Along comes the piano phenom of our age, Daniil Trifonov, in a performance that could also be described as overly dramatic except that it was rendered so powerfully and with so much rhetorical conviction and perfect execution, to such a rousing reception, that it is hard to argue with it.
The musicians' total command of the material on this program is especially noteworthy when you remember that they've been locked up like the rest of us since the time of dinosaurs.
The BSO is also releasing certain performances at the same times as they would have been heard live, with complete online recordings of BSO concerts taking place Sundays at 2:30 p.m. as an example of such scheduling.
Mark Volpe personifies a family spirit at the BSO, and it's something you can see for yourself if you are sitting anywhere in the Koussevitzky Music Shed in July or August a few moments before a concert begins.
But in the casual atmosphere of the Koussevitzky Music Shed, it's easy to forget that all these people are Grammy Award-winning rock stars disguised as ordinary folk.
The problem with making a list of Tanglewood summer highlights is that almost nothing on the schedule qualifies as a lowlight, not even soloists or composers we've never heard of.
Had composer and conductor Oliver Knussen not died in Suffolk last year at the age of 66, he would have presided over this year’s Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. It seemed fitting as well that the first sounds to put the new hall to test were Knussen’s stunning 'Prequel to Opening Signal.'
Sixty-two BSO appearances later, Ann-Sophie takes the stage at Tanglewood Saturday, July 6, to celebrate the life and work of her former husband and creative partner, conductor/composer André Previn.
Ellis Marsalis' first chord made you glad to be in a venue where they know how to properly mic a grand piano. His second chord made you glad you were listening to a man with nothing to prove.
Most impressive was how conductor Andris Nelsons held the orchestra still long after it at had ceased playing for what the audience perceived as an odd, even uncomfortable, period — silence is a sound, too.
The Boston University Tanglewood Institute is an eight-week program of the college to train musicians of middle and high school age by immersing them in the world of professional and deeply exciting music-making.
Most gratifying was the spontaneous roar from the crowd when the names of Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and Stephen Sondheim appeared in the end credits.
Forty-eight years after the Kent State shootings, Crosby is once again compelled to speak out against government policies and actions that are grossly at odds with American values and the rule of law.
