lives of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) were not closely intertwined, they did intersect in more than just a casual manner. Of immediate interest is the upcoming

 Sadly, Façade: An Entertainment, a collaborative production of Danceworks Performance Company, Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra and Milwaukee Opera Theatre, was ruined for me by the unworkable acoustics of the

 In Mozart Requiem, the first of three wildly contrasting works presented by Milwaukee Ballet in its immensely enjoyable “Spring Series” last weekend, Amy Seiwert's choreography mirrors the structure of Mozart's work for

 With Mozart, Sammy Davis, Jr. and DJ Wax Tailor as musical inspirations, the three contemporary works in Milwaukee Ballet's Spring Series could hardly be more different. Once again, Artistic Director Michael Pink has

 Avant garde ain’t what it used to be. Forty-five years ago it was still possible to shock and outrage a concert audience. Could that ever happen today? Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Luciano Berio’s wildy

"This next one is by country legend Robert Schumann," joked the opera singer Andrew Wilkowske as he introduced his arrangement of the Romantic German composer's “Ich grolle nicht.” In the translation by Kelley

 Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia for eight voices and orchestra

 The Florentine Opera’s production of Benjamin Britten’s comic masterpiece, Albert Herring, was a bounty of energized musical riches. The audience was won over from the first moment by Britten’s incomparable gift for

 Imperial Russia is often painted in the grim hues of Siberian exile and political repression, yet a glittering culture coalesced there during the 19th and early 20th centuries—one that continues to influence the arts and imagination

 Rachmaninoff’s music always feels emotionally restless. Whether melancholy or agitated, it inevitably longs for some undefined otherness. Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra played an all Rachmaninoff concert last Friday

 On Saturday Present Music explored yet another unprecedented venue in the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center in Bayside. A previous performance took place at a private East Side home, and the same program is planned for

 Very few people are equally adept at conducting and playing an instrument at the highest level of professional performance. Guest conductor/pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn proved his profound dual abilities last Saturday night with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

 No pointe shoes appeared on the Pabst Theatre stage during “Genesis,” the Milwaukee Ballet’s international competition for emerging ballet choreographers. The dances in the program were thoroughly contemporary in

The “Edo factor” was in full gear at the All-Beethoven Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday evening. With music director Edo de Waart as conductor, the MSO is a disciplined, efficient entity. There were no guest artists in this meat-and-potatoes orchestral program