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Justin Davidson

Architecture and Classical-Music Critic, Curbed and New York Magazine
See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Architecture and classical-music critic Justin Davidson is a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Magnetic City: A Walking Companion to New York.

  1. architecture review
    The New Geffen Hall Is Open. How Does It Sound?It’s too early to say. But the inaugural concert today (with two very different types of ensembles) was encouraging.
  2. music review
    Tyshawn Sorey’s Rituals Take Over the ArmoryThe sound of Monochromatic Light.
  3. opera review
    The Met’s Medea Is the Sondra Radvanovsky ShowThe company finally got around to mounting the 1797 opera, one of two blood-soaked Greek myths to open this month.
  4. fall preview
    42 New Classical Music Performances to Hear This FallIncluding the grand reopening of David Geffen Hall, Medea at the Met, and work by Tyshawn Sorey.
  5. gallery
    Bradley Cooper As BernsteinOn the town and on the set with the biopic version of Lenny.
  6. music
    The 18th Century’s Surround-Sound MachineInside the organ at St. Bartholomew’s.
  7. opera review
    Brett Dean’s Hamlet Is Too Mad for Its Own GoodYet there is method in ’t.
  8. opera review
    A Lucia di Lammermoor With Rust Belt BloodshedGirl of the golden Midwest?
  9. classical review
    A Blockbuster Evening With John Williams at Carnegie HallJoined by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the composer conducted a night of his greatest movie hits.
  10. classical-music review
    A St. Matthew Passion That Speaks Even to NonbelieversAt Carnegie Hall, Bernard Labadie and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s brought out the drama in the Bach.
  11. classical review
    Finding Solace and Defiance at the Met’s A Concert for UkraineThis week, emotions ran high at New York performances by the Met Opera, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonic.
  12. opera review
    Don Carlos, a Dark Opera for Glum Times, Brings Plenty of Musical BrillianceDon Carlos’s five hours is well suited for the world at this moment.
  13. classical-music review
    Rediscovering a Depression-Era Composer Who Sought Unbridled JoyThe Philadelphia Orchestra brings an underappreciated Florence Price symphony to Carnegie Hall.
  14. opera review
    Quinn Kelsey Makes the Met’s Rigoletto Worth Masking Up ForDirector Bartlett Sher has relocated the action to Weimar Germany, and he quickly gets past the black-leather clichés.
  15. opera review
    The Met Opera’s Eurydice Finds Fun in a Hopeless PlaceThe new production ventures to the underworld and provides an awfully good time.
  16. classical-music review
    Carnegie Reopens With Bernstein, Beethoven, and a Tribute to Those 7 p.m. ShoutsAfter 572 silent days.
  17. opera review
    The Met Comes Alight Again With Fire Shut Up in My Bones“For all its newsworthiness, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is an old-fashioned opera opera.”
  18. the group portrait
    The Emerson String Quartet’s Coda BeginsA long good-bye after four decades of ensemble stardom.
  19. fall preview 2021
    18 New Classical Music Performances to Hear This FallJonas Kaufmann sings at Carnegie Hall, Conrad Tao on stage at 92Y, and more.
  20. fall preview 2021
    Will Liverman Enlightens Fire Shut Up in My BonesThe baritone steps into the opera world’s most visible spot — the Met’s opening-night lead.
  21. opera
    Singing Their Angst From Their Beach TowelsAt BAM, the cast of the voyeuristic beach opera Sun & Sea performs from an indoor, sand-covered stage.
  22. endings
    After 45 Years, the Emerson String Quartet Is DisbandingA virtuosic run will come to an end in 2023.
  23. making moves
    Lincoln Center Appoints Shanta Thake to Lead Its RevivalShe comes to the institution after over a decade at the Public, and her eclecticism may challenge some of its traditions.
  24. the group portrait
    The New York Philharmonic Is Playing Green-Wood CemeteryAnd the audience is maybe a little quiet.
  25. new york philharmonic
    The Philharmonic’s First Concert Back Brought Me Panic and SolaceAt the Shed, Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte and Strauss’s Metamorphosen.
