Pavarotti and Singer Saints - Download Lists

I have found some interesting music at bargains and I would love to share the info with you all.

This 100 song Pavarotti set is $1.99 on Amazon. I just started listening and the quality is excellent. It is a sampler/ greatest hits, but worth every last penny and many more.

Also, Amazon has a bunch of free samplers that you may want to check out: Early Music , Baroque and Classical Gems.

Singers Saints has a wonderfully eclectic list of modern composers work. Philip Glass, Terry Riley and John Cage are all available in abundance. All of these are available to download for free!


The New York Philharmonic offers podcasts and live performances that you can listen to in several ways. I prefer Instant Encore if I am at my desk.

Please, If you have more streaming or downloading websites to share, send them my way!

Butterfly and Burgers: A night at the NYC Opera

An evening at the opera should probably not start with burgers, but that’s sometimes what you end up having. And there is nothing wrong with that! Right? Anyway, I may not be the classiest guy to walk into the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the New York City Opera.

I was genuinely excited to be at Madama Butterfly. The tickets, which I had won via Facebook, were not available at the box office. The director of PR swooped in (Big thank you to Pascal Nadon) and we were in our 6^th row Orchestra seats in time to watch the dastardly Pinkerton view his new home. I hadn’t seen the opera or the plays or movies based on Butterfly before, so the character of B.F. (Benjamin Franklin) Pinkerton and the anti-colonial message he embodies is an effective blunt instrument. Pinkerton lets us know he believes it is the American right and duty to “pluck a flower from every new shore.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until Ms. Butterfly, soon to be Mrs. Pinkerton, came on stage that the show came to life. Her performance was electric. Yunah Lee was fantastic and the role allows her to play larger than life (and death). The music was very good, but it took her involvement for it to all click. The second act is all Butterfly, and it was treat.

The sets and the costumes are fine. It fit, it worked and that was all that was needed. For an opera that is over 100 years old, the topic certainly feels contemporary. It did not need to look contemporary.

The Metropolitan Opera has a wonderful series of education links that I am just starting to explore.

I want to thank the NYC Opera for my fantastic seats and the Metropolitan Opera for their useful educational tools...and most of all my wife, for being my accomplice for the Year of Classical!

Puccini on the Cheap

In a Facebook related turn of events, I won tickets to tomorrow night’s performance of Madama Butterfly at the NYC Opera. Needless to say this offers a fairly broke 30 something a wonderful opportunity to see more Opera live and for that I am grateful. At an Easter dinner, my cousins gushed over the power of the Madame Butterfly. While the NY Times had mixed feelings about the performance in March, I go into the experience with no preconceived notions of the event. I made this year of classical a goal of mine, and well here I am living it!

A few notes, the NY Philharmonic will have Alan Gilbert conducting his new Contact! series Friday and Saturday. (Full disclosure: they asked me to attend) and as seasons come to a close for the summer there will be more outdoors and possibly free events to and to this venture.

Please let me know if you have attended Bargemusic or Philharmonic in the Parks or any other outdoor NYC music performances I should keep an eye out for!

You can always email me at yearofclassical (@) gmail.com

Springtime for Minimalism

After The Nose, I decided to follow the modern music trail all the way to present day. Back in college I took a class that led me to the music of Glass, Riley, Reich and Feldman. I listened occasionally, faithfully checking in with Morton Feldman's Durations on long train rides and walks.

For some reason, Glass and Feldman usually settle me or set me in a mood to chill out.

Recently I have been listening to a fantastic EMI Classics release from 2008 called Minimalism. Reich and Glass. As a primer for these artists, this album has been invaluable.

Please send me more recommendations before I dive back into Opera. I am going to make May and June my Opera months, so I will need help with that as well.

Thank you all for being engaged and helping me along with this process.