Year: 2011

Classical Music Sampler: January 2012

December 31, 2011
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Highlights in classical music during January include a visit by the acclaimed cappella group Anonymous Four at the Gardner Museum’s new concert hall, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project performing “Strange Bedfellows: Unlikely Concertos.”

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Film Review: Of Sex and “Shame”

December 29, 2011
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Director Steve McQueen’s skillful exploration of troubled human behavior and his use of New York as a psychological landscape make “Shame” off-putting to watch, while at the same time it draws us in. We have no moral compass beyond our own attitudes to ambiguous contemporary sexual mores.

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Visual Arts: Pieter Saenredam Comes Home Again

December 28, 2011
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The places where Pieter Saenredam worked were never the same after he committed them to paper and paint. His single known painting of a building in Amsterdam -– of the old town hall –- became iconic during the life of the artist.

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Arts Remembrace: Remembering Adrienne Cooper

December 28, 2011
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Adrienne Cooper’s strong voice –- musically, linguistically and as a vibrant feminist presence –- shaped the revival of klezmer music in the 1980s and beyond, but her legacy is diffuse.

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Fuse News: Diva Mavis Staples will “Take you There” into NEW YEAR 2012!

December 27, 2011
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Legendary soul and gospel diva Mavis Staples will ‘take you there’, into the New Year, at Symphony Hall (@ 9 p.m.) this Saturday, December 31th, marking the performer’s First Night debut in Boston.

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Dance Review: Dystopian Dancing — Pina, a 3-D documentary

December 26, 2011
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As a dancer, Pina Bausch was the presiding spirit of speechlessness. She had the macabre body of an anorexic, but her matchstick arms communicated entire inner worlds.

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Fuse Books: A Few Year End Literary Favorites

December 25, 2011
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As the year nears its end, time is running out to write at length about some of the new books that gave me pleasure. Thus this quick list of favorites. As usual, my taste runs to prose that’s off-the-beaten-path.

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Fun Days in the PARC: Remembering Jacob Goldman

December 24, 2011
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How did it come about that a manufacturer of office equipment developed–and then largely abandoned–the first personal computer?

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Classical Music Review: Stile Antico Enchants Singing Tudor Music for Christmas and Advent

December 22, 2011
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Most importantly, there were the amazing, booming acoustics of St. Paul’s, which favored the soaring soprano voices that were, for me, the reason to see this excellent ensemble.

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Book Review: Flann O’Brien at 100 — An Enduring Comic Genius

December 20, 2011
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There is no way that The Arts Fuse was going to miss celebrating the 100th birthday of one of the greatest satirists of the 20th century — Irish genius Flann O’Brien.

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