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With Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax on hand—and an audience that repeatedly, rapturously made its feelings known—the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s opening weekend served as both a musical showcase and a public tribute to its departing music director.
In this monumental, politically charged epic, the author turns Cold War imperialism, government secrecy, and the limits of human understanding into a haunting story of weaponized ghosts.
Our expert critics supply a guide to film, visual art, theater, author readings, television, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.
A Singapore Symphony Orchestra recording of compositions by John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, and Hugo Friedhofer quietly punctures old prejudices about film composers and “serious” music.
Boston’s pop music scene in November has an international flair. Multiple groups from the UK who specialize in folk and electropop join bands from Spain and Ireland in coming to Boston this fall. While the picks for this month all have roots abroad, these acts make the Fall months of Boston that much more inviting.…
The remake follows the same plot as the 1984 original, but the new version is more like watching a bunch of twelve-year-old kids in a steel cage death match. Reviewed by Tom Samph In a time when baby-faced Michael Cera and whiny John Mayer are cultural icons, Americans still can’t get enough blood and guts.…
In their latest collection, “Suit Up,” Brandeis VoiceMale have yet again produced an eclectic mix of passionately sung, expertly mixed A Cappella covers. Reviewed by Thomas Samph The title of the album tells us to suit up. Evidently that’s what the all-male group did before going into the recording studio, because they have a truly…
Soprano-conductor Barbara Hannigan’s semiquincentennial album reframes familiar American classics through a lens of wistfulness, insight, and quiet defiance.
By Thomas Samph This month’s music selection is all about trying something new. One of my selected artists recorded her entire album in a church. One guy kissed another guy on stage at an awards show that was on live TV. And another group brings together nine solo acts under one dirty name that has…
Film Music Commentary: Why “The Odyssey” Should Have Been a Silent Film
Christopher Nolan’s high-tech Homer struggles to achieve epic grandeur; Fritz Lang’s “Die Nibelungen,” with its stylized images and Gottfried Huppertz’s symphonic score, shows what modern spectacle leaves behind.
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