Burritt is a masterful percussionist, able to elicit crisp and enchanting sounds from anything he strikes with a stick or mallet: drum, marimbas, vibraphone, glockenspiel, cymbals, or pretty much whatever object is within his arm's reach. Thomas Burritt (Photo by John Parks) Thomas BurrittĪ man who keeps the beat like almost no one else. Now in great demand as a guest artist, the Butler School of Music professor of piano balances his travels with local work, such as playing with the Austin Symphony and La Follia, and performing in the play 33 Variations at Zach Theatre.Ĭoming up: La Follia's Herd of Harpsichords April 26 & 27 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. UT snapped up this Steinway savant for its faculty while he was still in his 20s. Nel made his concert debut at age 12 – after only two years of lessons – then went on to win piano competitions across South Africa, England, and the U.S., capping the streak with first prize in the 1987 Naumburg International Piano Competition at Carnegie Hall. Whether playing majestic Beethoven, sprightly Mozart, or tempestuous Schubert, the Johannesburg native attunes the sounds to the material with artful precision. His hands move across the keys with a dancer's grace, conjuring music with the same quality. The New York Times once described him as "uncommonly elegant," and that may come as close as words can to capturing what distinguishes Nel as a pianist. ARTISTSĪnton Nel (Photo by Sandy Carson) Anton Nel Given the size of our classical scene, providing a comprehensive guide to every key component would be like naming every important composer since Monteverdi, but here's a start, beginning with groups and artists that have performances coming up soon. And the educational programs at the Austin Chamber Music Center, Austin Classical Guitar, and the Armstrong Community Music School ensure there will be musicians around to play all that new work. With the Butler School of Music developing the next generation of composers and Austin Symphony Orchestra and Golden Hornet working with teen composers, we can be assured that the flow of new classical music won't stop soon. More importantly, Austin itself is home to a wealth of composers who, as I've written before, seem to think they're in late 18th-century Vienna and keep pumping out music for orchestras and symphonic bands, chamber pieces for instruments of all kinds, art songs, operas, cantatas, scores for dance and theatre works, soundtracks for films – several hundred over the past decade, and they keep coming. Concerts are programmed with symphonies and suites and art songs composed in the last 25 years by artists who are still living. And most every group in the classical camp is also keen on new classical music – works made for today. The organizations and ensembles dedicated to the classical music of the past animate it with passion and virtuosity – and not just in concert halls and churches they bring Bach to bars and Brahms to brewpubs. Classical music may be stuffy and inert to the point of lifelessness elsewhere, but here it's alive, as alive as any other kind of music grouped under the banner of the Live Music Capital. It doesn't mean stiff and lacking a pulse. In the context of classical music in Austin, it doesn't mean formal. Austin Symphony Orchestra (Photo by Robin Rowell)ĭon't let the word "classical" throw you.
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