  26. obituary
    On the Talented, Monstrous James LevineThe Met’s longtime artistic director, fired for sexual abuse, has died at 77.
  27. music review
    A Concert Review! From a Cemetery. (This Is Not a Metaphor.)At Brooklyn’s Green-Wood, a moving performance that roved among the crypts.
  28. classical music
    The New York Philharmonic Wants You to Take a Walk in the ParkWith Soundwalk, Ellen Reid’s composition that changes according to your GPS location.
  29. opera review
    Lise Davidsen’s Recital Provides the Hit of Joy Every Operagoer Is MissingA little of what fans are craving.
  30. performing arts
    The Precarious Future of High Culture in New YorkThe pandemic silenced the city’s symphony halls and grand opera houses. But will the (eventual) restart bring with it a reckoning?
  31. performing arts
    Jane Moss, Lincoln Center’s Artistic Director, Is Stepping DownAfter 27 years, she says, the shutdown got her thinking about moving on.
  32. the longest lives
    What I’ve Learned So FarLessons from artists and thinkers.
  33. thinking about the future
    What Socially Distanced Live Performance Might Look LikeTo institutions and artists and audiences alike.
  34. you heard it here first
    Listen to Phil Kline’s ‘Every Night at 7,’ a Tribute to Our Evening RitualNew Yorkers’ shouting-and-pot-banging celebration of essential workers, turned into music.
  35. classical music
    Revisiting Franz Schubert, a Poet of SolitudeFew composers have ever rendered loneliness as lovingly as he did or surrounded it in such a halo of compassion.
  36. streaming opera
    Streaming Now: The Metropolitan Opera’s Tristan und IsoldeA 2016 production with familiar tropes.
  37. coronavirus
    The New York Philharmonic, Closed Till September, Is Winding Down Musicians’ PaySalaries will be cut back gradually through May 31, and the summer is under negotiation.
  38. opera review
    Streaming Tonight: A Tale of Two Tones in the Met’s La TraviataMichael Mayer’s production makes the sparkly life so unsexy and over-sugared, the last act’s bleakness comes off as refreshingly spare.
  39. opera
    The Metropolitan Opera Is Furloughing Its Orchestra, Chorus, and TradesThey’ll retain health and instrument insurance, but not their salaries.
  40. vulture recommends
    The Best Operas You Should Stream While They’re FreeA week at the virtual Met Opera is a week without duds or off nights.
  41. cityscape
    How Real Architecture Inspired Westworld’s Futuristic CitiesThe meaning behind season three’s deluxe urban dystopia, agleam with prosperity and gentrified to a high polish.
  42. coronavirus
    Arts Organizations Are Heading Into Crisis. A Few Things Might Mitigate It.Performers and staff, already living close to the edge, have little margin for a long layoff.
  43. opera review
    Opera Review: Great Voices and Coked-Up Staging in the Met’s AgrippinaJoyce DiDonato leads a cast that’s directed at a frantic pace.
  44. classical music
    Why I’d Rather Hear the Danish String Quartet Than Any Other FoursomeRange, musicality, sparkling technique without stony seriousness.
  45. music
    58 Minutes With the Omnivorous Composer Caroline ShawA composer of eclectic influences and twisty, back and forth scores (and, by the way, a Pulitzer winner).
  46. the lost canon
    It’s Time We All Heard the Music of Lili BoulangerOne of France’s great composers, she was ignored because she was a woman who died young.
  47. opera review
    Review: A Grungy, Glorious New Wozzeck at the MetWilliam Kentridge’s new production makes its debut.
  48. best of 2019
    The Best Classical-Music Performances of 2019A rough year for institutions, a great year for their music.
  49. opera review
    Gleaming and Self-Aware, Philip Glass’s Akhnaten Is Borne to the MetGilt is everywhere.
  50. classical music
    At Lincoln Center, Schumann Gets a Toughening-Up in ZauberlandA new piece reinterprets the songs of ‘Dichterliebe.’
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