Elizabeth Chang Earlier this month, UMass professor of violin Elizabeth Chang released her new CD, “ Transformations ,” on Albany Records. The release features works by Leon Kirchner; Roger Sessions; and Arnold Schoenberg; and is rooted in the cross-generational connections between Chang and these composers. The CD was produced, engineered and mastered by Adam Abeshouse, a past GRAMMY-winner of Classical Producer of the Year, with David Schneider, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music at Amherst College, providing the liner notes. While at Harvard, Chang studied under Kirchner, who in turn studied with both Sessions and Schoenberg, two of the most influential composers of the twentieth century. According to Chang, “Both Sessions and Schoenberg were pioneers in seeking a new compositional language in the post-tonal world while being deeply rooted in the Germanic tradition.” She describes Kirchner as having had a “profound artistic and pe
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Fully Committed - The New York Times called Fully Committed immensely entertaining, a richly comic affirmation of everything I ve ever heard, or suspected, about the bad behavior that good food can inspire. Featuring one actor playing more than 40 characters, Fully Committed takes place in a famed restaurant where patrons will stop at nothing to secure a reservation- including coercion and bribes. Television and film star Maulik Pancholy plays Sam, who works the reservation line. Pancholy played Jonathan, Alec Baldwin s assistant, in the Emmy-award winning 30 Rock, and Sanjay in the hit series Weeds. Other roles include the upcoming Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, The Good Fight, The Good Wife, Phineas and Ferb, and Web Therapy. click here
Yo-Yo Ma visited Paranal Observatory in northern Chile in 2019 to perform a concert.Austin Mann
On March 8, 2020, Yo-Yo Ma was at Carnegie Hall giving a chamber music performance with two old friends, the pianist Emanuel Ax and the violinist Leonidas Kavakos. All three soloists travel constantly, and they were thrilled to be reunited. Hugs flew freely that day; neither Ma nor Kavakos had quite gotten their minds around the public health emergency about to descend. They noticed Ax, who had recently been to Italy â then ground zero of the pandemic â was being curiously generous with his applications of Purell.
After the concert, a scientist friend âread us the riot actâ about taking coronavirus seriously, Ma says. Despite being the most famous classical musician on the planet, he frequently takes Amtrak between New York and Boston, en route to his Cambridge home. Yet the day after the concert, he and his wife traveled home by car.