Since this was already in print, I won't pussyfoot around it: Christopher Warren-Green wasn't my No. 1 choice to be the Charlotte Symphony's next leader.
Charlotte Chamber Music had no choice. St. Peter's Episcopal Church uptown, the site of the group's concerts for more than a decade, closed its sanctuary for a remodeling. So the series switched to a temporary location nearby: First Presbyterian Church on West Trade Street.
As I was putting the little item about this weekend's Charlotte Symphony concerts into The Guide on Page 12, I started to type the phrase: “veteran pianist Andre Watts.” But my conscience stopped me.
By the time he was 5 years old, Michael Todd Simpson was singing solos at Gastonia's United Baptist Church, perched on a chair behind the pulpit. His explanation couldn't be much simpler.
Orchestras can't always use Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to give new seasons a blockbuster start. This time, the Charlotte Symphony has turned to Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1 – an hour of nature worship, soul-searching and celebration for supersized orchestra.
There was such short notice that many dance lovers may have missed it when N.C. Dance Theatre's Dwight Rhoden landed on Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance."
It was the role that made Luciano Pavarotti a star. In April, another tenor brought it to the same theater that had been Pavarotti's launching pad. Juan Diego Florez upped the ante.
As he launched the first chamber-music program at this year's Spoleto Festival USA, Charles Wadsworth – the concerts' director, host and sometime pianist – shared with the audience a moment of self-examination:
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