Soul-searching fills musical "Angels"

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is an epic, historical, political, personal , and apocalyptic drama that is also an opera waiting to happen. It is full of larger-than-life characters who deliver long aria-speeches of interior questioning; characters meet each other in dream landscapes and there are interwoven, simultaneous episodes that resemble operatic ensembles. There is even a grand death scene.

Media Date 
June 17, 2006
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
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Media Quote 

It is full of larger-than-life characters who deliver long aria-speeches of interior questioning; characters meet each other in dream landscapes and there are interwoven, simultaneous episodes that resemble operatic ensembles.

Media Contact Name 
Richard Dyer

"Angels in America," already operatic, is now presented as an opera

Much of life is spent thinking about death. Primary in our thoughts are the rate of its approach and hour of its arrival. It is a little like driving a car whose accelerator and brakes are out of our control. This idea may explain the public’s hideous and enduring fascination with executions and suicides, for in both cases time races and the date is set. People are in control.

Media Date 
June 19, 2006
Media Source 
The New York Times
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Media Quote 

This is not easy music. Principals sang with confidence, and Gil Rose conducted with admirable command.

Media Contact Name 
Bernard Holland

Some Angels: Opera Unlimited does Tony Kushner

Whatever anyone thinks of the actual opera, congratulations are again in order to Opera Unlimited, the collaboration between music director Gil Rose’s Opera Boston and his Boston Modern Orchestra Project, this time for bringing to Boston the American premiere of Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös’s attempt to make an opera out of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, his Pulitzer-winning play about the AIDS epidemic and the collapse of public and personal values under Reagan (one remaining performance, June 24 at the Majestic Theatre).

Media Date 
June 21, 2006
Media Source 
The Boston Phoenix
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Media Quote 

Kushner's play may be the most ambitious American script since Eugene O'Neill.

Media Contact Name 
Lloyd Schwartz

Angels in America

By calling his drama Angels in America “a Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” Tony Kushner implies that his two-part, seven-hour saga about America’s response to Aids operates like a musical work; perhaps he even envisioned that it might one day be turned into an opera. That day came in 2004 when the Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös’s opera had its premiere at the Châtelet in Paris. That a long play had been transformed into a shortish opera (2? hours) provoked little dissent, but critics held that Eötvös’s music lacked a strong profile.

Media Date 
June 29, 2006
Media Source 
The Financial Times
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Media Quote 

In witnessing its American premiere Eötvös's Angels sometimes seemed more like an experimental music-theatre piece than an opera.

Media Contact Name 
George Loomis

A classic start for composer with BMOP

Founded a decade ago, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project has risen to the front ranks of American contemporary-music ensembles through its fire, precision, and commitment to new work. BMOP’s 10th season opened Friday at Jordan Hall with a concert including two pieces by emerging singer and composer Lisa Bielawa, 38, inaugurating her three-year residency with the orchestra. BMOP’s typically canny programming surrounded Bielawa’s works with beautifully complementary compositions - two, like hers, inspired by literary sources.

Media Date 
November 7, 2006
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
Media 
Media Quote 

BMOP's typically canny programming surrounded Bielawa's works with beautifully complementary compositions - two, like hers, inspired by literary sources.

Media Contact Name 
Kevin Lowenthal

Change of venue is music to their ears

On Tuesday night, I attended two richly satisfying concerts without stepping foot in a concert hall. The first was a new music program presented by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project at the Moonshine Room of the popular Club Cafe in the South End; the second was a performance by the up-and-coming Parker String Quartet in the Lizard Lounge, a low-slung basement club space in Cambridge. Next month, the Firebird Ensemble will perform in a local barbecue joint.

Media Date 
December 7, 2006
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
Media 
Media Quote 

Bielawa not only has an inviting stage presence as emcee but also a rich network of composer connections.

Media Contact Name 
Jeremy Eichler
Media Contact Title 
Globe Staff

A Boston connection with style

Now in its 10th season, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project is a vibrant presence on the city’s new music scene, a group with omnivorous musical appetites and impressive collective chops. Its calendar this season is crowded with contemporary music, from the avant-garde of France to the avant-garde of New Jersey. But once a year, BMOP tunes its questing ears to the music produced specifically by local composers, or at least those with local ties. The group’s annual “Boston Connection” program took place Saturday night in Jordan Hall.

Media Date 
January 31, 2007
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
Media 
Media Quote 

Throughout the night, conductor Gil Rose and his protean ensemble gave exciting and exacting performances of these challenging scores. Local composers are lucky to have BMOP around.

Media Contact Name 
Jeremy Eichler
Media Contact Title 
Globe Staff

Surveying the musical landscape of France

A few minutes into the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s performance of Pascal Dusapin’s chamber-ensemble piece Coda, Gil Rose brought the music to a sudden halt. He calmly explained to the audience that he’d just encountered “every conductor’s nightmare”: He’d turned three pages in his score at once. And when that happens, he said with a small smile, there’s nothing to do but start over.

Media Date 
March 13, 2007
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
Media 
Media Quote 

Rose conducted strikingly assured performances, and the playing was up to BMOP's usual high standards.

Media Contact Name 
David Weininger
Media Contact Title 
Globe Correspondent

Dulcimer, dances mark Fromm event

CAMBRIDGE -- Pull enough threads in American contemporary music of the last 50 years and you’ll arrive at the Fromm Foundation, which has funded commissions from many of the 20th century’s most distinguished composers. Paul Fromm (1906-1987) was an emigre who fled Nazi Germany and settled in this country, establishing a successful wine importing business in Chicago and, later, a foundation pledged “to restore to the composer his rightful position at the center of musical life.”

Media Date 
March 24, 2007
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
Media 
Media Quote 

Especially notable was the focus maintained throughout Sixteen Dances, such that one could still detect, from deep within the Cagean vortex, surprising flashes of beauty.

Media Contact Name 
Jeremy Eichler
Media Contact Title 
Globe Staff

Maestro, is that a DJ with your orchestra?

Anyone who caught the Ben Folds performance with the Boston Pops last week and was struck by the thinness of the meeting of musical worlds should have been there on Saturday night at Sanders Theatre to hear the Boston Modern Orchestra Project tee off on three bracingly imaginative works infused with rock ‘n’ roll and other popular styles.

Media Date 
May 21, 2007
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
Media 
Media Quote 

The revolution in the idea of what an orchestra can be -- from a collective instrument designed for the traditional symphonic repertoire, into an omnivorous agent of the new.

Media Contact Name 
Jeremy Eichler
Media Contact Title 
Globe Staff

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