Max's Music Box shines on first test

BY MARK STRYKER

Saturday's gala celebration and concert may have been the official coming-out party for the $60 million Max M. Fisher Music Center, but Wednesday was the first night that the Detroit Symphony Orchestra really took the building out for a spin to see what it could do. It was an impressive performance.

By Rasmi Simhan

Sextet gives new music a good ride

By Kyle O'Brien 

On the move with modern music

Young modern ensemble Eighth Blackbird is made up of six musicians, but they prefer to be viewed as a single entity, working together as ambassadors of new music in seamless and precise fashion. They showed why Sunday afternoon to a robust audience at Reed College's Kaul Auditorium.

By Penelope Kosztolnyik

Sextet draws interest at OPAS

The string, wind and percussion sextet known as eighth blackbird provoked interest well before their OPAS concert Monday evening. Might their youth, sterling classical music credentials and publicity photo that suggested an “attitude” generate a wider appreciation of the new music they champion?

By Joanne Sheehy Hoover

eighth blackbird sears with intensity 

Everything about the contemporary ensemble eighth blackbird is different, as its return engagement for 20th Century Unlimited Saturday night in the St. Francis auditorium testified.

By Jo Ann Baldinger

eighth blackbird flies back to Santa Fe

Contemporary chamber ensemble combines music, theater "We're trying to transform the traditional concert format into an all-inclusive experience," said Lisa Kaplan, pianist in the prize-winning chamber music group Eighth Blackbird.