“A dazzling world premiere by Evan Ziporyn and the appearance of not one but two celebrated guest soloists distinguished the final concert of this year’s Boston Modern Orchestra Project season at Jordan Hall on Friday.
Renowned “new music” pianist Ursula Oppens applied her unfailingly insightful curiosity and sublime graciousness of touch to Augusta Read Thomas’s 2000 intermittently appealing Aurora. And master clarinetist Richard Stoltzman’s playing impressed as usual in Stephen Hartke’s 2001 Clarinet Concerto....
...Ziporyn’s brand new War Chant, though, was a gripping experience from start to finish. The MIT music professor, who “moonlights” as a clarinetist and member of the New York City-based Bang on a Can All-Stars new music ensemble, used the sounds we all hear inside an airplane cabin as inspiration for this omnious soundscape.
...In addition, BMOP Music Director Gil Rose - who in less than a decade here has become one of the most important musicans in this city - led his marvelous orchestra in two earlier works: Elena Ruehr’s luminous 1989 Sky Above Clouds and David Rakowski’s powerful 1997 Persistent Memory.
-T. J. Medrek