The Top Fifty Performances of 2023

Original image of Yujia Shen at the Diastole Scholars Center by There Stands the Glass.

The accompanying image of Yujia Shen at Diastole Scholars’ Center encapsulates my year. Classical violin (and piano) provided default ambience throughout 2023. By arriving early and through financial outlays, I claimed spots up front at dozens of concerts. The books in the room are also meaningful. My evenings were devoted to reading when I wasn’t attending performances.

1. Hilary Hahn at the Folly Theater
My review.

2. The Smile and Robert Stillman at the Midland Theatre
My review.

3. Kassa Overall and Omari Jazz at Mississippi Studios (Portland)
My Instagram clip.

4. Samara Joy at the Folly Theater
My review.

5. The Metropolitan Opera’s Tannhäuser at Lincoln Center (New York City)
My review.

6. András Schiff at Helzberg Hall
My review.

7. Mike Dillon and Brian Haas at the Brick
My review.

8. Yujia Shen at Diastole Scholars’ Center
My review.

9. Jake Blount at the Folk Alliance International Conference
My review.

10. RP Boo, DJ Alphabeta and Whorxata at the Encore Room
My review.

11. Pretty Yende at the Folly Theater
My review.

12. Adam Larson, Matt Clohesy and Jimmy Macbride at Westport Coffee House
My Instagram clip.

13. Tim Bernardes at Mississippi Studios (Portland)
My review.

14. UMKC Opera’s Proving Up at Spencer Theatre
My review.

15. Bill Frisell, Greg Tardy, Gerald Clayton and Johnathan Blake at the 1900 Building
My review.

16. Boston Camerata’s Dido & Aeneas at Community Christian Church
My Instagram photo.

17. Hermon Mehari Quartet at the Folly Theater
My review.

18. Off!, Upchuck and Weaponize Chomsky at the recordBar
My Instagram clip.

19. Thomas Rosenkranz at White Recital Hall
My review.

20. Juan Diego Flórez at the Folly Theater
My review.

21. Devin Gray, Maria Elena Silva and the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society at Firehouse Gallery 
My review.

22. DJ Lucas, Papo2oo4 and Subjxct 5, Lil Heavn, Paris Williams and N1n4 Freakqncy at Farewell
My review.

23. Thee Sinseers, the Altons and Alanna Royale at Lemonade Park
My review.

24. Willi Carlisle and Betse & Clarke at Knuckleheads
My Instagram snapshot.

25. CRAG Quartet, Joshua Gerowitz and the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society at the Bunker
My review.

26. Artemis at the Gem Theater
My review.

27. Queens of the Stone Age, Viagra Boys and Jehnny Beth at Starlight Theatre
My review.

28. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Listening Forest at Crystal Bridges (Bentonville)
My Instagram clip.

29. Miguel Zenón Quartet at the Folly Theater
My review.

30. Bob Weir at Louisville Palace (Louisville)
My review.

31. Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Michael Hurley at the Aladdin Theater (Portland)
My review.

32. Christian McBride, Benny Green and Gregory Hutchinson at the Village Vanguard (New York City)
My review.

33. Rod Fleeman Trio at Green Lady Lounge
My Instagram clip.

34. Nickel Creek and Gaby Moreno at Muriel Kauffman Theatre
My review.

35. Alien Nosejob, Citric Dummies and CKrit at Howdy
My review.

36. Danielle Nicole and Katy Guillen and the Drive at the Uptown Theater
My Instagram snapshot.

37. Pat Metheny’s SideEye at Muriel Kauffman Theatre
My review.

38. Janet Jackson and Ludacris at the T-Mobile Center
My Instagram snapshot.

39. Big Freedia at Boulevardia
My Instagram clip.

40. Jean-Yves Thibaudet at the Folly Theater
My Instagram snapshot.

41. Parker Quartet at Polsky Theatre
My review.

42. Eugene Friesen and Henrique Eisenmann at the 1900 Building
My review.

43. Chalis O’Neal at the Blue Room
My Instagram clip.

44. Booker T. Jones at the Folly Theater
My Instagram clip.

45. Rob Magill and Marshall Trammell, the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society and Alber at Farewell
My review.

46. The Salvation Choir at Theis Park
My Instagram clip.

47. Hot Chip and Cadence Weapon at Wonder Ballroom (Portland)
My Instagram clip.

48. Randy Porter, Tom Wakeling and Todd Strait at the 1905 (Portland)
My review.

49. John Mellencamp at the Midland Theatre
My Instagram clip.

50 Kentucky Opera’s Cinderella at W.L. Lyons Brown Theatre (Louisville)
My Instagram snapshot.

There Stands the Glass’ top albums and songs of 2023 are listed here.

Last year’s concert rankings are here.

Opera Review: The Metropolitan Opera’s Tannhäuser at Lincoln Center

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

The death and destruction wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic is tragic. I was lucky. Blessed by good health while holed up in Kansas, I gained new appreciation for my expansive suburban home and marvelous life partner.

I took advantage of the free streams offered by the Metropolitan Opera on more than 150 evenings during the days of isolation. I’ve been looking forward to returning to Lincoln Center ever since.

Remembering I was dissatisfied with $25 tickets on a remote balcony at the massive opera house in January of 2019, I elected to splurge on seats to watch Donald Runnicles conduct Richard Wagner’s ​​Tannhäuser on Wednesday, December 6.

The most expensive concert tickets I’ve purchased didn’t allow me to rub shoulders with masters of the universe. Instead, I was surrounded by fellow opera fanatics from the Americas, Europe and Asia who appreciated being close enough to Runnicles to hear the maestro’s strenuous gasps.

