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With musicians of the NWJCO’s caliber, there never was a question that the music would be performed well in concert. It’s more that, after living with this repertoire for almost a year, the players took greater possession of the music and made it more their own, even in performance of the written material. By Steve…
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A couple of inspired collaborations, plus music from Colombia and Turkey, can all be heard in the first part of November. (We’ll have more events in our Coming Attractions in for late November.)
Read MoreHoliday season is kicking in, which means it becomes harder to find theater that doesn’t set out to warm your heart and melt your mind. Though a Santaland Diary or two remains, the vogue for cynical Xmas shows has run its course. Still, all is not lost when you can still find such extraordinary family…
Read MoreAt the invitation of AF editor Bill Marx and at the risk of further delaying my observations on the New World Jazz Composers Octet, I’m straying from the jazz beat to offer some words on ArtsEmerson’s presentation of Aftermath at the Paramount. The regrettably short run of this New York Theatre Workshop production (October 27–31) will…
Read MoreAmong the classical possibilities this month, the Discovery Ensemble tackles Stravinsky’s perky, neo-classical “Dumbarton Oaks Concerto,” The Spectrum Singers offers a rare chance to hear the Mass, Op. 130 by the Belgian composer Joseph Jongen, and Boston Musica Viva serves up two world premieres: Bernard Hoffer’s Piano Trio (“Cosmic”), and Chris Arrell’s “Convergence.” By Caldwell…
Read MoreWhy should you have been in Jordan Hall on October 21? First, to hear Ken Schaphorst’s reconstruction of Duke Ellington’s “Harlem,” aka “A Tone Parallel to Harlem,” aka “The Harlem Suite,” a score on which Ken labored painstakingly and which the NEC Jazz Orchestra played thrillingly well. Music of Duke Ellington. Performed by New England…
Read MoreThis is a play where characters don’t remove their clothes but the walls they’ve built to protect their inner selves.
Read MoreThe possibilities of the internet as well as the MET in HD pull Wagner’s dream of a total work of art into the context of 21st-century technology and culture, making possible new cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary references as never before. I think he would have loved it. By Helen Epstein. When I was a musicology student…
Read MoreThe Whiting Award winner’s short story collection is made up of tales filled with a gentle lyricism as well as a clear-eyed concern for characters stuck in “survival mode,” men and women, sheep farmers and taxidermists, who are scraping by, past their prime, or morally lost. By Bill Marx. Born in Boston and raised in…
Read MoreLeonardo Drew has taken Louise Nevelson’s signature Cubist cabinets and turned them into something greater. By Franklin Einspruch. The career arc of Leonardo Drew began curling upwards over 20 years ago, and by the time his reputation had spread nationally in the early 1990s, identity politics had become an established feature of the art world.…
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Arts Feature: Best Movies (With Some Disappointments) of 2025