Wednesday, September 17, 2008

New site for Festival Preview

Hello festival-goers,

Festival Preview has recently gone through a major site upgrade and will now be posting festival news for all genres on the new beta version of FestivalPreview.com. The classical section of the new site can be found here. Come sign up at the new site and join in on the fun!

Jessica Bailiff
Publishing Associate & Classical Editor
Festival Preview

Monday, June 16, 2008

Ravinia lawn ticket status

If you were looking to see Alison Krauss & Robert Plant or Sheryl Crow on the lawn at Ravinia this year and hadn't yet purchased your tickets, you're out of luck. The festival just sent out an email saying they've sold out. Here are some acts that are going fast and expected to sell out, so act quickly:

6/20 - Willie Nelson [buy]
6/28 - The Temptations/Four Tops [buy]
7/11 - Feist [buy]
7/14 - The Beach Boys [buy]
7/25 - Hootie & The Blowfish [buy]
8/2 - Gipsy Kings [buy]
8/9 - The BoDeans [buy]
8/23 - Tony Bennett [buy]
8/24 - Backstreet Boys [buy]
8/30 - Donna Summer [buy]

To see daily updates on ticket sales, visit Ravinia's ticket page.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Anticipating Aspen

With Aspen Music Festival's summer season coming up on June 19th, here is a video documenting all aspects of Aspen--from opera to chamber music to symphonic programs:


Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Spoleto adds additional performance of Monkey: Journey to the West

An extra performance of the Spoleto hit, Monkey: Journey to the West, has been added to the festival program. Catch it on Thursday, June 5 at 2pm in the Sottile Theatre at the College of Charleston. Featuring a melding of ancient Chinese literature and culture with classical and pop music sounds of Gorillaz front man Damon Albarn, plus action, acrobatics, magic, and stunning costumes, this showing is guaranteed to sell out. Check out the video below for a preview of the show.


Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Free entrance into select Piccolo Spoleto events

Piccolo Spoleto is having a deal where you can get into four Piccolo Spoleto events absolutely free AND bring up to seven of your friends. To find out how you can qualify, call (843) 724-7305 or contact me at jessica@festivalpreview.com and I'll send you the details.

Spotlight Concert Series

A TRIBUTE TO STEPHEN PAULUS
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 6pm
New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church, 22 Elizabeth St.


WAYANG MODERN SHADOW PUPPET THEATRE
Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 6pm
New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church, 22 Elizabeth St.

CHAMBER MUSIC CHARLESTON
Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 6pm
New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church, 22 Elizabeth St.


BALKAN STRING QUARTET
Friday, June 6, 2008 at 6pm
New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church, 22 Elizabeth St.

Taylor Festival Choir: "From the Old Country to the New"

Click the image above to purchase a Taylor Festival Choir CD.

This coming Saturday afternoon, the Circular Congregational Church will be hosting the Taylor Festival Choir's "From the Old Country to the New" as part of this year's Piccolo Spoleto Choral Artist Series. The TFC will be joined by dancers from the Robert Ivey Ballet, violinist Rozanna Weinberger, and percussionist Ryan Leveille for a night of medieval Spanish love poems set to choral music, Vaughan Williams' folk music, interpretive dance, and Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, which will be dedicated to the Charleston Nine, a group of nine firefighters who lost their lives last year in the line of duty.

The event will be held at 150 Meeting Street in Charleston at 1:30 PM. Tickets are $7. Visit the Piccolo Spoleto Web site to view all upcoming performances and events.

Monday, June 2, 2008

June deals at Ravinia

Ravinia just announced that they are offering discounted tickets for selected events during the month of June:

Tuesday June 10 - Garrick Ohlsson - Two-for-one
Tuesday June 17 - Ursula Oppens - All tickets just $15
Tuesday June 17 - Charles Rosen - All tickets just $15
Thursday June 19 - Gilberto Gil - Two-for-one
Sunday June 22 - Dianne Reeves/Manhattan Transfer - Two-for-one
Tuesday June 24 - Gary Graffman - Two-for-one


Tickets are available for purchase online here.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Monkey: Journey to the West (video)

Chen Shi-Zheng, director of Monkey: Journey to the West, discusses with the New York Times how he came up with the concept of the stage adaptation for the 400 year old Chinese story featured this year at Spoleto Festival USA.



To learn about the show, visit the Monkey: Journey to the West Web site.

Performance added to Spoleto program: The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac

Heralded by Time Out London as the drag act to see if you only see one in your lifetime, The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac will be making an encore performance at Spoleto on June 2. Its first showing is tonight at 10PM in the College of Charleston's Emmett Robinson Theatre, so get ready for a night chock-full of political tirade, costumes, humor, and ukulele.
Here's a preview of what to expect from Taylor Mac:




To buy tickets for this event, click here.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

NYTimes.com - Cast Party at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A.

Here's a behind the scenes look at a Spoleto Festival USA cast party courtesy of New York Times reporter Dan Wakin: