Anyone else see Tod Machover’s colorful VALIS? Davóne Tines, as Horselover Fat. Maria Baranova photograph
This year’s chamber music calendar will update monthly, but I have reviewed recently for other outlets. At Classical Voice North America, the increasingly comprehensive site of the music critic’s association, I was able to cover the Boston Lyric Opera’s Madama Butterfly, and also write in detail about Jeremy Eichler’s provocative new book, Time’s Echo.
Opera News has folded along with the entire Met Guild, and that’s a sadness for people in the industry. I’ve contributed to ON for more than two decades, with features on a generation of opera artists, from Eileen Farrell to Julia Noulin-Mérat, and dozens of reviews.
ON will become part of London-based OPERA magazine, and I was glad to contribute a review of Tod Machover’s VALIS this month. Not published yet, and so I’ll reserve the details until it does.
Anecdotally, this summer seemed to mark a complete return of audiences, something that has happened gradually in the seasons since the worst of the pandemic. Summer festivals are different than subscription-type seasons, but let’s hope for the best.
This year, I’m going to be much more selective with the chamber calendar. I don’t want to shortchange any groups, but trying to make an exhaustive calendar for greater Boston is beyond my energy. I’ll do my best, and review quite a bit more this year than last. Send me news of everything though.
Two concerts I wish I had prepared for review: Gidon Kremer in Rockport to close that festival (unwritten hed: What Vulnerability Sounds Like), and last weekend’s Mahani Teave piano recital, also in Rockport.
Easter Island’s only touring classical musician? Gotta be pianist Mahani Teave. Pilar Castro photograph
Chamber Music Calendar, October 2023
Tributes: Fine, Rakowski, Zorn, Rorem, Patterson
Palaver Strings returns to Pickman Sept. 29, with tenor Nicholas Phan, performing protest songs and music inspired by social movements. Boston Artists Ensemble continues offering Salem concerts on Fridays and Sundays in Brookline. For the Sept. 29/Oct. 1 opening programs: Martin, Elgar, and a mystery piece. As always, guess the composer and win tickets.
David Rakowski has a birthday party at Brandeis Oct. 1, with Collage New Music (David Hoose) performing multiple works by the composer, as well as ten new festschrift études written in admiration by colleagues and students. Winsor Music starts Sept. 30 in Brookline, an out-there program of Pérotin, Bach/Eric Nathan, L. Blackwell, Chang, and Ligeti. At the Gardner Oct. 1, it’s a Ned Rorem Centennial, with a quartet of voices (Laura Ward, piano) singing his cycle Evidence of Things Not Seen. Boston Chamber Music Society has programs Oct. 1 and 15 at Sanders.
Radius Ensemble has a terrific looking program set for Oct. 5 at Pickman, including a premiere by Curtis Hughes and works by DBR, Alberga and Stravinsky. Cellist Guy Fishman, violinist Renee Hemsing and pianist Renana Gutman visit the Harvard Art Museums Oct. 1, matching paintings and music: Debussy/Monet, Debussy/Toulouse-Lautrec, Ravel/Gaugin. Looks fun, and free. Hemsing and Fishman also play violin/cello duos (Costello, Handel-Havorsen, Mozart, Beethoven) Oct. 7 in Beverly. The annual Irving Fine tribute at Brandeis takes on a special sense given the recent termination of music Ph.D programs: music includes Fine, Rakowski and Shapero, performed Oct. 7 by Lyds and Chameleons.
It’s not chamber music but it’s my column so there: BMOP opens Oct. 7 in Jordan Hall, another ink-wet program with premieres from Aylward, Cornell and Eric Moe playing piano in his own The Sweetness of Despair, the Necessity of Hope. Love the title, I think.
Concord Chamber Music Society opens its season with the Jerusalem Quartet Oct. 8 at Concord Academy. Can’t miss Marc-André Hamelin and cellist Johannes Moser the same afternoon at Rockport Music, playing N. Boulanger, Hamelin, Franck and Debussy. Victor Rosenbaum competes that day too, playing all-Schubert for Ashmont Hill Chamber Music. Do not make me choose like this.
