Music
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Joan Baez and Indigo Girls Captivate Tanglewood
Mesmerizing Music on Sun Drenched Berkshire Afternoon
By: - Jun 24th, 2013Fifty years ago I first heard Joan and Bob at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge. Much has changed since then but a regal Baez, accompanied by The Indigo Girls demonstrated why she remains the queen of folk music. It was a stunning Tanglewood concert during a gorgeous afternoon in the Berkshires.
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Wilco Day Two
Solid Sound Festival at Mass MoCA
By: - Jun 23rd, 2013Opening the festival on Friday night Wilco performed a set of requests. Last night they returned to Joe Thompson Field, under a moonlit sky, to deliver a set of 28 songs. Fans came from far and wide for the third and most successful of the Solid Sound Festivals which concludes this afternoon.
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Wilco By Request at Mass MoCA
Third Solid Sound Festival
By: - Jun 22nd, 2013Last night Wilco returned to Mass MoCA to headline the third Solid Sound Festival this weekend. Under a big bright moon on a perfect evening they performed a set of requests for some 4,000 mellow fans. We got a contact high as pungent skunk weed perfumed the Berkshire air.
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Tanglewood Trails
Annual Return to Boston Symphony Violin Section
By: - Jun 21st, 2013In an annual trek from the Utah Symphony to Tanglewood violinist and author Gerald Elias opts for the scenic route. It is always exciting to rejoin the Boston Symphony Orchestra with its many perks of which he writes "For me, at the top of the list was Tanglewood."
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Nina Stemme Triumphs as Isolde in Vienna
A Highlight of 200th Anniversary of Wagner's Birth
By: - Jun 21st, 2013Stemme made her mark in the role of Isolde earlier this year in Houston, but her performance with a tender and often inspired Tristan in Vienna honored Richard Wagner in a very special production.
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The Boston Early Music Festival Just Smashing
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center June 21-23
By: - Jun 18th, 2013Handel wrote his first opera, "Almira," when he was only 19. Although it is no masterpiece, it shows at an early stage his gift for melody and his love of the high female voice. The renowned musical event comes to the Berkshires and Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center June 21-23.
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Some Thoughts on Evolving Media
CDs by The Deadly Gentlemen, Ian Tyson, Eric Bibb and Hayley Reardon
By: - Jun 16th, 2013Each month of late as my contact with recording artists expands, I am more and more often asked if I prefer a cd or a download. I generally prefer the experience of a physical cd in my hand. There is something more organic about finding the package in the mailbox, reading the return address and trying to guess what is inside and what pleasure the contents might bring. I like, while listening, having access to track listings and descriptions, personnel and even lyrics when they are included. On top of that, I find a cd is always easier to manipulate and access when driving, no doubt the result of years of practice.
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Tanglewood 2013
Complete Schedule of Concerts
By: - Jun 14th, 2013Here is a complete listing of scheduled concerts for the 2013 Tanglewood season.
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A Sprightly Rusalka in Zurich
Attention Must be Paid: Ekaterina Scherbachenko, Pavel Cernoch
By: - Jun 13th, 2013The design of the Zurich Opera House comes straight from Brno, Czechoslovakia so it does not surprise that Zurich creates just the right feeling and tone for Dvorak's great opera.
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Chris Smither at Eagle Hill Cultural Center
Plus new CDs by, Jack (Jackie Washington) Landrón & Spider John Koerner
By: - Jun 02nd, 2013So here is my take on the final performance of the 2012-13 Eagle Hill Cultural Center season and two exceptional recent recordings.
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EarSay: Catching up on the CD Backlog
Old Town School of Folk, Kirsty McGee, Karine Polwart and Maeve Gilchrist
By: - May 27th, 2013These cds have become embarrassments sitting on my “To be reviewed†shelf and staring at me with accusatory intensity. So, I made a pledge to devote myself over the next month or so of clearing up the backlog and every other installment will be dedicated to bring these gems, (and make no mistake these are gems not castaways) to your attention.
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Missy Mazzoli and the Gotham Opera
Le Poisson Rouge Showcases Opera and Other Music
By: - May 26th, 2013Neal Goren is the moving force behind Gotham Chamber Opera, eleven years old and mature beyond its years. Over and over again, in a variety of venues, Gotham brings us opera, intimate and at its best. Committed to bringing seldom performed opera to light, Goren also presents the cutting edge composers of our day. It was another brilliant evening at New York's arts cabaret Le Poisson Rouge
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Tanglewood Highlights Open Season
Schedule from June 21 to July 18
By: - May 23rd, 2013Tanglewood is front ending the 2013 season with popular music programming. It starts with Melissa Etheridge on June 21 and a weekend that also included Warren Haynes and the Pops preforming a tribute to Jerry Garcia. Then Joan Baez paired with the Indigo Girls. Terence Blanchard returns to Lenox on June 28 in a weekend that includes the perennial Garrison Keillor and Jackson Browne. The serious music begins July 5.
