Stephane Deneve
This is a terrific compendium of new music of the best sort: the kind that’s brilliantly written, expressively direct, played with assurance, and engineered with clarity and warmth.
The performance of John Adams’s “City Noir” is swift and characterful, though sometimes pushed perhaps a bit too hard for its own good. The rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade” is clear but a bit too safe.
Perhaps most remarkably, BSO conductor Stéphane Denève managed to create an atmosphere in which the Symphony Hall audience, which at this time of year sometimes sounds like it’s made up of inpatients from a tuberculosis ward, was utterly captivated: even the quietest moments were accompanied by a welcomed, attentive silence.

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