Classical music year in review: The Nathalie Stutzmann era begins and other music notables

Stutzmann is the only woman leading a Top 25 orchestra in the United States, and only the second woman to lead a major United States symphony.

The Stutzmann era began with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which gave insight into both her conducting style and philosophy. “What better way of reuniting after the pandemic than this symphony, which starts in the darkest of times and opens into the light with its beautiful message of freedom, friendship and unity?” Stutzmann told ArtsATL writer Mark Thomas Ketterson.

It was also a comeback year for classical music in the city, as organizations began to navigate a post-pandemic world. Writers Pierre Ruhe and Jordan Owen look back on their favorite performances from 2022.

Credit: Jeff Roffman

Credit: Jeff Roffman

Spano’s grand finale

Robert Spano’s finale in June was grand in its own right but really everything that the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra did to commemorate the departure of Spano, their music director of 20 years, is worthy of commendation. With multiple nights celebrating different facets of the maestro’s illustrious career, it was clear that the ASO had a wellspring of admiration for their departing director. I may have been critical at times of Spano’s reserved conducting style, but in the end he certainly did not go gentle into that good night. (JO)

Stutzmann in peak form with tone poems

Nathalie Stutzmann and the ASO offered storytelling tone poems in a mixed-media format in October, where visuals complemented the musical narrative. These performances, of César Franck’s “The Accursed Huntsman” and Arnold Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night,” were a revelation — as engaging and musically complete as anything Stutzmann has yet offered. In the Franck, the strings were at their warmest, the woodwinds at turns verdant and menacing. The 15-minute piece was thoroughly lucid and tightly controlled. In the Schoenberg, the conductor had the orchestra push and pull at the musical expressiveness, with wonderfully hallucinatory intensity. The 30 minutes passed as if in a dream. This is the level of musical insight and technical skill that we expect from our music director. (PR)

Credit: Ken Howard Photography

Credit: Ken Howard Photography

‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ and ‘Madama Butterfly’

I knew my favorite performance this year would be one of the two productions I saw from The Atlanta Opera. “Madama Butterfly” — with its stunning staging, lush costuming, and magnificent vocal performances — was a strong contender. But the small-scale, low-key production of “Bluebeard’s Castle” in October really brought out something new in the ominous source material that spoke to me both as a critic who bestows high praise on innovation and as a lover of the surreal and darkly cerebral. By transposing the setting from a haunting gothic castle to the cozy confines of a suburban home — and turning Bluebeard and Judith into an elderly husband and wife coping with the errant memories that emerge from the latter’s dementia — The Atlanta Opera found a fresh new perspective on an old classic and one whose bittersweet sentimentality seemed to make the source material all the more unnerving. There was something wonderfully unhinged about the way conductor Stephen Higgins’ condensed interpretation droned hypnotically in the background. All in all, a wonderful surprise and an excellent capstone to a great year for the arts in Atlanta. (JO)

Credit: Courtesy of Spivey Hall

Credit: Courtesy of Spivey Hall

Jakub Józef Orliński debuts at Spivey Hall

A few minutes into Jakub Józef Orliński’s Spivey Hall debut in March, I thought surely the Polish countertenor had the most compelling, most otherworldly beautiful voice on the planet. All at once pure and angelic, luminous and silvery, earthy and dark — this is what all the international fuss is about. Like the very best singers, he sings the words in the shape of the music, rather than singing notes with syllables and pronunciation as an afterthought. For all the radiant beauty of his voice, it was his emotional connection with the text that was so moving. In the crystalline warmth of Spivey’s acoustics, it gave the listener shivers. (PR)

Mozart’s Requiem and a tribute to Ukraine

In one of a few music director-designate concerts last March, Nathalie Stutzmann led Mozart’s Requiem but first offered words to the audience. With her warm contralto speaking voice, the conductor spoke of this “senseless war of aggression,” just weeks after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine. The audience stood as the mighty ASO Chorus sang the besieged country’s national anthem, “Ukraine’s Glory Has Not Perished” — sung in Ukrainian. Not surprisingly, the Mozart Requiem that followed, in a reading that was unusually swift and intense, held all its usual power and sorrow, and so much more. (PR)

Credit: Briene Lermitte

Credit: Briene Lermitte

Maria Schneider debuts Schwartz-commissioned ‘American Crow’

How to best summarize the magnitude of discovering the music of Maria Schneider in a live concert? Well, put it this way: Most of the music that blows our minds to such a degree that it becomes a fundamental part of who we are is discovered in the first 20 or so years of life, when we are not fully formed as people. During that time, the music that moves us is guiding our personal evolution and as such becomes an integral part of who we become. With those years of my life long past, I am always thrilled at the rare musical genius whose work is so moving I feel as though I am 17 again and hearing the Pat Metheny Group, Weather Report, Return to Forever or the Mahavishnu Orchestra for the first time. Schneider’s world premiere for “American Crow” in November was one such occasion. The piece, commissioned by the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts for its 20th anniversary season, is a statement on modern discourse. “American Crow” brilliantly became a statement of hope and clarity in the clamor of the modern digital age of social media. (JO)

