Author: Benjamin Gates

from Franklin Light Opera

The Pirates of Penzance

It’s easy on the one hand to write off the dramatic merits of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas, especially when they’re compared against much of the rest of the standard operaticRead More

Lesser and Greater Mysteries: Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Nashville Opera

There’s a rousing musical clarity at the end of The Magic Flute’s first act that’s so at odds with the just-transpired turns of the plot and our main characters’ newfoundRead More

Prokofiev, Shostakovich, & the Nashville Chamber Music Society at the Steinway Gallery

There’s something particularly compelling about Prokofiev’s F Minor Violin Sonata, Op. 80. It’s got this devastation and gloom about it that are impossible to miss and harder to shake. ProgramRead More

At the Frist

Music City Baroque Performs the Music of Spanish Latin America

The exhibit Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500-1800 was curated by Ilona Katzew originally for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is currently on display at theRead More

Review Essay:

“Strange Rituals” The Rite of Spring in the 21st Century

There are few pieces in any orchestra’s standard repertoire quite like Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Sure, there are other works with more recognizable public profiles. The types of piecesRead More

A Symphonic Sampler

Brahms, Dvořák, and Lutosławski at the Nashville Symphony

Laura Turner Hall was packed last Friday night and for good reason. Names like Brahms and Dvořák are sure to draw in crowds under any circumstances, but the addition ofRead More

The MCR Interview:

MaryGrace Bender and the Nashville Chamber Music Society

Benjamin Gates had a chance to chat with the new star on the Music City Horizon, the Nashville Chamber Music Society’s founder and director, MaryGrace Bender. The following is aRead More

At Analog at the Hutton

“This Is Just A Story”: Chatterbird and Insomnia’s My Closest Friend

“This is just a story. You’ll understand it if you listen,” says Tavius Marshall in the new work Insomnia’s My Closest Friend with text by Marshall and music by JoshuaRead More

Voices Behind the Gauze: Nashville Opera’s The Medium

You really feel the passion when Nashville Opera’s Artistic Director, John Hoomes, pleads the case for the operas of Gian Carlo Menotti. In his program note for the Nashville Opera’sRead More

On the Silver Screen:

Look Out Hollywood, Y’all!

Introduction Nashville is no stranger to star-studded premieres or huge flocks of songwriters and artists in one place, but the first weeks of fall in Music City make for aRead More