a virtual journal and essential blog of the classical music scene in greater Boston
Lee Eiseman, publisher; Robert Levin, advisor; David Moran, assisting editor; Bettina A. Norton, emerita editor
Reviews
June 18, 2018
Rockport Casts Spells
by Susan Miron
Pianist Frederick Chiu Sunday concert with cellist Andrés Diáz and clarinetist Todd Palmer lived up to the Rockport Chamber Music Festival season’s “r:EVOLUTION” billing. [continued]
June 16, 2018
Boffo Opening for Rockport
by Lee Eiseman
From the blazing six-gun salute to Souvenir de Florence to the last notes in the poignant fadeout of Oswaldo Golijov’s Ayre, an eclectic and exuberant new era at Rockport Music’s Shalin Liu Performance Center began on Friday night. [continued]
June 11, 2018
Four Hands Provide Extra Zing
by David Patterson
James Barkovic and Terry Halco mingled Mozart, Gershwin, Fauré, Moszkowski, Dvořák and Oldham to the delight of a summery Sunday afternoon flock in the Harvard Epworth Concert Series. [continued]
June 2, 2018
Semiosis Quartet: Attuned, Unrattled, Freaked
by David Patterson
The foursome fearlessly, efficaciously, and fully signified in new music at the New School in Cambridge. [continued]
May 29, 2018
“Ain’t I A Woman?”
by Geoffrey Wieting
Castle of our Skins mixed historical instruction, poetry, and music by composers of color at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury on Saturday. [continued]
May 22, 2018
Striking Gold in the Choral Periphery
by Geoffrey Wieting
John Ehrlich’s Spectrum Singers introduced Sunday’s First Church Congregational, Cambridge audience, to largely unfamiliar choral works: the original version of Dvořák’s Mass in D Major, Op. 86, and the a cappella Mass for Double Choir by Martin. [continued]
May 21, 2018
Sarasa—Reflecting Well
by Julie Ingelfinger
Seven excellent instrumentalists lustrously collaborated at the Cambridge Friends Meeting House in “Mirrors,” which began with an unofficial celebration of the 350th anniversary of the birth of the prolific keyboardist and composer François Couperin. [continued]
May 15, 2018
BLO Adds Trouble to Barcarolles
by Steven Ledbetter
Boston Lyric Opera’s Trouble in Tahiti at a drained ice rink is far and away the most effective version I’ve experienced—theatrically alive from beginning to end, and warmly human. [continued]
Pianist Shines Polychrome Penumbra
by Lee Eiseman
The publisher salutes the multihued throwback artistry of Vietnamese-Canadian pianist Dang Thai Son. [continued]
Faire Be the Cantata Singers
by Susan Miron
Extraordinarily beautiful music we rarely hear, Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Officium Defunctorum, Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Messe, and William H. Harris’s Faire is the Heaven, closed Cantata Singers’ 54th season. [continued]
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May 14, 2018
Big Back Bay Fuels Vaughan Williams
by David Patterson
With large chorus and orchestra came a rare American excursion into the realm of Ralph Vaughn Williams. “Essential Voices” unfolded at Sanders Theater before a strong and clearly enthusiastic Mothers’ Day crowd. [continued]
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The RenMen Visit Opera
by Sudeep Agarwala
The excited energy and eager advocacy for hidden gems and chestnuts alike in “A Night at the Opera” delighted the small audience gathered in St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Newton Lower Falls on Saturday night. [continued]
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Unitas Almost Didn’t Have a Concert
by Steven Ledbetter
When the authorities suddenly closed Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, conductor Lina Gonzalez-Granados had just a few hours to find a new venue for her Latina composer’s concert on Friday. [continued]
Unfulfilled Promise: The Prison Co-Premieres
by Timothy T. Diovanni
The Cecilia Chorus of New York combined forces with a freelancer’s orchestra in an artistically uneven mounting of Ethel Smyth’s The Prison (1930) and Mozart Requiem at Carnegie Hall on last Friday.
May 13, 2018
For BSCP, Equality in Composers
by Steven Ledbetter
Boston Symphony Chamber Players closed its Jordan Hall season on April 22nd with four attractive works: Viennese classical, German Romanticism, French Romanticism, and contemporary American. [continued]
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May 12, 2018
There’ll Always Be a Parry
by Lee Eiseman
Conductor Edward Elwyn Jones’s “A Parry Premiere: Invocation to Music, and a Variety of Tidbits” with the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, orchestra and soloists made a case for reclaiming the music of Hubert Parry in a enthusiastic outing at Sanders last night. [continued]
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A Vision in Luxe Technique With Emerging Repose
by Brian Schuth
Yuja Wang brought Russian Romantics in the main to Jordan Hall for the Celebrity Series last night with a musicianship that was volcanic, caressing and fearless. [continued]
May 10, 2018
Tactfully Sacred and Profane from Tactus
by Sudeep Agarwala
The ensemble’s “Drinking Songs & Lamentations” took neither noun literally at Harvard University’s Memorial Church Tuesday. [continued]
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May 9, 2018
Fandango Fiesta Is Memorable
by Jonas Kublickas
Laury Gutièrrez led Rumbarroco’s fusion of Mexican, Guatemalan, Venezuelan and Dominican rhythms mixed with 16-17th century compositions by Diego Ortiz, Santiago de Murcia, Rafael Antonio Castellanos and Antonio Soler at the intimate Gordon Chapel of Old South Church on Sunday. [continued]
May 8, 2018
Holy #$%@ Those BPYO Kids Are Good!
by Vance R. Koven
Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra’s Sunday outing at Sanders impressed us mightily. [continued]
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Encircling New Musics
by Ian Wiese
Compositions new and newer formed a universe of sound at Longy May 5th, with Radius and tango dancers swirling in space and time and score. [continued]
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May 7, 2018
Twelve Men Sing of War and Peace
by Geoffrey Wieting
In Chanticleer’s Boston performance at Trinity Church on Friday, the glorious ensemble sang with fine-tuned precision and unanimous expression— sans conductor. [continued]
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Christophers’s Handel Survey Continues
by Susan Miron
Handel and Haydn Society’s first complete Hercules ran this past weekend at Symphony Hall to considerable acclaim. H + H’s gem of a chorus gave notice of their chops whenever they stood, the soloists advocated well for their roles, and the orchestra played with energy and refinement. [continued]
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May 5, 2018
Haitink’s Rest Yields Surprising Rewards
by Lee Eiseman
Into the breach stepped artistic administrator Anthony Fogg, conductor Moritz Gnann, principal oboe John Ferrillo, and the orchestra’s winds and brass with a rewarding and unusual one-off first half. [continued]
Another French Cinderella, in English
by Mark DeVoto
Cambridge Chamber Ensemble’s heartily recommended Cendrillon by Pauline Viardot-Garcia. runs twice more on Sunday at Warehouse XI in Somerville. [tickets HERE]. [continued]