As with the National Football League, experiencing the event in person is in many ways inferior to viewing a polished television broadcast. Even so, I relished hearing the unfiltered voices of Ekaterina Gubanova, Elza van den Heever and Andreas Schager for the duration of the four-hour and thirty-minute performance.

Opera Review: The Metropolitan Opera’s “The Hours”

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I correctly assumed the Metropolitan Opera’s world premiere production of "The Hours" would eventually make its way to PBS.  What I didn’t anticipate is how difficult the opera would be to watch.  The unflinching depiction of hopeless despair is unbearably grim.  I repeatedly paused the three-hour broadcast lest I fall into a sympathetic depression.  The three stars- Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming and Kelli O’Hara- portray the suicidal gloom devised by Kevin Puts and librettist Greg Pierce, based on a novel by Michael Cunningham and inspired by the work and life of Virginia Woolf, with upsetting fidelity.  Everything about “The Hours” is outstanding- and that’s why it’s almost unendurable.

Book Review: Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music, by Joseph Horowitz

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I almost dismissed Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music after taking a cursory glance at the index.  How could author Joseph Horowitz properly address the subject without referencing Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis or Wynton Marsalis?  I’m glad I overcame my initial aversion.  

Horowitz, a refreshingly combative scholar of classical music, inhabits an entirely different world from my own.  I learned a great deal from his new study inspired by Antonín Dvořák’s faulty prediction that the music developed by Black Americans would become the basis for the country’s classical music.

But was Dvořák wrong?  I’m inclined to believe that jazz is the true classical music of North America.  Horowitz doesn’t entertain the premise, but he’s not averse to jazz.  He repeatedly mocks traditionalists who feared a “jazz threat.”  Instead, he traces the evolution of European classical music in the new world.  Often straying from his theme, Horowitz’s disparate ramblings are consistently interesting.

A passionate champion of Charles Ives, Horowitz introduced me to the startling Concord Sonata.  For that alone, I’m in his debt.  He also has a curious obsession with the role of critics.  Horowitz clearly relishes dismantling the reputation of the Kansas City native Virgil Thomson.

Depictions of the “racial minefield” related to analyses of “Porgy and Bess” are valuable, as is an assertion that the Metropolitan Opera is responsible for diminishing opera from a popular form of music among Americans into “an aloof, elitist playground for the very rich.”  And I enjoyed learning about the intercine rivalries among American composers.

These themes are amplified in a series of illustrative videos.  A portion of my enthusiasm for Dvořák’s Prophecy is likely due to recency bias.  I just took in the PBS broadcast of “Black Lucy and the Bard,” a compelling ballet by Caroline Randall Williams and the accomplished polymath Rhiannon Giddens.  

Samanthe Ege’s piano recital astounded me four months ago. Horowitz shares Ege’s enthusiasm for the neglected composer Florence Price. And in ten days I’ll attend a concert overseen by Terence Blanchard, the composer of the 2019 opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”. Dvořák’s prophecy might yet be fulfilled.

Album Review: Sault- Air

The infuriating baptism sequence in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is among my favorite scenes in Terence Blanchard’s heart-rending 2019 opera.  I’m haunted by the Metropolitan Opera’s staging broadcast by PBS on April 1.

Neither have I stopped thinking about the Latin vespers presented by the Kansas City choral group Te Deum in a drafty Episcopal church last July.  And just last week I discovered Claude Debussy’s proses lyriques and attended a Joyce DiDonato and Il Pomo d’Oro concert.  

All of which is to say I was unwittingly primed for Sault’s new album Air.  Far removed from the previous output of the anonymous collective, Air is a symphonic choral suite that synthesizes much of my recent listening.

In addition to the music cited above, Air’s expanse nods to Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” the holy minimalism of Arvo Pärt, Brian Wilson’s pop orchestrations and Kanye West’s Sunday Service celebrations. Sing it, my nameless brothers and sisters!

Grunting and Snorting

Photo of pages 221-222 of John Culshaw’s Ring Resounding by There Stands the Glass.

John Culshaw writes about the incidental noise issued by conductor Hans Knappertsbusch in Ring Resounding.  Sure enough, Knappertsbusch’s “grunts and snorts” are clearly audible at the opening of a 1951 recording of Parsifal.

Studying the book is part of an ongoing investigation of Wagner corresponding with my burgeoning interest in classical music.  Culshaw’s detailed account of the first complete recording of Der Ring des Nibelungen is filled with delectable gossip and substantive musings.

Discovering that the disruptive ambient noise accompanying many of the classical concerts I’ve attended isn’t an aberration came as a shock.  Ill-timed coughs and the creaking of seats are also part and parcel of live recordings.  The non-musical sounds created by artists further altered my connection with the so-called fine art.

For instance, a pivotal moment of Deutsche Grammophon’s otherwise wonderful new recording of Krystian Zimerman’s Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos is marred when members of the London Symphony Orchestra clamorously adjust their sheet music.  And the breathing of pianist Behzod Abduraimov is clearly audible on one of my favorite albums of 2021.

When I put on headphones and queue up Beethoven, Debussy or Wagner, I’m no longer surprised when the ostensibly pristine and often ethereal sounds are accompanied by grunts, snorts, murmurs and heavy breathing.  The humanizing revelation is one more indication classical music and opera aren’t nearly as arrogantly inhospitable and formidably precious as they initially appear.

The art of opera has nothing to do with obscene galas. Culshaw hoped his landmark recordings would make the form more equitable: “The sickness of opera has been, and is, that it is a very expensive and exclusive closed shop… Richard Wagner abhorred this attitude a hundred years ago, and we are only now beginning to make the slightest progress towards a change.”