What more could you ask than that a musical comedy version of The Addams Family cast a kooky spell?
Feb 102012
Elegantly written, cogently argued, and filled with trenchant artistic analyses, Alexander Marr’s book exemplifies interdisciplinary studies at their best.
“69°S” takes risks that never put actual life or limb in danger, but under the static of snow and history, we learn that venturing to the edge is always a kind of art.
Worth checking out in February: a few solid experimental shows.
Ms. Bolden’s goal of evoking wintry climes was achieved because of her choice of pieces and musicians, who performed these compositions so well.
Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey first performed, as the soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. in the Celebrity Series line-up back in 2007. He made his second appearance at NEC’s Jordan Hall two nights ago. It was a spectacular performance.
Feb 052012
Award-winning filmmaker Helen Whitney: “My films form a kind of spiritual autobiography. I’m always searching for subjects that allow me to ask the big questions: Why are we here? Why must we die? Is this all there is?”
Aside from the intrinsic entertainment value of these operas, they show Ravel in quite a different light than we are used to from his chamber and other orchestral music.
This is a book for anyone interested not just in the economic state of the symphony orchestra, but in the overall financial health of the arts in the United States.
Feb 022012
I recommend keeping an eye out for this and other animation shows at local, independent theaters and museums. You will be dazzled and amazed.
Feb 012012
February feels like the ‘New November’: concerts of real interest during the weekdays and too many great concerts during the weekends.
The SAG Awards have everything you want, and very little you don’t. The ceremony celebrates film and television, so it’s always star-packed, and only honors actors, so you don’t have to sit through hours of awards for Best Sound Editing.
Jan 312012
The Anonymous 4 went through their medieval and early Renaissance paces, vibrato-less but historically informed and performed.
Jan 302012
Our discussions always took the same turn. Philip Guston attempted to convince me that artists like Piero della Francesca and the cave painters of Lascaux were in the first place abstractionists.
After the “Lobgesang”’s premiere, Robert Schumann declared this movement “a glimpse of heaven filled with Raphael’s madonnas,” and Saturday’s performance by the BSO came about as close to that as one could imagine, sensitively phrased and beautifully blended.
Though there were differences in quality between the compositions in the BMOP concert, all of the pieces fulfilled the primary requirement of a concerto: they showed off the capabilities of the solo instrument in question, often memorably so.
Jan 292012
You may be still catching up on the Academy Award, Golden Globe, People’s Choice, or SAG picks. But this month offers some rare and wonderful treats for film fans of all kinds.
Jan 272012
Italian writer Niccolò Ammaniti usually writes with an unadorned style about moral predicaments of the young in small-town Italy. “Me and You,” a slender effort in all respects, covers this ground as well, with the difference that fourteen-year-old protagonist Lorenzo Cumi is from an affluent Roman family.
The Cantata Singers approached both works with the sensitivities that each required. Music Director David Hoose retained the intensity of the music through his economic and unpretentious, but insistent, conducting.
Bierce proffers a satiric temperament gone wild and woolly, partly propelled by a revulsion at the criminal vulgarity of the Gilded Age. Given the current triumph of the 1%, his fury at power mad corporations is worth an admiring look.
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