Jonathan Blumhofer

Concert Review: Kirill Gerstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adés

November 16, 2012
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With “In Seven Days,” Thomas Adés seems to have developed a musical language that’s complex yet not forbidding: there’s no sense that his music is weighed down by expectations of the past, even as he freely refers to archaic compositional forms.

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Concert Review: Handel and Haydn Society/Bernard Labadie at Symphony Hall

November 11, 2012
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Handel & Haydn Society captured all of this and then some with a vigorous, focused performance that was a marvel of controlled fury.

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Concert Review: Gil Shaham and the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Juanjo Mena

November 6, 2012
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Saariaho’s music is often lush and vibrant, to be sure, but it also can lose track of its musical purpose and meander excessively from time to time. Not so in “Circle Map.”

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Classical Music Sampler: November 2012

November 1, 2012
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November features a number of visits from celebrated performers, from Kelly O’Connor and Thomas Adés to the Takács Quartet. Music for Food also presents its second concert/benefit of the season.

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Fuse Concert Review: Stravinsky and Ravel Operas by the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit

October 28, 2012
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That Symphony Hall was probably a third empty is inexplicable, but, if you missed any of these concerts, it’s truly your loss. These were among the BSO’s benchmark performances of the last decade.

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Classical CD Reviews: John Harbison’s “Winter’s Tale” (Soloists, Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose) and Derek Bermel’s Canzonas Americanas (Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson)

October 28, 2012
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If you think contemporary music is the domain of fusty academics and has no bearing on (or relationship to) the outside world, you really need to check out “Canzonas Americanas.”

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Classical CD Reviews: Bruckner Symphonies (complete), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Herbert Blomstedt (Querstand SACD)

October 27, 2012
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Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig present us here with what is easily the most memorable classical box set of 2012 and, possibly, the most important addition to the Bruckner discography in a generation.

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Fuse Concert Review: Joshua Weilerstein and the Discovery Ensemble/Courtney Lewis

October 23, 2012
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It’s a pity we can’t hear the Discovery Ensemble every week – it’s a group that radiates energy and models inventive programming.

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Concert Review: Bach’s Magnificat etc. with the Handel and Haydn Society/Harry Christophers

October 16, 2012
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Friday’s was the first of a series of strong, interesting programs H&H is offering this season. If its success is any indication of what’s to come (and I hope it is), we should have a very special few months ahead of us, indeed.

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Concert Review: Joshua Bell and the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Marcelo Lehninger

October 5, 2012
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This weekend’s soloist, Joshua Bell, is a performer who perhaps best approximates Leonard Bernstein’s charismatic personality in performance: a fully engaged interpreter, he does not shy away from physically expressing the emotional content of what he’s playing.

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