Bachtrack

Bachtrack The world’s largest site for classical music, opera and dance lovers: events, articles & reviews

Bachtrack was founded in January 2008 and is the world's largest site for live and streamed classical music, opera and dance. We list over 30,000 events each year and publish around 130 reviews every month from our team of 150 reviewers based all around the world. We also interview leading singers, instrumentalists, stars of the future and important figures from behind the scenes, and preview fest

ivals, competitions and new seasons. Our site is published in English, French, German and Spanish, and we employ specialist editors in these languages. Over 300,000 people a month use our website from all corners of the globe. Our listings database is uniquely well structured, allowing users to search for events by place, performer, composer or work. We work with many of the world’s top venues and organisations to maintain this service, and to make sure our listings are as comprehensive as they can be.

We dive deep into the otherworldly music of Guillaume de Machaut with Debra Nagy, director of US period-ensemble Les Dél...
01/11/2024

We dive deep into the otherworldly music of Guillaume de Machaut with Debra Nagy, director of US period-ensemble Les Délices, ahead of their upcoming season of concerts streaming online...

The US Early Music ensemble Les Délices are embarking on a new season of concerts streaming online. Director Debra Nagy talks about the season, and her particular fascination with the music of Guillaume de Machaut.

The dark edges have been rubbed off Halloween 🎃 over the last couple of decades; which is now more of a wholesome event ...
31/10/2024

The dark edges have been rubbed off Halloween 🎃 over the last couple of decades; which is now more of a wholesome event for children to dress up and gorge on sweets.

So, let's take it back to basics. Here's something for the adults: a selection of music that captures the spirit of the... well, spirits. From Chinese concubines buried alive to ritual death dances, we celebrate the more unusual music that depicts the moment in the year when the dead come alive and are with us.

A musical exploration of the roots of Halloween (and associated festivals La Toussaint and El Día de los Mu***os) – when the dead come alive and walk among us.

Happy birthday to the conductor Alondra de la Parra.Alondra recently took up the position of Music Director at Fundación...
31/10/2024

Happy birthday to the conductor Alondra de la Parra.

Alondra recently took up the position of Music Director at Fundación Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid (ORCAM), succeeding Marzena Diakun. We *think* this may be the first orchestra to appoint consecutive female Music Directors (feel free to correct us in the comments!) which, although still quite hard to believe in 2024, is worth noting and celebrating.

Regardless, many happy returns of the day to Alondra 🎉

📸 Leo Manzo

Happy birthday to Leonidas Kavakos! Did you know LEONIDAS KAVAKOS is an anagram of AVOID KEN'S KOALAS. We aren't sure wh...
30/10/2024

Happy birthday to Leonidas Kavakos!

Did you know LEONIDAS KAVAKOS is an anagram of AVOID KEN'S KOALAS. We aren't sure who Ken is, or why his Koalas deserve a wide berth, but the instruction is noted. 😆🐨

📸 Marco Borggreve

Symphony Friends.
29/10/2024

Symphony Friends.

Happy birthday to the singer and actress Dame Cleo Laine, 97 today!Principally known for her jazz and big band singing -...
28/10/2024

Happy birthday to the singer and actress Dame Cleo Laine, 97 today!

Principally known for her jazz and big band singing - notably with her husband John Dankworth's groups - Dame Cleo has actually had a wide-ranging career, from Schoenberg to Kurt Weill, musicals to Frank Sinatra. You know a musician has achieved the dizzy heights of fame when they appear on The Muppets! In her later years, she and John founded The Stables at their home in Buckinghamshire, a venue for live events and music education provision for the local community.

Many happy returns of the day, Dame Cleo.

📸 Cleo Laine in 1997 © John Mathew Smith (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Herbert von Karajan did much to define the sound of classical music in the 20th century. Deutsche Grammophon’s STAGE+  h...
25/10/2024

Herbert von Karajan did much to define the sound of classical music in the 20th century. Deutsche Grammophon’s STAGE+ have assembled a comprehensive archive of recordings and filmed performances of this charismatic – and controversial – musician...

Deutsche Grammophon’s STAGE+ has assembled a comprehensive archive of Karajan’s recordings, concert films and opera performances – which did much to define the sound of classical music in the 20th century.

Happy birthday Midori. Many happy returns of the day!
25/10/2024

Happy birthday Midori. Many happy returns of the day!

It's World Opera Day! On 25th October, we celebrate the magnificent, weird, wonderful, deep, frivolous, outlandish, rese...
25/10/2024

It's World Opera Day!

On 25th October, we celebrate the magnificent, weird, wonderful, deep, frivolous, outlandish, reserved, exuberant, terrifying, captivating and downright bananas art form that is opera.

From the tiniest of chamber operas to the 5-hour Wagner epics, there is nothing else to match the sheer impact an opera can have.

