Music

Concert Review: John Storgårds opens the BSO’s Music of the Midnight Sun Festival

March 6, 2024
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The Finnish conductor’s welcome return to the Boston Symphony Orchestra heralds the kick-off of a two-week festival of Nordic music.

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Jazz Album Review: Gustavo Cortiñas’s “Live in Chicago” — The Culmination of a Decade’s Worth of Music

March 6, 2024
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Throughout this superb live album, percussionist Gustavo Cortiñas allows his fellow band members an enormous amount of space, and that is welcome because of their high level of musicianship.

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Jazz Album Review: Abdullah Ibrahim’s “3” – Meditations on a Legacy

March 5, 2024
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A new release from Abdullah Ibrahim adds almost 100 minutes to a legacy of paramount importance to jazz, to world music, and to our understanding of a life lived in art.

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Classical Music Concert Preview: Cappella Clausura to Perform Ethel Smyth’s Mass in D

March 2, 2024
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Mass in D was Ethel Smyth’s first large-scale score and, according to Cappella Clausura conductor Amelia LeClair, the composition expressed her yearning for hope and redemption.

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Concert Review: The Boston Philharmonic Performs Ravel, Berg, and Mahler

February 29, 2024
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The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra was violinist Liza Ferschtman’s equal partner for much of the performance, imbuing Alban Berg’s dense orchestral writing with warmth and shapeliness

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Book Review: “Jazz With a Beat: Small Group Swing, 1940-1960” — Told With an Edge

February 27, 2024
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Shouting and honking saxes made visceral appeals to the emotions and the body. For jazz critics, this kind of theatricality degraded what should have been ‘Art.’

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Classical Album Reviews: “African American Voices 2” & “A Room of Her Own”

February 24, 2024
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Kellen Gray and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra continue its mission of bringing vital music to life; the Neave Trio releases an album of gems, a survey of piano trios by four women.

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Concert Review: Yunchan Lim — The BSO Brings in a Pianist to Watch

February 23, 2024
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Pianist Yunchan Lim struck an arresting balance between thunderous drama and filigreed lyricism as he tackled Rachmaninoff’s knuckle-busting score.

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Classical Album Reviews: Violinists Frank Peter Zimmermann and James Ehnes play Stravinsky

February 23, 2024
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Franz Peter Zimmermann’s rendition of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto overflows with style and character; James Ehnes’ version is generally warmer and more relaxed, though it doesn’t lack for rhythmic zip.

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Classical Album Reviews: “A Lionel Tertis Celebration” and “Laws of Solitude”

February 21, 2024
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Violist Timothy Ridout’s new double-album “A Lionel Tertis Celebration” is heartily recommended; soprano Asmik Grigorian’s “Laws of Solitude” not so much.

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