Mike Block News
American cellist, arranger, composer, and software designer
- fiddle, cello
- classical music
- United States of America
- cellist, fiddler, jazz musician, composer
Last update
2024-04-26
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2024-04-11 15:21:25
Her intimate compositions take existing melodies that she refracts, rethinks and expands into compelling new pieces. Ahead of the premiere of a new work for guitarist Sean Shibe, Cassandra Millers talks about process, pleasures and sleep chanting“I steal people’s souls”, says Cassandra Miller. The 47-year old Canadian composer sits in her light-filled living room at the top of a London Block of flats, looking tranquil and as unlike a master of the dark arts as it is possible to imagine.Miller’s intimate and engaging compositions take as their starting point existing melodies, which she variously deconstructs, loops, magnifies and utterly transforms. The act of transcription is an inherently creative process in her hands, and the physicality of a performance – ornaments, notes, pauses, breaths and even sighs – is a vital part of what she transcribes.
2024-03-07 09:28:01
Britten’s atmospheric, strange and beautiful opera, the last he wrote, comes to life in this new production from Welsh National Opera in a collaboration with No Fit State CircusDeath in Venice is Benjamin Britten’s final opera, written when he was ill with the heart condition that would kill him three years after its premiere at Snape Maltings in 1973. “It’s a deeply personal and intimate piece. Britten wasn’t a well man at the time of its composition, and he didn’t know how much music he had left in him. The epilogue, the last 20 bars, is the most serene and profound music he ever wrote. It’s Britten’s requiem for not only himself, but for his life partner, Peter Pears,” says Leo Hussain, conducting this production for Welsh National Opera – the first time the company have staged the work.Mark Le Brocq sings Aschenbach, the role Britten wrote for Pears. The […]
2024-02-07 00:24:00
Raehann Bryce-Davis in Recital
Raehann Bryce-Davis | Credit: Isamar Chabot Mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis gave a spectacular recital about ten days ago at Herbst. My review is on the formal side and missed out in one area: I'd actually wanted to mention what she and pianistJeanne-Minette Cilliers were wearing after the intermission, because Bryce-Davis's fiancé Allen Virgo designed both outfits and they were spectacular. But, I also didn't manage to grab a curtain call photo. The only disappointing thing about the recital was the turnout; the audience was tiny. This might have been because of Michael Tilson Thomas's valedictory Mahler 5 down the Block, but I know there are plenty of opera folks who didn't turn out for this wonderful recital.Lisa Hirsch, SFCVPatrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills
2024-01-11 10:54:00
Jenůfa, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 7 January 2024
Grandmother Buryja – Hanna Schwarz Kostelnička Buryja – Rosie Aldridge Jenůfa – Vida Miknevičiūtė Laca Klemeń – Stephan Rügamer Števa Buryja – Pavol Breslik Foreman – Grigory Shkarupa Jano – Victoria Randem Barena – Adriane Queiroz Mayor – David Oštrek Mayor’s Wife – Natalia Sckrycka Karolka – Maria Kokareva Herdswoman – Ekaterina Chayka-Rubinstein Auntie – Rebecka Wallroth Voices – Olga Vilenskaia, Ben BloomfieldDirector – Damiano MichielettoRevival director – Marcin ŁakomickiSet designs – Paolo FantinCostumes – Carlo TetiLighting – Alessandro CarlettiChoreography – Thomas Wilhelm Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus director: Dani Juris)Staatskapelle BerlinAxel Kober (conductor)Images: Bernd Uhlig (from 2021 premiere, with different cast)Damiano Michieletto’s 2021 production of Jenůfa, now receiving its first revival, offers a relatively straightforward retelling of the story without prettifying or sentimentalising. Paolo Fantin’s set designs are stark: semi-transparent, enabling one to see, as in a small rural community, most of what is going on, whilst still maintaining some degree of […]
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