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None of these games engendered any suffering at all. They were already pre-designed for failure; a player has no chance of success. But isn’t part of the pleasure of gaming the repeated failures that, over time, lead to successes?
What is a Judicial Review? It is a fresh approach to creating a conversational, critical space about the arts and culture. This session discusses Elizabeth Graver’s new novel The End of the Point, a multi-generational story about the trials and tribulations of a family that takes place between 1942 and 1999 in Ashaunt Point, a fictional beach community on Massachusetts’ seacoast.
Recipe for a memorable evening at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium: two of the world’s great clarinetists, an inspiring conductor, a hard-working student band, and a major new piece of the clarinet repertoire.
In some ways, Jonathan Jones’ narrative structure works against his strengths. Highly respected as a critic, he is an energetic and engaging writer and excels at what art historians call “close looking,” where he guides the reader line by line, brush stroke by brush stroke, through a work of art.
This album manages to impressively realize the depth and versatility of John Adams’s music for string quartet. It also announces the arrival of a phenomenal ensemble that plays with a mix of maturity, adventure, and musical insight: this is a group to follow closely and cheer.
Director Liesl Tommy’s unflinching approach gives Lorraine Hansberry’s classic a surprising urgency more than half a century after the drama first played on Broadway.
The members of the Collective seem to have an understanding that their job is to make music that reflects a group identity as well as their individual personalities.
The Celebrity Series of Boston offers top-notch artists and performing ensembles from around the world. With a Russian at the helm, it is no surprise that the Shostakovich Concerto would match or exceed expectations. The question was whether the Beethoven would.
Whether or not there’s a real lover, or whether all of this is an elaborate fantasy is beside the point. For Harold Pinter, it may all be the same thing.
Ultimately, “The Elimination” is less a literary effort than an act of witness by both writer and reader.
Arts Commentary: The Boston Symphony’s New Humanities Blueprint Makes Sense