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Benjamin Zander

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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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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
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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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Resurrections

The BPO celebrates its 30th, and the Cantata Singers continue their Britten year
Back in pre-history (1964), a brilliant young Brit, a cellist (student of Benjamin Britten) and conductor, came to town and shook up the local classical-music scene.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 19, 2009
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Contertizing

From Don Giovanni’s hell to Haydn’s Creation
Boston Lyric Opera follows up Dvorák’s moonstruck Rusalka, with Christopher Schaldebrand in the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the BSO and much more.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 20, 2009
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Beloved of God

Levine's Mozart with the BSO, plus Gabriela Montero and Benjamin Zander with the Boston Philharmonic
One of my most profound musical experiences took place when I was still a graduate student.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  February 26, 2009
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Anniversaries and other occasions

Masur's Mendelssohn, Orfeos from Norrington and Levine, the Discovery Ensemble, and the Inauguration 'performance'
Anniversaries, however fabricated, can still be useful. This year commemorates the 200th birthday of Felix Mendelssohn, the 150th birthday of Victor Herbert (both recently celebrated with intensive "orgies" on WHRB), the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death, and the 250th anniversary of Handel's death.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  January 27, 2009
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Lift every voice!

Classical goodies for 2009
Opera is the big word for 2009.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 30, 2008
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Year in Classical: Celebrate!

Comings and goings
In Handel's Hercules, the demented Dejanira's loss is still so painful, I was afraid to listen; now I don't want to hear anything else.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 22, 2008
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Over (and under) the top

Musical chairs at the BSO, the Pacifica at Longy, the Boston Philharmonic's three B's, and the Cecilia's Bach B-minor Mass
With only one rehearsal, 31-year-old BSO Assistant Conductor Julian Kuerti confronted a challenging two-and-a-half-hour program of not-quite-standard 19th- and 20th-century repertoire.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  November 24, 2008
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Russian, Spanish, American . . .

Music in all accents comes to the concert halls
What everyone is looking forward to this fall is the return to the podium of Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 11, 2008
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On (and off) track

Boston Lyric Opera’s Seraglio , BU’s Barbiere di Siviglia , Andy Vores’s No Exit , the BPO’s Bartók and Brahms
It’s an expensive, elegant set, a lovingly detailed theatrical reproduction of railway cars on the Orient Express, the famous train connecting Paris and Istanbul.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 29, 2008
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Singers’ delight

Spring Arts Preview: Opera and vocal works lead the season
The season may be starting to wind down, but there remain some events music lovers have been waiting for all year.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 10, 2008
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Russians on the run

Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra at Sanders Theatre, February 24, 2008
Zander balanced the pathos and the passion here the way you have to balance the rose and the distaff/thorn in The Sleeping Beauty , and that was no small thing.  
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  February 26, 2008
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Too much too soon?

Classical goodies for 2008
Two of the most exciting concerts announced for this winter are on the same date, February 24.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  January 31, 2008
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Love and loss

Classical: 2007 in review
Boston’s biggest classical-music story this year was also its saddest.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 18, 2007
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Unanswered questions

Ben Zander and the BPO, Sanders Theatre, November 18, 2007
Not many living conductors (Abbado? Harnoncourt? Barenboim?) would do better.
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  November 19, 2007
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Super abundance

Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela; James Levine’s Berg and Mahler; Measha Brueggergosman at Jordan Hall
“Something absolutely extraordinary is happening in Venezuela,” announced Tony Woodcock.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  November 13, 2007
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World music

The BSO goes traveling, and Berlin comes to Boston
There’s more to Boston’s classical music scene than the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 12, 2007
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Oh Susanna

Ailyn Pérez shines in BLO’s Figaro; so does Gabriela Montero with the Boston Philharmonic
Music director Stephen Lord conducts a Figaro that clocks in close to three and a half hours but so engaging, few people will be checking their watches.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  May 01, 2007
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Heroics

Ricardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Teatro Lirico, and the BSO’s latest guests
It’s been eight years since Ricardo Chailly made his last Boston appearance.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 13, 2007
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Rise and fall

Opera Boston does Mahagonny; the BSO and the Boston Philharmonic do Sibelius
With its production of the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Opera Boston consolidates its position as this city’s most exciting opera company.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 13, 2007
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Erwartung . . .

Classical goodies for 2007
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA music director James Levine will be back in February to continue his survey of Beethoven and Schoenberg with Metropolitan Opera diva Deborah Voigt in Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido” and Schoenberg’s Erwartung (“Awaiting”), along with Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Eighth Symphony (Symphony Hall, February 1-3).
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 28, 2006
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The best of times, the worst of times

A year in classical
This year Boston classical music lost some of its most beloved figures — some, like mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, at the very height of their extraordinary powers, others, like opera director Sarah Caldwell and her conductor/collaborator, Osbourne McConathy, after long and gratifying runs.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 20, 2006
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Changing lives

 The New England Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra visits Venezuela and Brazil
People who love the arts are fond of saying that art changes our lives. Slideshow: The New England Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra visits Venezuela and Brazil
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 15, 2006
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Winter harvest

Emmanuel’s memorial to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; Angelika Kirchschlager at Jordan Hall; Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and El Niño at the BSO
"I don’t want to be here,” soprano Susan Larson lamented in her moving eulogy to her old friend and colleague Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.  
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 12, 2006
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Beyond the fringe

The BSO’s Beethoven, Schoenberg, Bartók, and Brahms; Intermezzo’s Britten; Zander’s Mahler
It was a good week for chamber opera: Bluebeard’s Castle from the BSO, Curlew River from Intermezzo.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  November 20, 2006

High Numbers

Elliott Carter at 85, Pavarotti at Boston Garden, plus Russell Sherman and the Boston Philharmonic
This article originally appeared in the March 19, 1993 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  November 16, 2006
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From Knoxville to Swan Lake and back

A chock-full season of classical music
As our most prestigious classical-music institution, the Boston Symphony Orchestra ought to be every year’s headliner, and once again, under the adventuresome direction of James Levine, it is.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 13, 2006
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Ralph Hamilton

1946–2006
My lovable, impossible friend of more than 30 years, the artist Ralph Hamilton, died on February 19, of complications from diabetes. He was only 59. It’s a very sad loss. He was one of Boston’s most original and searching painters and had been doing some of his most ambitious and moving work.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 09, 2006

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