Music
This was ensemble playing by two people who knew not only the music, but each other completely. There are some things you can’t fake, and one is ensemble playing with a person — or people — you love. (I speak from experience here). Everything was perfect.
July is a month when most of the great classical music is happening in pastoral settings and festivals around New England and far from Boston.
BEMF is, quite simply, paradise for those who love early music, and they seem to be a different audience than those who show up for, say, the Boston Symphony or any of the excellent chamber music groups around town.
For decades, Mr. Hamelin was known for his forbiddingly fabulous technique deployed to play and record vast swaths of immensely difficult and arcane repertoire that most pianists had rarely touched or even known of. Then, the past few years, he ventured into the standard repertoire with astonishing results.
The Boston Early Music Festival is THE place for performers to be heard. And there are enough good programs, between the big Jordan Hall concerts, the two operas, a Family Day program, the mini-festivals for organ and keyboard, fringe concerts at at odd hours of the day and late night, for everyone.
Honors for a Boston jazz institution and distinguished guests joining the Makanda Project highlight New England jazz in June, along with piano duos, CD releases, visitors from New Orleans and Senegal, and a genuine supergroup.
Updated: The 2011 festival season opens with big doings in Burlington, Cambridge, Brookline, New Haven, Manchester, Boston, Middlebury, Marblehead, Somerville, Worcester and North Adams
The biggest event this June is the Wilco-curated Solid Sound Festival at the MASS MoCA in North Adams. A couple of these bands will also be playing shows in Boston around the same time as the festival.
SpeakEasy Stage Company tops off its 20th-anniversary season with a delightful production of a Tony-winning comic valentine to the musical.
Recent Comments