Resonance Works' 2024 performance of Reena Esmail's ' This Love Between Us' • Photo by Alisa Innocenti Resonance Works brings more music that deserves to be heard to Pittsburgh this March with Requiem for Water , a choral and orchestral program that explores our relationship with the natural world, including one another. This reflective, energetic, and hopeful concert plays Friday March 6 at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall in Carnegie, PA and Sunday March 8 at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh in Shadyside. Requiem for Water features the regional premiere of composer Reena Esmail’s “profound choral jewel” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Malhaar: A Requiem for Water . Written in 2023, during a time of extreme drought in California, Malhaar weaves together the Latin Requiem, Hindustani musical tradition, and the poetry of Wendell Berry and William O’Daly to reflect on water as both a...
What a horrific Saturday evening. It started off annoyingly. I was headed to the world premiere “Time To Act,” an opera scheduled at the Bitz Opera Center, the home of Pittsburgh Opera. The venue, located at the far east end of the Strip District, is in a less trafficked area. Still on street parking was no where to be found. Every space was taken. Wanting not to miss the opera, I pulled into a garage with a sign that announced a $7 fee for 2 hours. $10 for more than 2 hours. Hurriedly, I locked the car with my portable phone and meds and glaucoma eye drops inside. Looking up around the corner of the street, all the signs I could read was one for Smallman with the cross street unidentified. No sign there for the cross street. I knew the direction of the opera and got there with time to spare. The premiere was very interesting and after the performance I got to speak to three of the singers. (I love basking in the light of celebrity). Seems like ticket sales a...