Homegrown talents put on dazzling display with ASO

High-flying musicians with Georgia roots took charge of the Atlanta Symphony to dazzling effect in March. Conductor Jonathon Heyward, who was likely once a candidate for the ASO’s music directorship and has since been appointed to run the Baltimore Symphony, led two of his specialties, Beethoven and Shostakovich. The Augusta native got the ASO players to really sing, showing what a magnificent orchestra this can be. Bassist and Marietta native Xavier Dubois Foley played the solo in his own concerto, “Soul Bass,” revealing himself as a brilliant instrumentalist and ear-catching composer. (PR)

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman Museum

Credit: Courtesy of the Breman Museum

Saxophonist Eddie Barbash comes home

Eddie Barbash’s fascination with early jazz, bluegrass and other facets of obscure Americana make him one of the most approachable saxophone soloists going today. The Atlanta native, who performed with Jon Batiste in the house band for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert for several years, came home for a concert at the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in October. His standout performance of the night was on “Love,” from the soundtrack to Disney’s Robin Hood. Under Barbash’s masterful tutelage, the setting of the song shifted from Sherwood Forest to a sparsely attended speakeasy in 1920s New York. It was a brilliant reimagining of a classic from old Hollywood. (JO)

The ASO plays with fire for Verdi operas

The ASO offered a rewarding program in May of white-hot opera, with just the overheated third acts from two Verdi operas, “Rigoletto” and “Aïda.” The singing was often glorious, with sopranos Jasmine Habersham and Michelle Bradley, tenors Clay Hilley and Santiago Ballerini, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and baritone Stephen Powell leading the deluxe casts. Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti piloted the evening’s success. He got the orchestra musicians to go beyond their usual strengths. For much of the evening, the playing was precise and supple and, at the best moments, on fire, with never less than total commitment. I like when that happens. (PR)

Alchemical String Theory’s underground chamber music

There’s usually a haunting tension in the air with chamber-ensemble shows, as if you’ve walked in on a sacred ritual being conducted in the solemn presence of the divine. That divinity took on a refreshingly demonic aura stepping into the dimly lit underworld of Sabbath Brewing Company for a performance in August by Alchemical String Theory, a performance collective consisting of string players who incorporate tape loops, electronic effects and daring levels of improvisation into their work. The product of a collaboration with local record label/promotional group Terminus Hate City, the concert at Sabbath was a dark, ominous, but always captivating evening. (JO)

Credit: Jeff Roffman

Credit: Jeff Roffman

The ASO champions the music of Florence Price

This ASO concert is still talked about: Florence Price and Mahler 1 in March. Price’s mostly forgotten music had been performed by the ASO before, but a performance with principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles and pianist Michelle Cann seemed to finally introduce Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement, from 1934, into the standard orchestra repertoire. (As Price wrote, “I have two handicaps, those of sex and race.”) The music is at turns charming and showy and thoroughly engaging. Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 came with sky-high expectations, and did not disappoint. (PR)

Kinnara’s Path of Miracles tour de force

Kinnara has become one of Atlanta’s best and most consistently elevated music ensembles. The professional choir, led by J.D. Burnett, has a knack for finding recent choral works that suit the singers and feel entirely right for our times. Indeed, they make the case that we’re living in a glorious era of chamber-choir composition. That talent was showcased in September during Kinnara’s concert at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church. Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles,” from 2005, is a tour de force of chamber-choir writing, lofty and compelling throughout. Inspired by the millennium-old pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago, “Path of Miracles” made an ideal vehicle for Kinnara’s exacting standards and deep-felt musicality, where every phrase, every block of sound, was balanced and perfectly polished. (PR)

Joshua Bell’s star power at Spivey Hall

Joshua Bell harkens back to a Golden Age of violin playing — substantive interpretations and a silvery, glossy tone, always in the clouds. He’s fun to watch, too, with his whole-body enactment of the music, as he gets on tiptoe for soaring high notes then swoops low as he digs into the next heavy phrase, as if physically carrying the weight of the music within his instrument. Opening Spivey Hall’s 32nd season in October, Bell and pianist Peter Dugan were athletic and explosive for much of the evening, best of all for a Beethoven sonata, played as a life-or-death drama. This superlative level of performance, you had to think, is why Joshua Bell is a star. (PR)

Emory’s ‘Artistic Directors’ showcase

For the professional musician, there can be few audience experiences more enthralling than witnessing players who redefine what is possible on their instrument. Such was the case when I got to see Zuill Bailey play the cello at Emory’s Artistic Director showcase in February at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. There is something almost voyeuristic in the disarming intimacy with which he engages with his instrument — it’s clear to even the lay listener that his understanding of the cello functions on a cerebral level far deeper than that of his contemporaries. I left the show with a new favorite cellist and I do not say that lightly. (JO)

MEET OUR PARTNER

ArtsATL (www.artsatl.org), is a nonprofit organization that plays a critical role in educating and informing audiences about metro Atlanta’s arts and culture. Founded in 2009, ArtsATL’s goal is to help build a sustainable arts community contributing to the economic and cultural health of the city.

If you have any questions about this partnership or others, please contact Senior Manager of Partnerships Nicole Williams at nicole.williams@ajc.com.