BEMF opens its concert season with Cappella Pratensis & Sollazzo Ensemble, Oct. 13 at First Church Cambridge, and also brings Le Poème Harmonique to Jordan Hall Oct. 27. Blue Heron has a new director, Bobby Pape, whom some will remember from the loved-but-departed Boston Musica Viva. Blue Heron opens its concerts with “Le Rossignol musical” at First Church Cambridge Oct. 14. Like the looks of a piano trio concert Oct. 13 at Park Street Church (free), works by Higdon, Beethoven and Brahms by Galluzzo, Ou, Wei.
Celebrity Series presents Isata Kanneh-Mason in recital Oct. 14 at Jordan Hall: F. Mendelssohn, R. Schumann, Chopin. Welcome back to the Chameleons, Oct. 14 and 15 at First Church, another beauty of a program with L. Boulanger, Moe, Kodály, Debussy and Chausson. Violinist Joshua Peckins performs at First Church Cambridge Oct. 15.
Writerly colleague, composer and longtime UMass Boston professor David Patterson has an evening of his music Oct. 20 in the university recital hall, mainly choral works presented by the UMass Boston Chamber Singers (David Giessow).
Three well-known soloists (Thibaudet, Batiashvili, G. Capuçon) play Haydn, Ravel and F. Mendelssohn in Jordan Hall Oct. 20, part of the Celebrity Series. The Criers play trios the next afternoon in JP: Waley-Cohen, Fisher, Wallen, Cras. Program repeats Oct. 22 at Pickman Hall.
New Gal is back at Pickman Oct. 21, performing alongside works of visual artist L’Merchie Frazier, with Borromeo 4tet joining Sarah Bob and others in music of Iyer, DBR, Alberga, Adams, Montgomery and Hailstork.
The Boston Camerata tours with American spirituals, Black and White, from 19c. texts. Starts Oct. 21 at Trinity Copley, Oct. 22 at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, 23rd at Emmanuel Church. Good luck getting into John Zorn at 70, second edition, with his New Masada Quartet, at the Gardner Oct. 22. Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center plays Russian music Oct. 22 at Shalin Liu Performance Center; soprano Erika Baikoff joins for Glinka, Rach and Balikirev songs.
Skylark Vocal Ensemble tries some new rep with “A Night at the Theatre,” performing Oct. 27–29 in Weston, Falmouth and Newburyport. Matthew Guard’s ensemble has a new recording out as well, Sauntering Songs, with Juventas New Music Ensemble. Violinist Julia Glenn and pianist Mika Sasaki play music of Chasalow, Auerbach, Grieg, Brindamour, Messiaen, Enescu and Coleridge-Taylor Oct. 27 at Brandeis. Arneis Quartet welcomes flutist Vanessa Holroyd for music of Haydn, Tower and Bacewicz Oct. 29 at First Church Boston. Mia Chung dedicates the Park Street Church piano with music of Scarlatti, Beethoven (Waldstein) and Rachmaninov Oct. 29 (free).
Janice Weber’s sturdy South Coast Chamber Music Series returns to Marion/South Dartmouth Oct. 28/29, with music of Wiancko, Bacewicz, Beethoven (Ghost) and Foote. Weber has programmed this Foote quintet before, and it’s worth hearing again. SCCMS doubles up on the 28th, joining the long-running Arts in the Village series in Rehoboth this year that evening. Newport Classical has a nice season, beginning Oct. 6 with violinist Chad Hoopes and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. Worcester Chamber Music Society has a season built on variety, beginning Sept. 29/Oct. 1 in Harvard and Worcester, then again Oct. 22/26 in Gilbertville/Worcester. Like the looks of both: second set of programs features GLF, Price, Walker, Mozart.