Mark Kanny stories

Editor’s note: This event has been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Most productions by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre are full-length shows with a story told by one choreographer and one composer. Ideally, the experience has a coherence, whatever internal variety there is, that spans the whole evening. But the company...

Editor’s Note: The “Irish Rhapsody” concert has been postponed due to coronoavirus concerns. The calendar helped provide focus for the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra’s next concert. Spring temperatures happily arrived at the start of March, while the concert will take place a few days before St. Patrick’s Day. Daniel Meyer will...

Editor’s note: Maestro Jakub Hrusa has withdrawn as conductor of this weekend’s concerts with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in order to return to his family in the Czech Republic, as a result of that government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Daniel Meyer will conduct this weekend’s concerts, which will continue...

There’s nothing like virtuosity for excitement, but artistry calls for more. Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, for example, has been praised for her “ability to let the music breathe.” She is able to achieve the feeling of spontaneity in the emotional world she’s conjuring when she plays great music. Avdeeva is...

It takes time and repetition for a success to become a tradition. The Pittsburgh Symphony’s “Lift Every Voice” concert made its debut three years ago as a collaboration with Hill District neighbors to celebrate the legacy and vibrancy of the local community. It has evolved, says symphony president Melia Tourangeau,...

Touring solo artists come to Western Pennsylvania almost every week of the concert season. Touring orchestras, by contrast, are a real rarity. Yes, Gustav Mahler and the New York Philharmonic played in Pittsburgh before World War I, and Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic came here more than 30 years...

Debuts and premieres are two key ingredients in keeping concert life fresh. The next set of Pittsburgh Symphony concerts includes one of each: the overdue debut of Latvian violinist Baiba Skride performing one of the most popular concertos for her instrument, and the first local performance of one of Sergei...

Artists observe the same reality as the rest of us, they just see it differently. In January 2016 a group of anti-federal government extremists led by Ammon Bundy seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, provoking a standoff with authorities that lasted until Feb. 11, 2016. It was...

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s 51st season will feature five productions running from October through May 2021. The season is anchored, as always, by “The Nutcracker” for the Christmas season — in more than three weeks of performances. The company also will present a version of “Cinderella” it hasn’t danced before, the...

Audiences love virtuosity because the flair which exceptional skill permits is exciting. It’s one of the reasons concertos for solo instruments are so popular. But the orchestra itself can be the virtuoso when great orchestration is achieved by a composer with something to say. The next set of Pittsburgh Symphony...

Good concert programming naturally seeks diversity and contrast, but better programming also seeks common threads between pieces. Westmoreland Symphony music director Daniel Meyer says the orchestra’s next program will look at how great composers play with the idea of classicism in music. Meyer will conduct the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra in...

Valentine’s Day is a perfect time to celebrate the transformative power of love. “Beauty and the Beast” is an old French fairy tale which was turned into a magnificent ballet in 1958 by Lew Christensen and the San Francisco Ballet. “The old moral reads that beauty is only skin deep....

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has gone all-out in planning its 125th anniversary season in 2020-21. The 20 weekends of Mellon Grand Classics concerts will feature many world premieres and 10 artist debuts, complementing exploration of the standard repertoire, and many returning popular guest soloists. Among these is cellist Yo-Yo Ma,...

People who think of opera as staid haven’t been paying attention to Pittsburgh Opera. The company’s just-announced 2020-21 season will continue its adventurous programming, anchored with audience favorites but also presenting new experiences in traditional opera and pieces with contemporary dramatic themes and musical styles. Next season will feature Giuseppe...

No one in high school ever said John Milton rocks. Leave it to Stewart Copeland, still best known as the founder and drummer of The Police, to bring that kind of energy to “Paradise Lost.” Copeland defied F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comment about no second acts in American life by adding...

The glitter of Broadway lights seem fitting when the show’s a hit, and sadly garish when it’s not. But the biggest hits have more than pizzazz and touch our hearts. “These are the type of tunes that bring back memories from our childhood or a special event in our lives,”...

Two stellar ensembles will team up for a distinctive program spanning nearly half a millennium of composition at the next Chamber Music Pittsburgh concert. In addition, one of the pieces on the program shares the theme of “music and healing” presented on this series by the Brooklyn Rider string quartet...

Performances can transform musical anniversaries from historical facts to the vibrant experiences that reminds us why the occasion is worth celebrating. The Pittsburgh Symphony’s tributes to Ludwig van Beethoven on the 250th anniversary of his birth will reach a predictable high point this weekend when it performs his only opera,...

Love triangles spark many a drama, but Pittsburgh Opera’s next production features what its stage director calls a “love pentagram.” The intricacies of the relationships seem fitting for the ornate style of the Baroque era in which composer George Frideric Handel thrived. Pittsburgh Opera will present four fully staged performances...

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will go all out when it returns from winter break with a program that emphasizes its own virtuosity as well as its guest soloist. Music director Manfred Honeck will lead the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Jan. 17-19 concerts at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall. The program is Bela...

The fire nine months ago at Notre Dame in Paris shocked the world because of the cathedral’s beauty, iconic status and antiquity. Construction began in 1161 and wasn’t completed until more than a century later. It is an expression of a time about which we know far less than we...

Jazz trumpeter Byron Stripling is the new principal Pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. His first concerts in his new post will be in October 2020. Next season he’ll conduct three of the pops’ seven weekends of concerts. The PNC Pops season will be announced in February. “I want...

Music and dance shift back into high gear after the mid-winter break, with many alluring and important performances coming up. The Pittsburgh Symphony, for example, will present 15 weekends of classical music from January to June. Among the many highlights are two full-evening masterpieces by Ludwig van Beethoven – “Fidelio”...