The threesome’s COVID-themed “In the Face of Isolation II” jarringly juxtaposed Grieg and Schumann with Feldman and Cage last night at Longy; technical refinement and plenteousness of emotive engagement obtained.    [continued]

‘Innovatively thematic, masterful and emotional’ might begin to convey the WOW of Simone Dinnerstein’s wonderfully assorted recital Sunday at Shalin Liu which closed this summer’s treasurable Rockport Chamber Music Festival.    [continued]

One day after its NYC season opener, the New York Classical Players made a Jordan Hall debut for the Korean Cultural Society under the rubric “Rising Stars Concert 2021.” Rigor, passion and adventure ensued.    [continued]

Our far-flung correspondent discovers the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Stacy Garrop’s Spectacle of Light, and Chicago’s Orchestra of the Baroque.    [continued]

Nothing stood between the Han-Setzer-Finckel ensemble and their création of the Ghost and Dumky trios at the Shalin Liu last night.    [continued]

Redressing a 20-year absence, the Cavani String Quartet ended the Maverick Concerts season on Sunday with stimulating and idiomatic playing of Beethoven, Daron Hagen, and Dvořák.    [continued]

Pianist Stewart Goodyear, a rising composer and keyboard superman, shared Beethoven’s star designation Thursday with James Ehnes, a cognoscenti’s sovereign of the violin, in the Kreutzer and Spring sonatas at Shalin Liu.    [continued]

The Boston Landmarks Orchestra finished its 2021 summer series on the Esplanade Friday with an all-American program in which Music Director Christopher Wilkins mixed familiar and beloved pieces with nearly forgotten works by 19th- and 20^th-century composers and one world premiere.    [continued]

The familiar and much-admired Borromeo String Quartet lived up to high expectations Sunday afternoon at the Maverick, playing in ways that force one to listen carefully and giving this reviewer a deeply rewarding experience    [continued]

At Rockport on Friday, the still-young, now veteran pianist showed command of all aspects of the art, but more to come.    [continued]

The 22-year-old Van Cliburn Bronze Medalist Daniel Hsu revealed a poetic soul and great technical chops at the Gardner Sunday. His concert for the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts comprised Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Beethoven’s op. 110, and the Liszt Sonata.    [continued]

The 207-year-old Handel and Haydn Society, in its 2,536^th performance, placed Beethoven’s 197-year-old ninth symphony before 10,000 souls. The message: We’re back and we want to share the joy.    [continued]

For its welcome return engagement to the Maverick on Sunday, the Catalyst Quartet contrasted a modern first half with a 19^th-century second half in partnership with pianist Daniel Gortler— all with appropriate style.    [continued]

The Berkshire Opera Festival’s thoroughly enjoyable run of Verdi’s Falstaff continues Tuesday August 24^th and Friday August 27^th at 7:30pm in the Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington. I was in comic opera heaven—and the audience, judging from its chuckles and outright laughter, joined me there.    [continued]

Though the Amernet String Quartet showed up for the Maverick Concert in Woodstock on August 22^nd informally outfitted, their attitude towards concertizing was in no way casual.    [continued]

Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the extraordinary Leonidas Kavakos as the soloist and Brahms’s Fourth Symphony under Herbert Blomstedt came across with utter mastery all around last Sunday.    [continued]

Two Russian woman—a conductor and a composer—and a French pianist joined the Boston Symphony Saturday for a thoroughly satisfying concert in the Shed.    [continued]

The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra closed the season with three chestnuts plus a brief new piece by young African-American composer Brian Raphael Nabors at the Shed on Monday.    [continued]

The star-studded Junction Trio squeezed Conrad Tao’s reusable plastic bags to save the world and inspired awe with virtuosic Ravel in a somewhat bipolar show at the Shalin Liu on Sunday.    [continued]

Friday’s Pops Movie Night at Tanglewood under John Williams and Keith Lockhart mixed familiar music with imagery from much-loved films as well as bringing out some worthy discoveries. Romance, the dark side, and adventure were musiced with appropriate gusto as the images swept us away.    [continued]

Clarinetist Anthony McGill and the Miro Quartet gave the Rockport Music crowd nothing less than superb mastery, vision, and charisma last Saturday. Bravo!    [continued]

After an improvisatory first half medley of connected short pieces, the dreadlocked pianist Awadagin Pratt delivered a most gratifying account of the Liszt Sonata to a grateful Maverick on Sunday.    [continued]

How does the oldest summer singer training program in the country respond to a pandemic? When you’re the Seagle Festival — a 106-year-old program in scenic Schoon Lake, New York — the answer is “very cautiously” in terms of safety, and “very audaciously” in terms of programming. And so it is that, last night, the Seagle Festival opened a sold-out world premiere — and live — performance of Harmony, an opera about the groundbreaking American composer Charles Ives. Read former BMInt writer Basil Considine’s Twin Cities Arts Reader account HERE.    [continued]

A Hawaiian’s ukulele rendering of the Japanese folk song Sakura stood out as the lone highlight of Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop Online Performance Festival streaming Friday night and beyond from the New England Conservatory of Music.    [continued]

Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medal cellist Zlatomir Fung spread out an imaginary opera stage populated with vividly costumed divas of the 19^th century in his transcription outing at Shalin Liu last night.    [continued]