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Classical Music

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Blind ambition

Brother Ali is more than just albino
The only thing less common than Brother Ali–caliber MCs are profiles that don’t credit dude as “blind” and “albino” in the first graf.
By CHRIS FARAONE  |  November 05, 2009
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Blessings: mixed and otherwise

Boston Baroque’s Amadigi; Opera Boston’s Tancredi; the BSO’s Beethoven; the Borromeo’s Bartók; Brahms from BCMS and BSOCP
By odd coincidence, in recent weeks we’ve had performances of two important operatic rarities, landmark early works a century apart: 30-year-old Handel’s Amadigi (1715) and 20-year-old Rossini’s Tancredi (1813, his 10th opera!).
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  October 28, 2009
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In the swim

Guerilla Opera, von Stade’s farewell, the BSO, Handel and Haydn, the BPO, and that Tosca
My head’s swimming.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  October 14, 2009
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He is a real composer

And don't you try to tell Joshua Newton otherwise
Joshua Newton wants you to know he doesn't write classical music.
By EMILY PARKHURST  |  October 07, 2009
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Classical inheritance

Two fixtures hand over the reins to a younger generation
A teacher told me years ago that someday "you young people will inherit classical music. Then you can do with it what you want." And so I've been waiting.
By EMILY PARKHURST  |  September 30, 2009
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The roar of the crowd

‘Opening Night at Symphony,’ Russell Sherman, the Discovery Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, and the Bostonians
I wasn’t there, but the opening-night dissatisfaction with the Met’s new Tosca was widely reported.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  October 13, 2009
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Smaller, bigger, better

Boston Ballet’s fourth ‘Night of Stars’
Is Boston in the midst of a ballet boom? You could certainly believe that if you attended Boston Ballet’s fourth annual season-opening gala last Saturday.
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  September 22, 2009
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Leon Kirchner, 1919–2009

In Memoriam
Craggy, tender, passionate, witty, rough-edged, lyrical, uncompromising, Leon Kirchner's music, so like the man himself, made an indelible impression. Even in his recent appearance at a 90th-birthday tribute concert at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the old fire and wit, the frankness and the refusal to sentimentalize, were there.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 23, 2009
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Baroque and beyond

Betting on the best this fall
Ten-best lists usually come at the end of the season, but this year the Phoenix has asked its critics to provide a calendar of 10 events that, at least on paper, might wind up on an end-of-season Top 10. Boston, in case you didn't know it, is a great city for classical music, so it's not easy to keep the list short. But here goes.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 14, 2009

Providence Fall Preview Listings 2009

Music, theater, art, festivals and more in the coming months
A page of listings for local music, theater, art, festivals and more this fall.
By PHOENIX STAFF  |  September 17, 2009
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Midsummer madness

Mark Morris, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, Mozart in Boston, Meyerbeer at Bard
After a relatively quiet summer, I saw Boston Midsummer Opera's Cosí fan tutte at BU's Tsai Center. Then I raced out to Tanglewood for a Mark Morris program accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, a BSO matinee with Ma, and all six concerts in the annual Festival of Contemporary Music.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 29, 2009
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Review: The Silence Before Bach

Perplexing
Catalonian avant-garde filmmaker Pere Portabella expresses his adoration of Johann Sebastian Bach through an odd, rambling, privately formed essay that all too rarely connects with the viewer.
By GERALD PEARY  |  August 13, 2009
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The Big Hurt: Strung Out

Vitamin Records classes up the joint — kinda
A friend of mine is getting married soon, and she's been looking around for some classy wedding music.
By DAVID THORPE  |  July 29, 2009
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Michael Steinberg, 1928-2009

In Memoriam
Michael Steinberg, who died of cancer last Sunday morning in Minneapolis, was one of the great voices raised in defense of high culture, and Boston was lucky that he was based here for so many years.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  August 03, 2009
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French kiss

What we don't get in Boston
Productions I attended at the Opéra and Opéra Comique would be rare in New York, let alone Boston — though some of the performers would be familiar.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  July 10, 2009
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String vacation

Soundtrack for summer in Maine
With the Portland Symphony's elimination of its popular, but debt-inducing, Independence Pops concert series, Portlanders will have to travel a little farther to satisfy their classical-music appetites this summer. But it will be well worth the mileage.
By EMILY PARKHURST  |  July 08, 2009
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Fail better

