classical music
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"Jack Quartet, IRCAM prove electric company at ICA"Boston Globe, May 3, 2016 It's always good to catch up with the JACK Quartet, whose name I'll render here in its preferred all-caps-as-acronym form even if the newspaper declined to do so. (The group's fans know "JACK" = John Pickford Richards, Ari Streisfeld, Christopher Otto, and Kevin…
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Courtenay Budd, David Del Tredici, and Gil Rose with BMOP, by Kathy Wittman "Rose, BMOP wax ecstatic in glorious, unsettling 'Alice'"Boston Globe, February 27, 2016 There are times, and they are not infrequent, when I worry that I've lost my knack for doing the things I used to do regularly at The New York Times,…
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David Del Tredici, among the bravest composers I've come to know over the years — and among the most personable, too, as this candid and chatty 2012 interview with Seth Colter Walls shows — celebrates his 79th birthday today, March 16. Next year, with luck, will bring a plethora of round-anniversary-year performances, but right now…
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Anthony Davis, the estimable American composer, pianist, and bandleader born in Paterson, NJ, on February 20, 1951, celebrates his 65th birthday today. Having declined an invitation to join the Grateful Dead as a 20-year-old Yale student in 1971 (an incident reported in 2011 by George Varga in the San Diego Union-Tribune), Davis initially came to…
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The eminent Hungarian composer György Kurtág turns 90 today, and — it's reported by his publisher, Editio Musica Budapest — remains hard at work on a magnum opus, the Beckett-based opera Fin de partie. In wishing him robust health, I offer in tribute a small handful of useful links, including an outstanding Jeremy Eichler profile…
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Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, John Cage, David Tudor, and Morton Feldman in 1962; photo credit: Earle Brown Music Foundation On Wednesday, January 20, Bostonians will have what appears to be a unique opportunity to hear three significant pieces by three major composers from the so-called New York School, crammed into 210 eventful minutes at two…
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John Weise of Sissy Spacek, by Amoeba Records NEW MUSIC BOSTONJuly 2015 (Posted July 11, and very much an attempt in progress this month…) We're late, and with more cause than usual. Rather than the characteristic attempt to catalog all of the myriad, wonderful new-music offerings coming up in Boston and the surrounding area,…
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Keith Lockhart, by Suzanne Kreiter/Boston Globe "After 20 years, Keith Lockhart keeping the Pops youthful"Boston GlobeMay 5, 2015 My front-page story about Keith Lockhart and his eventful journey to the Boston Pops, with which institution he celebrates his 20th anniversary in a spring season that starts tonight (May 6) with a swanky concert featuring Bernadette…
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Georges Aperghis, by Charlotte Oswald NEW MUSIC BOSTONMay 2015 (Updated May 13) 1 Boston Conservatory Wind EnsembleDavid Fulmer, Rotaries; Edgard Varèse, Déserts; Ron Nelson, Rocky Point Holiday; plus music by RespighiEric Hewitt, conductorBoston Conservatory Theater, 8 the Fenway, Boston8 p.m.FREEMore information Alisa Weilerstein & Inon BarnatanJoseph Hallman, DreamLog; plus works by Beethoven, Schubert, and RachmaninoffPresented…
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Book review: Philip Glass, 'Words Without Music'Boston GlobeApril 12, 2015 Scanning the many reviews of Philip Glass's new memoir since I filed my own report last week, I think it's safe to say that we're mostly all on the same page, so to speak: charmed by Glass's early history, less than overwhelmed by his travel…
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Yarn/Wire, by Bobby Fisher This almost was called The Rest Is News. Among the great many kindnesses that Alex Ross has shown me during our years of collegial labor are his occasional nods to my notorious list-making penchant. Mulling what to call this latest addition to my own blog, in which I'll round up some…
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So, Andrew Norman's "Play" might be the best orchestral work that the 21st century has seen thus far — Will Robin (@seatedovation) December 20, 2014 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js We have Andrew Norman to thank, and Will Robin, too, for Symphomania, the 24-hour marathon of 21st-century orchestral music that web radio station Q2 Music streamed on March 24…
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Tania León, by Niels Leiser NEW MUSIC BOSTONApril 2015 (Updated March 22) 1 Pierluigi Billone residencyVerticale Muto; Mani. MattaMike Williams, percussion; [sound icon]College of Fine Arts Concert Hall, Boston University, 855 Commonwealth Ave., Boston8 p.m.Free admissionMore information Philip GlassWords Without Music: A Conversation with Philip GlassBerklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston7 p.m.$30, includes signed…
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Virgil Thomson "…reviews, though couched in opinion—which is what makes them either illuminating or maddening but also, one hopes, compelling and worth debating—are fundamentally reportage. They are the chronicles of the cultural world, accounts of who did what on a given night, in a given hall, before hundreds or thousands of people interested enough to…
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Arneis Quartet, by Liz Lender The Arneis Quartet – violinists Heather Braun and Rose Drucker, violist Daniel Doña, and cellist Agnes Kim – embarks on a fascinating literary and musical excursion this month at Boston University's Morse Auditorium. The quartet's March 31 concert, "Poetry and Music: T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, Beethoven and Gubaidulina," is the…
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Cameron Carpenter, by Sean Proctor/Boston Globe Cameron Carpenter at Sanders Theatre, March 5, 2015Boston GlobeMarch 9, 2015
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Christian Wolff NEW MUSIC BOSTONMarch 2015 (Updated March 21) 8 Boston Civic SymphonyThomas Oboe Lee, Trumpet Concerto (world premiere); Stephen Burns, Fanfare for Freedom; plus works by Honegger and BerliozStephen Burns, trumpet; Taichi Fukumura, conductorJordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston2 p.m.$15-$40More information Brand New Music/New Music BrandeisEmily Koh, smidgen(S); Victoria Cheah, Tell:Abschied; Gleb Kanasevich, suono…
Night After Night 