Interludes

2013’s Best in Other Music

• By drediman
• January 10, 2014
• 1 Comment

2013 was another year of stirring musical performances. Many of these memorable experiences have been made possible by a number of excellently curated and organized festivals throughout the year, including Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart and White Light festivals.

(Note: the list below is in alphabetical order)

1. “Swanlight”

In this MOMA-commissioned performance piece, the emotive Antony and the Johnsons were bewitchingly hypnotic to the rapt delight of the packed audience at the Royal Opera House at the performance I attended. Antony’s soaring, sensuous vocals were lushly backed by Britten Sinfonia, which dramatically revealed itself at the climax of the evening. The work also featured sharp modernist designs by Paul Normandale.

2. “The Manganiyar Seduction”

This ecstatic South Asian performance, which marked a return engagement at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, was pure joy. Designed like an Advent calendar with a succession of musicians revealing themselves behind draped “windows”, the performance built to an unstoppable, inevitable wave of musical ecstasy.  For an hour, I believed that all was well in the world.

3. Mariinsky Orchestra

Valery Gergiev led a muscular, commanding performance of three of Stravinsky’s iconic ballet scores for the Ballet Russes:  The Firebird, Petrushka, and the Rite of Spring. The driving, almost-syncopated “Rite” was particularly thrilling, which the Mariinsky played like mad musicians, to heart-stopping effect.

4. “Michaels Reise um die Erde”

The late Karlheinz Stockhausen s otherworldly opera for instruments, “Michaels Reise um die Erde” was spellbinding in performance last year. The soulful musical performances were well-matched by the inventive staging in this adventurous entry into Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.

5. Philadelphia Orchestra

I’ve rarely heard orchestral playing as crisp and alive.  The Orchestra’s charismatic maestro, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conducted colorfully throughout, especially Ravel’s “La Valse”. The whole experience was as vital and gripping a performance, in any format, as I’ve witnessed.