The final installment of “A Fine Balance: Piano Music by Women and Men”  paired female composers with male counterparts, based on the timbre, character, and theme of the music. Keeping with the unmatched tradition of this series, two young pianists from the preparatory school, joined the festivities in a unique and inspiring partnership.   [continued]

Schmoozing with the audience before the concert and during the intermission at Church of the Covenant in Boston, Horizon Ensemble’s volunteer players, inspired by their bon-vivant leader Julian Gau, broadened and diversified  concert protocols into something resembling a college mixer. Further democratizing, the orchestra was seated without risers, though that obscured most of the players   [continued]

Seth Parker Woods along with pianist Andrew Rosenblum played a mix of two romantics and three American moderns at the Gardner Museum’s Calderwood Hall Sunday afternoon.   [continued]

The Boston Symphony Orchestra embarked on its three-week ‘Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope,’ on Friday, “exploring themes of cultural belonging and social justice.”   [continued]

Alice Chenyang Xu  and her husband Miles Fellenberg joined their honored and well-traveled teachers Meng-Chieh Liu and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein  in a long, varied, and exciting program   [continued]

“How silver-sweet sound,” Chameleon Arts Ensemble’s veddy British thematic conceit, led the grateful congregation at First Church Boston though the English pastoral countryside with banners flying.   [continued]

The huge anticipation of Igor Levit’s interpretation of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas made it hard to come by tickets for Saturday night’s Celebrity Series concert.   [continued]

Igor Levit made a fine case for the feat of playing Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas in a single span. Saturday night’s Celebrity Series recital at Jordan Hall eased us from the dramatic here and now into a quiet infinity.   [continued]

Alyssa Wang, multi-talented conductor, violinist, and composer, featured as a guest artist on violin alongside regular members of the essential Boston Chamber Music Society at Jordan Hall last Sunday.   [continued]

Jeffrey Means led Sound Icon Friday at the ICA under the auspices of  the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Boston University Center in a show which included the life story of writer and storyteller Mollena Lee Williams-Haas.   [continued]

Mark Adamo’s evergreen Little Women, in a sold-out 4-performance run at the Booth Theater, gave two large casts and copious collaborators plenty of scope to demonstrate the thriving good health of the BU School of Music Opera Institute and School of Theater.   [continued]

In “Transformation” at Granoff yesterday,  Anne Howarth and friends made the case for Francis Poulenc’s hard-to-take Elégie. At the end, alleluias resounded.   [continued]

The  successful production of Gilbert’s and Sullivan’s The Grand Duke was the company’s  first full-staged show since 2020. The run continues next weekend.   [continued]

Odyssey Opera in partnership with Boston Modern Orchestra Project staged a two-act opera that recounts the poignant real-life story of the young neurologist Dr. Sacks treating patients beset by a mysterious sleeping sickness. Saturday night’s show at the Huntington Theater served to preview the BMOP/Odyssey Opera recording project.   [continued]

The Boston Philharmonic and soloists with Chorus Pro Musica and the Marsh Chapel Choir under conductor Benjamin Zander filled Symphony Hall for a strong Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony last night.   [continued]

The Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra brought J.S. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos to Jordan Hall on Friday night in ebullient fashion.   [continued]

In Paul Rudolph’s soaring modernist sanctuary of First Church in Boston last night, we rediscovered the glorious rhapsodic beauty and innovative percussive power of Brahms’s piano music in the hands of Sergey Schepkin and the Lindsey siblings.   [continued]

Israeli pianist and conductor Lahav Shani made his debut with BSO Thursday. The show: Prokofiev’s Classical, Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Concerto with Thibaudet, and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances.   [continued]

Klangforum Wien, 22 players and conductor Johannes Kalitzke brought “Procession” to Sanders Theater Friday night for the Fromm Players.   [continued]

A knock-your-socks-off world premiere of American composer Carlos Simon’s Four Black Dances. Bloch’s early 20^th-century musical narrative about King Solomon, Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque with the inspirational young cellist, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and a rich take on Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony constituted this week’s BSO offerings   [continued]

On behalf of the Foundation for Chinese Performing arts, pianist Kate Liu captivated Saturday’s Jordan Hall audience with her sensitive, passionate performances, from the softest, most intimate whispers to the boldest outcries.   [continued]

Guerilla Opera brought Elena Ruehr’s new opera to life at the Theater Arts Building W97 Black Box Theater on the MIT campus over the last weekend. Lovelace and Babbage ecounted a series of adventures filled with humor, espionage, and intrigue from the Victorian steampunk world to a multiverse.   [continued]

The Claremont Trio’s all-19^th-century program at the Gardner on Sunday afternoon started with two splendid works by women composers and concluded with Brahms’s Trio No. 1.   [continued]

A Far Cry’s “Unrequited,” at Jordan Hall on Friday night, paid tribute to the Brahms-Clara Schumann relationship, a bond as fraught as it was loving. Crier-violinist Megumi Lewis introduced the show which began as guest soprano Katharine Dain sang three of Clara’s Lieder to accompaniments which Crier Rafael Popper-Keizer derived.   [continued]

Andris Nelsons led the BSO through a unforgettable traversal of excerpts from Wagner’s Tannhäuser on Thursday night. Soloits Amber Wagner, soprano; mezzo-soprano Marina Prudenskaya; Klaus Florian Vogt, tenor and  Christian Gerhaher, baritone fronted the BSO and the TFC Thursday night. Repeats tonight. Don’t miss it.   [continued]