Well, as astonishing as it is to me to write this, we’ve already reached the end of the first month of 2012. Most years, it seem like January takes forever to draw to its close and February goes by in a blur; this year, I never really got the feeling that the month was dragging, though, and that was a nice change. It helped, of course, that I got to keep busy with a number of reviews of musical performances for the Arts Fuse, all of which featured some pretty spectacular music making. Could it be that classical organizations in the area have reached the point in their seasons where they’re really hitting their strides? It sure seemed so from my vantage point this month.
Here are links to the last three of those reviews, two of concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (including Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Mendelssohn’s rarely-performed Lobgesang), and one by the excellent Boston Modern Orchestra Project. The latter performance was attended by the who’s who of Boston-area composers (I saw John Harbison and Yehudi Wyner, and met Eric Chasalow), and I got to reconnect there with a couple of former teachers and friends from grad school days. In fact, one of the performers on the program was my former composition teacher, Dalit Warshaw, who was the soloist in a piece for theremin and orchestra; it was fun to catch up with her after the performance (which, if you’re wondering, was excellent – though you really should read the review for specifics). All in all, it was a great way to spend a Friday evening (topped off by the most amazing parking spot I’ve ever found in an urban environment – which may, eventually, form the subject of its own, future post).
February brings several interesting performances to Boston (including a packed weekend at the end of the month where it will be possible – if one, like me, plans accordingly – to take in John Adams’s Shaker Loops, Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto, and Kurt Masur conducting Beethoven’s Missa solemnis on three consecutive days), as well as the mid-Atlantic premiere of my very own orchestral piece Diversions by the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic. No doubt all this will help make that month fly by, too.
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