Good ‘n’ Greasy at Motorco Music Hall with The Bad Plus
Duke Performances banners adorn the Motorco stage. Duke Performances just keeps on bringing it. Amazing music all the time–and now, everywhere you turn. After a “normal” season opener in Nelson Music...
View ArticleSeamless Join: JazzGrass with Bela Fleck and The Marcus Roberts Trio
Bela Fleck, photo courtesy Duke Performances. Duke Performances brought a jazz concert to a right-sized community venue again on November 8, when the Carolina Theatre hosted the fabulous quartet of...
View ArticleBelcea Quartet Plays Late Beethoven at Duke
After the exciting, edge-blurring jazzgrass music of the Bela Fleck/Marcus Roberts Trio quartet, heard earlier in the week, the strictly classical Belcea Quartet initially seemed…a little staid. Fresh...
View ArticlePassion at the Piano: Joyce Yang at Duke Performances
Joyce Yang. Her playing is equally showy. Photo: Larry Ford. These sections taken from my review published 1/21/13 in the online journal CVNC. Duke Performances began the spring half of its recital...
View ArticleAngela Hewitt: The Pleasure of Her Company
Angela Hewitt. Photo: Bernd Eberle. The superb pianist Angela Hewitt was scheduled to arrive in Durham a day ahead of her Feb. 17 recital, but weather delays kept her in Toronto until just five hours...
View ArticlePower Violin: Leila Josefowicz at Duke Performances
Leila Josefewicz I went for the John Adams, but came away with a new appreciation for Robert Schumann. In a variation on its piano recital format, Duke Performances presented the powerful violinist...
View ArticleFaith, Fate, Fado: Queenly Ana Moura in Durham
I fell for fado when I visited Portugal nearly 14 years ago. I went after the Lisboa Olympics, and before Portugal went on the euro and was still very affordable–and before fado had become a world...
View ArticleAngels of NIGHT: Tift and Simone at the First Presbyterian
Tift Merritt. Photo: Duke Performances Tift Merritt, rocking Americana singer-songwriter from Raleigh, and Simone Dinnerstein, spell-weaving classical pianist, had met briefly during a Gramophone...
View ArticlePeople Get Ready, There’s a Train a-Comin’
Almost ready to roll. Looking up into the dome of Baldwin Auditorium. “People Get Ready” opens the great Curtis Mayfield song released in 1965, but I always hear it in my mind as sung by North Carolina...
View ArticleVariations on the Piano
Andras Schiff. Photo: Nadia F. Romanini. I heard two solo piano recitals this week–two very different musicians, in quite different halls, but both playing Steinway concert grands. In Chapel Hill,...
View ArticleMEASURE BACK: There is no time before war, and no future without it
T. Ryder Smith in MEASURE BACK. Photo courtesy Duke Performances. I’m old. It’s definite now. I don’t have to ask the mirror anymore. I was chosen as someone who looks old–though not rich, Jewish, or...
View ArticleKirill Gerstein Piano Recital
The Duke Performances piano recital series continued in Baldwin Auditorium Nov. 9, with Kirill Gerstein playing a well-considered program that began delightfully and progressed toward the sublime....
View ArticleInto the mystic with Persian masters Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Bahrami Fard
Duke Performances presents a mind-boggling range of music, from soloists to huge ensembles, in many venues at Duke and in Durham, and regular theater-goers here have become accustomed to glorious...
View Article2 Recent Reviews
Links to two recent reviews published on CVNC.org. Click through to read. The splendor of Nrityagram was a bit dim on Jan. 22 at Duke Performances. Lots to Long for in Nrityagram’s “Songs of Love and...
View ArticleEcstatic Rhythms
Greatness in the house: Rhythm artists Savion Glover, left, and Jack DeJohnette. Photo courtesy DP. Tapper Savion Glover and drummer Jack DeJohnette will return, with their colleagues, to Page...
View Article