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EarSay: Iris Dement and Nora Jane Struthers
Iris Live at Bull Run and Nora Jane's New CD
By: - May 19th, 2013Although I did not know it was she or even know of her, I first heard the voice of Iris Dement while watching the final episode of Northern Exposure on July 26th, 1995.It was several years before I heard that voice again. In a live performance at Bull Run in Shirley I noted that while her vocal instrument has neither great range nor exceptional clarity, it does, however, embody a tapestry of tones that are conduits for a greater variety of passions and emotions than any other voice I know.
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Andris Nelsons New Music Director of the BSO
Appointment of Youthful Conductor Shocks Music World
By: - May 16th, 2013With the numerous cancellations of former Music Director, James Levine, his inevitable retirement and a two year interregum, the past few years have been a nightmare for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Just in his mid 30s the Latvian born Andris Nelsons has been appointed as Music Director of the BSO and Tanglewood.
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John Harbison's Opera The Great Gatsby
July 11 at Tanglewood
By: - May 16th, 2013After its last outing at the Met a dozen years ago, Harbison's grand opera seemed to be forgotten. Now, a trimmer, more fleet version brings the works virtues to the fore. The opera will be performed at Tanglewood on July 11.
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Giulio Cesare a Triumph at the Met Opera
Natalie Dessay in Top Form
By: - May 12th, 2013Handel took eight months to compose Giuilo Cesare, an unusually long time for him. Rinaldo was composed in two weeks. Harry Bicket, conducting with his hands, sometimes on a harpsichord which held his score, brought forward all the delights of this superb score.
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The Flying Dutchman at Boston Lyric Opera
Closes Season With American Premiere of 1841 Critical Edition
By: - May 07th, 2013The Boston Lyric Opera assembled a sterling company of singers adept at Wagnerian style while music director David Angus conducted a white-hot orchestra. Its presentation of Richard Wagner’s early work, “The Flying Dutchman,†his first mature success, to commemorate the bicentennial of the composer’s birth, was not only one of the largest productions in its history, but it was the U.S. premiere of a newly prepared critical edition of the work.
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Blind Boys of Alabama Visit Cape Cod
Wellfleet Congregational Church May 25
By: - May 07th, 2013The Blind Boys of Alabama are recognized worldwide as living legends of gospel music. Celebrated by The Grammy Awards and The National Endowment for the Arts with Lifetime Achievement Awards, inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, honored by performing for three presidents in the White House, and are winners of five Grammy Awards.
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Imagine Beethoven's Fifth As It Premiered
Interpretation: A Case for Broad Perspective
By: - May 04th, 2013How wonderful it would be to be able to hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony exactly as it was heard at its premiere! Or would it? The classical violinist, conductor and author Gerald Elias discuses how great masterpieces evolve over time.
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Remembering Sir Colin Davis
Renowned Counductor was 85
By: - May 03rd, 2013As Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony from 1972 to 1984, Sir Colin Davis not only conducted the orchestra four or five weeks a year, he also led some of the orchestra’s great recording projects: the complete Sibelius symphonies (some say the best set ever recorded), and music by Schubert, Mendelssohn and Berlioz. He also was a leading interpreter of Handel, Haydn and Edward Elgar.
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Aaron Neville at MASS MoCA
Launches Summer Concerts on May 25,
By: - May 03rd, 2013Aaron Neville's recent release, My True Story, is a collection of classic doo-wop numbers. To create the album, Neville teamed up with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and the legendary Blue Note label producer, Don Was. Showcasing the old-school rhythm and blues that were the key influences throughout his career, Neville covers The Drifters, The Clovers, and Little Anthony and the Imperials. "Opportunities like this don't come 'round very often," says Richards. "I grew up with these songs, like Aaron did. It's such a pleasure to play with a voice like that."
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Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra
Performing a Great Work
By: - May 03rd, 2013The first time I performed the Concerto for Orchestra I was moonlighting on last stand of the second violins in the New Haven Symphony. The New Haven Symphony has a long and respectable history as a semi-professional orchestra with many fine musicians. The gig also enabled me to pick up a few bucks for my Yale tuition.
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A Particularly Cunning Vixen Arrives at Juilliard
Julia Bullock Makes Her Mark in the Title Role
By: - May 01st, 2013Conducting, Anne Manson displays a mastery of music and drama that should have a much broader audience. Julia Bullock, a young soprano phenom, won first prize in the Young Concert Artists Competition of 2012. Peter Sellars has taken note, and cast her in Purcell’s The Indian Queen at the Teatro Real in Madrid this fall.
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The Mount's Season Highlights
Sculpture, Theatre, Film, Music, Literature
By: - Apr 30th, 2013Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Tom Reiss, Shakespeare & Company, SculptureNow, BIFF and Lift E'vry Voice have something in common: they are all part of The Mount's 2013 summer season.
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