Jóhann Jóhannsson explores the ruins of dreams
It's another gross, rainy afternoon in Boston, and I'm on the phone to Copenhagen with Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson talking about failure and despair. Great. Maybe I just had weird assumptions about Icelanders, but I expected we'd proceed on jollier terms.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  June 23, 2009
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Trail of tunes

Music al fresco at summer fests
The best summer music festivals take something from the season: the smell of the surf, the sight of the mountains, fireworks, lawn seating — or, at least, fried dough.
By CLEA SIMON  |  June 09, 2009
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Springer vs. Nero!

Monteverdi's Poppea opens the Boston Early Music Festival, plus the Cantata Singers, the Discovery Ensemble, and Barbara Cook at the Pops
Two opera productions overlapping at the Calderwood Pavilion exploit exploitation.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  June 10, 2009
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Interview: Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs

The BEMF does Poppea
"Opera fans have often puzzled over the fact that Poppea  does not appear to have a character the audience wants to root for, since everyone has seriously objectionable traits."
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  May 27, 2009
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Here comes the bride

Opera Boston's Smetana, the BSO's Berlioz, and Dawn Upshaw
It's been a long time since Bostonians had the chance to see the most popular Czech opera, Bedrich Smetana's The Bartered Bride , but Opera Boston followed its electrifying run of Shostakovich's The Nose with this tuneful folk opera and gave it a sweet and very likable production.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  May 12, 2009
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Home cooking

The National Philharmonic of Russia at Symphony Hall
If the name "National Philharmonic of Russia" puts you in mind of some provincial Slavic ensemble making the American rounds, you're not alone.
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  April 23, 2009
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Slideshow: Don Giovanni at Boston Lyric Opera

Don Giovanni at Boston Lyric Opera
Boston Lyric Opera presents Don Giovanni
By T. CHARLES ERICKSON  |  April 29, 2009
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A little history

Yehudi Wyner and John Harbison, Susanna Mälkki with the BSO, Natalia Gutman with the BPO, and BLO's Don Giovanni
Two of Boston's most admired and honored composers (both Pulitzer winners) have just celebrated landmark birthdays: Yehudi Wyner his 80th and John Harbison his 70th.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 28, 2009
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Diva-gations

Mark Wigglesworth conducts the BSO; Renée Fleming returns to Symphony Hall
Last week's Boston Symphony concert was a snaggle of contradictions. British guest conductor Mark Wigglesworth was substituting for the exciting but erratic Russian maestro Yuri Termirkanov, who'd cancelled all his American appearances.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 21, 2009

A pair of classical gems

String quartets pair up
Sunday afternoon, two string quartets — the Borromeo and the Portland — will meet and join forces for a rare performance of a pair of classical gems, Johannes Brahms's String Sextet in G Major, Op. 36 and Felix Mendelssohn's Octet in E flat Major, Op. 20 .
By EMILY PARKHURST  |  April 15, 2009
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Center of gravity

Shi-Yeon Sung and Nelson Freire at the BSO; plus the Schubertiade Music Players and Emmanuel's St. Matthew Passion
If all those young people at last Thursday's BSO concert didn't leave Symphony Hall feeling excited about classical music and eager to come back, then classical music is in even more trouble than I thought.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 14, 2009
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Loved these but not those

Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Murray Perahia, Ian Bostridge
Of the great international orchestras, perhaps the one that's most unfairly overlooked is the London Symphony Orchestra. Yet a handful of the very greatest orchestral performances I've ever heard have been with the LSO.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 08, 2009
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German birthday cake

The Choral Art Society perform Mendelssohn's Elijah
Tuesday's gift from Portland's Choral Art Society to German composer Felix Mendelssohn, on the occasion of what would be his 200th birthday, will be one of his greatest works (Elijah), and one of their biggest undertakings.
By EMILY PARKHURST  |  March 25, 2009
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Slideshow: BLO's Rusalka

Boston Lyric Opera performs Rusalka at the Shubert Theatre on March 31, 2009  
Photos of the Boston Lyric Opera's Rusalka at the Shubert Theatre
By JEFFREY DUNN  |  March 24, 2009

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