There are no subjects too gritty; no stories too frivolous that an opera cannot tell.

At Bachtrack, opera is our jam. Our founder, David, has loved opera for as long as he can remember. The original purpose of Bachtrack was to help connect people to the amazingness of opera (and classical music and dance).

Over the years, we have expanded from live event listings to reviews, articles and streamed event listings. We support young singers and competitions. We live opera, and we enjoy bringing it to you.

Here's our opera coverage in numbers:

🎟 We currently have 1285 listings of live opera events all around the world

✒️ Our writers have reviewed 33 opera productions since the beginning of October

📺 There are currently 116 streamed opera productions to watch, courtesy of our partners

📖 There are untold numbers of articles about opera to read on our site, from playlists to interviews with singers and directors, opinion pieces to historical explorations, appreciations of opera house architecture to opera festival travel tips

So here's to opera - and in particular to Georges Bizet and Johann Strauss II, whose birthdays on this day were the inspiration to designate it World Opera Day. Cheers! 🥂

📸 Our opera production pick of the week: Scottish Opera's production of Britten's Albert Herring, reviewed by our writer David Smythe on Tuesday, has one more performance left in Edinburgh on 13th November. Photo © Mihaela Bodlovic

Happy 93rd birthday to composer Sofia Gubaidulina.
24/10/2024

Happy 93rd birthday to composer Sofia Gubaidulina.

The prestigious Tokyo International Conducting Competition returned this year, gathering 18 talented young conductors, p...
24/10/2024

The prestigious Tokyo International Conducting Competition returned this year, gathering 18 talented young conductors, performing with the Tokyo Philharmonic and the New Japan Philharmonic...

Kornilios Viktor Michailidis is awarded 1st prize in this year’s competition, which gathered 18 talented young conductors from around the world in the Japanese capital.

Happy birthday to pianist Kirill Gerstein, many happy returns of the day 🎂.In 2023 Kirill was the no.1 busiest pianist i...
23/10/2024

Happy birthday to pianist Kirill Gerstein, many happy returns of the day 🎂.

In 2023 Kirill was the no.1 busiest pianist in our listings. Will he come top in 2024? You can find all of his appearances in the final two months of the year on Bachtrack 🔗👇.

From rural Ansfelden where he grew up (nicknamed “Tonerl”), to the vast grandness of the Monastery of Sankt Florian, to ...
23/10/2024

From rural Ansfelden where he grew up (nicknamed “Tonerl”), to the vast grandness of the Monastery of Sankt Florian, to the decorated urbanity of Vienna – we travel through the vicissitudes of Anton Bruckner’s Austria...

Anton Bruckner, nicknamed “Tonerl”, spent his childhood in rural Ansfelden, Upper Austria. Tracking his life from there to Sankt Florian and Vienna, Bruckner would leave a lasting impression on musicians and listeners alike.

Happy birthday to two great orchestras beginning with B!Boston Symphony Orchestra (1881)BBC Symphony Orchestra (1930)
22/10/2024

Happy birthday to two great orchestras beginning with B!
Boston Symphony Orchestra (1881)
BBC Symphony Orchestra (1930)

Composer and conductor Nicholas Michael Smith has been based in China for thirty years. He talks to us about working in ...
21/10/2024

Composer and conductor Nicholas Michael Smith has been based in China for thirty years. He talks to us about working in such a diverse musical environment, and his new opera for young people, The Stone God, presented in London’s Bloomsbury Theatre in November.

The British composer and conductor talks about his 30-year career in China, and his latest stage work created in collaboration with children’s writer Hong Ying.

Happy birthday to the composer, conductor, author and artist Lera Auerbach 🎁.Lots of opportunities to hear her work this...
21/10/2024

Happy birthday to the composer, conductor, author and artist Lera Auerbach 🎁.

Lots of opportunities to hear her work this season, including a new work premiered by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck next summer 🔗 👇.

📸 Raniero Tazzi

The composer Charles Ives was born 150 years ago today (20th October 1874). He is remembered now as one of the leading f...
20/10/2024

The composer Charles Ives was born 150 years ago today (20th October 1874).

He is remembered now as one of the leading figures in American 20th-century music, although at the time, he was more celebrated in his career as an insurance man. Many of his business peers were surprised to learn that he was also a composer. In his youth, he was also a talented sportsman, playing on the varsity American football team at Yale.

We've put together a few more stories about multi-talented composers, from poets to chefs to chemists. 📖👇

From the anthology of classical music greats there springs a surprising number of multi-faceted composers. We already know all about their musical achievements, but from Rossini to Wagner, many hide also talents as science geniuses, celebrated chefs, sporting prodigies, accomplished artists and even...

