Month: July 2011

Classical Music Review: Emerson String Quartet at Tanglewood

July 18, 2011
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On CD, the award-winning Emerson String Quartet are terrific, but live, they are even better.

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Classical Music Feature: What a Way to Start the Week!

July 16, 2011
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For those who imagine Tanglewood only as concerts in the huge shed which seats 6,000, these Sunday morning concerts offer a more intimate experience as well as a chance to hear modern pieces they never would hear in what we all call the “regular concert fare,”

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Fuse Remembrance: Karen Aqua 1954-2011—A Fitting Life, and Memorial

July 16, 2011
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The late Karen Aqua was the rarest of birds — a working artist who seldom needed to compromise her ideals in order to succeed. Befitting the legacy of this vibrant visual artist, husband Ken Field and a small team of volunteers organized a public memorial/celebration of Karen’s life for family, friends, and colleagues Sunday, July 10th at Somerville, MA’s Center for Arts at the Armory.

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Theater Review: Kander and Ebb’s Elegant and Understated “World”

July 16, 2011
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While this revue of Kander and Ebb tunes doesn’t have a plot, much dialogue, or even named characters, it does contain stories, funny and touching vignettes of ordinary lives.

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Movie Review: The World Goes “Tabloid”

July 15, 2011
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The documentary TABLOID comes at an opportune time: an enigmatic look at one of the greatest tabloid stories of all time (the film will convince you of that) as Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid news empire melts down amid allegations of phone hacking.

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Theater Review: The Venetian Twins — Commedia dell’arte Done Hilariously Right

July 15, 2011
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While by no means the headiest permutation of commedia dell’arte, Shakespeare & Company’s production of THE VENETIAN TWINS is skillful as anything a commedia enthusiast might hope to see.

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Theater Review: Matt & Ben — Nobody’s Home

July 14, 2011
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In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues that American culture is becoming dumber and dumber—plays like Matt & Ben suggest that we have entered the afterlife. Matt & Ben by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers. Directed by M. Bevin O’Gara. At the Central Square Theater, 450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA, through August…

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Classical Music Review: The Berlioz Requiem Opens Tanglewood In Style

July 13, 2011
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While these dramatic sections constitute the more celebrated musical attributes of Berlioz’s furious conception of Judgment Day, it is actually in the quieter, mostly contemplative sections that the writing generates a just as impressive visionary reflectiveness.

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Book Review: Can the iPad Save the Short Story?

July 13, 2011
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Two inviting collections of short short stories in translation — Catalan writer Quim Monzó sees fiction as an exhilarating if ingenious prison, Israeli writer Alex Epstein pens dreamy micro-yarns that free the imagination.

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Film Review: A Game Well Worth Playing

July 11, 2011
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QUEEN TO PLAY is an offbeat feminist fable, set in a gorgeous but dirt-poor and provincial part of Corsica.

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