The resonant air came alive Saturday with the sound of Bach at First Church Cambridge as the Spectrum Singers counterpointed away with 16^th-note ha-ha-has galore, including, in one long run, 120 iterations—just for the basses.    [continued]

The ever-popular Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with the remarkable 18-year-old Swedish soloist Daniel Lozakovich, formed the centerpiece of this weekend’s concerts from Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall Thursday.  The three shorter pieces included  “My River runs to thee . . . ,”   Galina Gigorjeva’s 1999 Na iskhod (“On Leaving”) and Shostakovich’s single-movement Symphony No. 2 (To October).    [continued]

As the Zukerman Trio, violinist Pinchas Zukerman, cellist Amanda Forsyth and pianist Angela Cheng filled the Concord Academy hall Sunday with estimable intimacy, egalitarianism, and collegiality.    [continued]

A select, ad-hoc orchestra of volunteers inspired by cancer survivor Julie Scolnik played a moving benefit concert at Jordan Hall on Sunday.    [continued]

Harvard University’s Blodgett Artists-in-Residence, the Parker String Quartet, gave an enthusiastic crowd a well-honed and oft-inspired selection of  Mozart’s Hoffmeister quartet, Leon Kirchner’s first string quartet and Schubert’s “cello” quintet on Sunday.    [continued]

Curtis on Tour brought its brilliant quartet in residence along with an illustrious faculty pianist to Rockport in company with Beethoven, Bright Sheng, and Franck.    [continued]

Violinist Inmo Yang and pianist Sahun Hong offered diverse works for violin and piano at the Gardner this afternoon, sandwiching examples by three relatively unknown composers the stalwart sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert.    [continued]

Renaissance Men’s “On This Island,” an hour-long musical exploration of those islands to the West of the European continent, in settings ranging from traditional to art-song, filled the Parish Hall for Late Night at Emmanuel last night.    [continued]

Andris Nelsons’s BSO concerts this week pair Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor (1868), Leif Ove Andsnes, soloist, with  Mahler’s Fourth Symphony featuring the radiant soprano Genia Kühmeier. “No music on earth can compare with ours.”    [continued]

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450, condemning “sexual perversion,” which purged an estimated  1,200 federal employees accused of homosexual activity from the government in what is now known as the “lavender scare,” formed the backdrop  of Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers. I attended the Boston debut yesterday. BLO’s run continues through Sunday and the Paramount Center.    [continued]

The Terezin Music Foundation’s annual gala concert at Symphony Hall helped keep alive the memory and music of artists interned at the “model concentration camp.”    [continued]

Anne Azéma led the musicians of the Boston Camerata in the lively and moving “Free America! Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion” at Faneuil Hall Friday.    [continued]

Sounding great in its 80^th season, Masterworks Chorale gloried in Vivaldi at Sanders on Saturday under  Kevin Leong,    [continued]

Violinist Randall Goosby and pianist Zhu Wang took a turn at Ashmont Hill Chamber Music on Sunday with “pieces I love.”    [continued]

Thalea String Quartet’s “trans-Atlantic encounters, ” with composers blending European modes of expression with American modes, appealed to first-time listeners as well as seasoned aficionados at the Gardner Sunday.    [continued]

Jamie Kirsch and Lisa Graham led 241 singers and players of Chorus pro Musica and Metropolitan Chorale in little-known Kodály, Janáček, and Mendelssohn at Jordan Hall last night for quite the choral feast.    [continued]

With Bernard Labadie at the helm, Guy Fishman as soloist, and a compositional array spanning 1750 to 1807, the Handel and Haydn Society presented its 2,478^th concert last night at Symphony Hall. Repeated Sunday at 3:00    [continued]

With a French first half and a Russian second, Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Thursday concert under Andris Nelsons,wowed with Mitsuko Uchida in the Ravel Concerto, a Betsy Jolas premiere, and a Shostakovich symphony.    [continued]

Alchemist Laurence Lesser got great reactions in the mixture of Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn on Monday at Jordan Hall.    [continued]

The Boston Early Music Festival’s welcome re-engagement of Vox Luminis in a program of German motets, representing most of the Bach family tree, brought great pleasure to the First Church, Cambridge crowd Saturday.    [continued]

The Belgian period vocal ensemble Vox Luminis brought its North American tour to a close on Saturday with “The Bach Dynasty,” a set of less-familiar music by members of J.S. Bach’s family, plus a concluding cantata by Johann Sebastian himself, for the Boston Early Music Festival at First Church, Congregational on Saturday.    [continued]

With contralto Emily Marvosh in the title role, the Cantata Singers Chorus and Orchestra gave us a Solomon for the ages Saturday night at Jordan Hall.    [continued]

Victor Rosenbaum selected Mozart works for his Sunday evening at Jordan Hall with violist Kim Kashkashian, Laurence Lesser on cello and Kristopher Tong on violin.    [continued]

After hearing the ensemble twice this weekend in the seaport district of Boston, I am delighted to report that, like a well-seasoned string quartet, Blue Heron simply gets better and better.    [continued]

Yclept “American Noir,” the Criers’ Jordan Hall outing on Friday contained music written by American and American-resident composers in the tight span from 1936-1960.    [continued]