Jonathan Blumhofer

Cultural Commentary: Time for Arts Groups, Large and Small, to Display Some Bona Fide Irreverence

June 25, 2025
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The question before arts organizations and companies is the same one that looms over the rest of us: will they—can they—act before it’s too late?

Classical Album Reviews: “Ravel Fragments” & Stephen Hough plays Hough

June 23, 2025
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Pianist Bertrand Chamayou demonstrates just how mercurial and influential Ravel could be; composer-pianist Stephen Hough’s Piano Concerto casts a Ravel-like spell.

Classical Music Album Reviews: Stewart Goodyear and “Hallelujah Junction”

June 21, 2025
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Pianist Stewart Goodyear livens up a tried-and-true program with works new and unfamiliar; the husband-and-wife team of Lukas Geniušas and Anna Geniushene survey piano music written on these shores, starting in 1932.

Classical Music Album Reviews: Ravel/Bach and Bruch & Korngold Violin Concertos

June 19, 2025
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Pianist Yeol Eum Son is more than up to the demands of J.S. Bach and Maurice Ravel; violinist Bomsori brings exquisite balances and shimmering sonority to Bruch and Korngold.

Opera Preview/Interview: White Snake Projects’ “To The People Like Us” — Understanding the Urgency of the Moment

June 16, 2025
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Our conversation touched—considerably, as it turned out—on the current political climate and the dispiriting response of the musical world to the rising tide of homegrown authoritarianism.

Classical Music Album Reviews: “Somnia” and Eastman & Tchaikovsky Symphonies

June 4, 2025
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Denis Kozhukin is an inspired guide to music geared toward young players by Sergei Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky; Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst serve up mixed rewards in performances of symphonies by Julius Eastman and Tchaikovsky.

Classical Music Album Review: “American Excursions” — A Worthy Huzzah to Our 250th Anniversary

June 2, 2025
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“American Excursions” manages — and in a brisk fifty-nine minutes — to provide an impressive degree of racial, gender, and stylistic diversity.

Classical Music Album Review: Paganini “Caprices”

May 25, 2025
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The story of this album is that violinist María Dueñas enters as a star but emerges as a brilliant and preternaturally thoughtful artist.

Classical Music Album Review: Behzod Abduraimov Plays Prokofiev & Shor

May 24, 2025
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There’s much to recommend in Behzod Abduraimov’s rendition of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which is both highly characterful and a lot of fun to listen to.

Classical Album Reviews: “Beyond” and “War Silence”

May 21, 2025
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A new release from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Timothy Redmond showcases music from four very different composers, two British and two American. A survey of Italian concertos from pianist Roberto Prosseda, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and conductor Nir Kabaretti supplies a specter of menace.

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