2010-2011: Cité de la musique - Paris

The place where you can sens the love for music much more than elsewhere is this wonderful Cité de la musique. It is much less starry than in the other operatic or concert houses, but the program is always much better structured around the specific themes, covering the music that you rarely see programmed in the main concert houses. In their premises you can visit a Music Museum (excellent!), they organize seminars, workshops, round tables with authors, artists, they give you free access to their ginormous Media Center...

Yes, the stars perform there sometimes too, and in my opinion they perform even better -- perhaps because they perform the music they don't normally do in other concert houses.

And their auditorium is excellent -- the best in Paris! They will officially announce their program for 2010-2011 season this evening and already tomorrow it will be available on their web-site.

I received the program this morning and will type a list of say 20-30 concerts/events to see next season  à la Cité.

Check out here later...

Sept 22 : Le Chant de la Sibylle, La Capella Reial de Catalunya (Jordi Saval cond & Montserrat Figueras soprano)

Sept 24: Edda (malediction of the Rheinold) by Benjamin Bagby (new work)

Sept 25: Torsten Kerl recital with Brussels Philharmonic and Michel Tabachnik (cond) - excerpts from Wagner operas

Sept 29: Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Maria-Joao Pires & Trevor Pinnock cond. (Mendelssohn's Die Schoene Melusine, Schubert's 8th Symph)

Oct 13: Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Kaiserslautern & Gennady Rozdestvensky cond. (Symph #2 by Prokofiev)

Oct 16: The Soloists of the Vishnevskaya Center Moscow and the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris perform two unfinished operas by Shostakovich: The Gamblers and The Big Lightning

Oct 29: Orchestre de Paris and Andris Nelsons (Strauss)

Nov 5: Nada Strancar sings Brecht/Dessau (must be excellent!)

Nov 7:  Damals und Heute (Paul Kaufmann, Christian Hilz and Stephen Bronk) - works by Kurs Weill

Nov 10: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and HK Gruber -- Vom Tod im Wald and Das Berliner Requiem by Kurt Weill

Nov 13: Ensemble intercontemporain will perform the works by Hindemith, Weill, Eisler

Nov 19: Les Arts Florissants with Rosemary Joshua, Christopher Purves, Jonathan Cohen and Delphine Galou [Aci, Galaea e Polifemo by Handel]

Nov 27: Ensemble intercontemporain & Bruno Mantovani dir, perform works by W.Rihm. H.Dufourt, B.Mantovani

Dec 2: Orchestre National de Lyon & Jun Maerkl (dir) -- Liszt, Strauss, Scriabin

Dec 4 and 5: English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir and Sit John Eliot Gardiner -- cantatas by J.S. Bach

Dec 8 : Don Quijote de la Mancha, La Capella Reial de Catalunya -- Jordi Saval cond & Montserrat Figueras, Maite Arruabarrena, Lluis Vilamajo, Furio Zanasi, Marcel Bozonnet

Dec 14: Ensemble intercontemporain & Susanna Malkki -- works by Donatoni, Grisey and Ronib

Dec 15:  Les Talens Lyriques & Christophe Rousset (and nice singers) for Bellerophon by Lully

Dec 17: Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Joshua Bell & Vladimir Jurowski cond -- Glinka, Mendelssohn, Schubert

Jan5: Elisabeth Leonskaya performs the sonatas by Shostakovich and the romances on the Japansese poems

Jan 8 and 9: Quartet Borodine - Shostakovich

Jan 22 and 23: Elena Bashirova, Michael Barenboim et al, perform Webern, Berg, Wolf, Brahms

Jan 29: Ensemble intercontemporain (soloists) perform the works by Boulez, De Mey, Jodlowski


Feb 2: The Marriage -- live cinema/live music (Peter Greenaway - you simply MUST live this once in your lifetime!)

Feb 11: Ensemble intercontemporain with Leigh Melrose (barit.) - works by Julian Anderson. Elliott Carter and Kaija Saariaho

Feb 15: The Fairy Queen  with New London Consort and Joanne Lunn, Dana Marbach, Faye Newton, Christoper Robson, Ed Lyon. Joseph Cornwell...

Feb 24: Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and June Anderson & Joseph Swensen cond. (songs by Glass, Copland, Ives, Barber, Bernstein)

Mar 5: Accentus, Laurence Equilbey and Bruno Mantovani for a night of Liszt and Luigi Nono (!)

Mar 11: Brussels Philharmonic and Michael Tabachnik -- Liszt and Luigi Nono (!)


Mar 24: Cleofide (opera by J.A.Hasse): Mireille Delunsch, Gerard Lesne, Julia Novikova, Vivica Genaux, Edwin Crossley-Mercer

Mar 29: The Indian Queen by Purcell with Les Arts Florissants (Paul Agnew cond.) and Emanuelle de Negri, Katherine Watson Nicholas Watts, Sean Clayton

Mar 31: Lang Lang, Roland Daugareil and Emmanuel Gaugue -- Tchaikovski & Rachmaninov

Apr 2: Accentus & Laurence Equilbey perform Stockhausen, Schoenberg and Pintscher

Apr 6: Nais [opera for the peace by J.-P.Rameau] with La Simphonie du Marais & Mireille Delunsch, Jean-Paul Fauchecourt, Mathias Vidal, Matthieu Heim

Apr 9: Ensemble intercontemporain & Jonathan Nott -- Luigi Nono & Luciano Berio

Apr 14-17: Emmanuel Krivine and La Chambre Philharmonique for all Beethoven's symphonies

May 21: Brussels Philharmonic and Michael Tabachnik -- Ligeti, Strauss, Khatchaturian

May 24: Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Marieke Blankestijn and Lorenza Borrani - Mozart & Bach

May 25 Amel Brahim Djelloul, recital of the Arabic and Andalusian  songs