Many happy returns of the day to Wynton Marsalis. 🎺
18/10/2024

Many happy returns of the day to Wynton Marsalis. 🎺

One of the most innovative and audacious Baroque composers, Jan Dismas Zelenka was a Czech contemporary of JS Bach. Václ...
18/10/2024

One of the most innovative and audacious Baroque composers, Jan Dismas Zelenka was a Czech contemporary of JS Bach. Václav Luks, director of Collegium 1704, talks about this composer closest to his heart – and music which still has the capacity to shock today.

The director of Collegium 1704 talks about Zelenka, the greatest Czech Baroque composer, and his uniquely bold and distinctive approach composition – which still has the capacity to shock and overwhelm today.

The second in our occasional series called The View From Our Seats comes to you courtesy of our German Editor, Elisabeth...
18/10/2024

The second in our occasional series called The View From Our Seats comes to you courtesy of our German Editor, Elisabeth.

Our resident Wienerin was at Wiener Staatsoper on 2nd October to see Barrie Kosky's production of Le nozze di Figaro - for pleasure, not for reviewing - sitting in Parkett Right, Row 1, Seat 0. It's so close to the stage! What is the experience like? Elisabeth takes up the story:

"As a (still) young member, I quite often sit in the Parterre at the Wiener Staatsoper as I get any remaining ticket for only 20€ the day before the performance, but this particular seat was my mum's treat who occasionally joins me on my opera adventures.

You can't beat the view, but the sound is a bit uneven – make sure to choose the correct side depending on your favourite instruments! And if your opera orchestra is the Vienna Philharmonic, who needs to hear the singers all the time anyway? 😉

Be prepared to be charmingly distracted by musicians leaving the pit whenever they have a pause longer than 10 bars – I'm looking at you, brass and timpani! – or by notes in the scores. Why is there a giant heart drawn on the last page of the second clarinet's score?"

Fryderyk - or Frédéric - Chopin ("A genius!" declared Robert Schumann) died on this day in 1849, 175 years ago. He was j...
17/10/2024

Fryderyk - or Frédéric - Chopin ("A genius!" declared Robert Schumann) died on this day in 1849, 175 years ago. He was just 39.

Pianist Jan Lisiecki wrote for us this wonderful and insightful piece on how Chopin made the piano sing. "The way he uses the colour palette of this instrument and the way his music lies in the hands; I cannot imagine a more natural way of playing the piano."

Read here 👇

For Romantics Month, Jan Lisiecki shares his thoughts on Frédéric Chopin and what makes his piano writing so unique.

Happy birthday to conductor Marin Alsop. Many happy returns of the day.Did you know... an anagram of MARIN ALSOP is SALM...
16/10/2024

Happy birthday to conductor Marin Alsop. Many happy returns of the day.

Did you know... an anagram of MARIN ALSOP is SALMON PAIR 🐟. May we suggest sushi for a celebratory birthday dinner? 😆

Dmitri Kabalevsky’s writing for the cello is vigorous and idiomatic – thanks in great part to the composer’s relationshi...
16/10/2024

Dmitri Kabalevsky’s writing for the cello is vigorous and idiomatic – thanks in great part to the composer’s relationship with famed cellist Daniil Shafran. Ahead of performances with Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Steven Isserlis talks about his love of Kabalevsky, and of Shafran’s distinctive sound...

Ahead of a performance Kabalevsky’s Second Cello Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the British cellist talks about one of his longstanding cello heroes, Daniil Shafran, who premiered the work.

We are one very proud company today. One of our own, Commissioning Editor Lawrence Dunn, has been nominated for The Ivor...
15/10/2024

We are one very proud company today. One of our own, Commissioning Editor Lawrence Dunn, has been nominated for The Ivors Academy Classical Awards in the category of Best Choral Composition for his composition 'May Song' for six voices and fixed media.

Bravo Lawrence 🎉. We'll get the champagne on ice for the awards day on 12th November.

And, of course, congratulations to the other 35 composers nominated in the eight different categories, many of whom we are very happy to have interviewed and promoted over the years - see links in the comments below.

Julian Anderson | George Benjamin | Richard Blackford | Amy Bryce | Leo Chadburn | Hannah Conway | Brett Dean | Jonathan Dove | Lawrence Dunn | Rufus Isabel Elliot | Bushra El-Turk Edward Gregson | Matthew Grouse | Matthew Herbert | Gavin Higgins | Lisa Illean | Brian Irvine | Dan Jones | Hannah Kendall | Ryan Latimer | Una Lee | Oliver Leith | Soosan Lolavar | Duncan MacLeod | Joanna Marsh | Christian Mason | Colin Matthews | Cassandra Miller | Laurence Osborn | Hilda Paredes | Rebecca Saunders | Jane Stanley | Benjamin Tassie | Hanna Tuulikki | Philip Venables | Rūta Vitkauskaitė

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