BMOP opens season with a fancinating array of Canadian music

Geographically, Canada is not that far away from Boston. Some of the Canadian music heard Sunday afternoon at Jordan Hall, however, sounded like it was coming from a much greater distance.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project began its subscription season Sunday with "True North," featuring four composers with ties to our neighbor country. Conductor Gil Rose led his solid ensemble in works by Kati Agócs, Colin McPhee, Michael Colgrass and Claude Vivier, which may not have uncovered any cohesive national identity, but certainly offered much artistic creativity and informed musicianship.

Media Date 
November 21, 2011
Media Source 
Boston Classical Review
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Contact Name 
Keith Powers

BMOP on Indian Inspired Music

Indian music in the classical world seems somehow out of place. With some exceptions, notably Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha or John Harbison’s Mirabai Songs, and after Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, the advent of Bollywood and — most recently — the huge success of Slumdog Millionaire (Jai Ho seems to be on infinite repeat at almost every wedding I’ve been to, Indian and non-), India seems to have pervaded pop culture more than anything else. So the Boston Modern Orchestra Project concert at NEC’s Jordan Hall on the evening of May 27 raised intrigue.

Media Date 
May 30, 2011
Media Source 
Boston Musical Intelligencer
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

BMOP presented these four difficult works with unwavering technique and attention to detail that placed the vision of these composers in a comprehensible context. It is hard not to be appreciative of this obvious talent by both conductor and orchestra; we are lucky to have such an ensemble educating us with new music in Boston.

Media Contact Name 
Sudeep Agarwala

Boston Modern Orchestra Project: Ziporyn, Foulds, Child, Shende

I had been looking forward to this concert ever since I saw an earlier misprint last September claiming Sangita would be performed in November. The BMOP site finally posted the right date. Ever since I heard the Modern Jazz Quartet's “Music From the Third Stream” album, I've always held my breath, anticipating the performance of the next composition embracing cultural or aesthetic fusion. Would I be treated to a work of great beauty, depth and complexity, or assaulted by a failed attempt that crashed on the shoals, maybe near something deep, but drowning nonetheless?

Media Date 
May 27, 2011
Media Source 
Fine Arts
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

Gil Rose and BMOP delivered an interesting and unusual set of pieces, not easily categorized into "European Modernism" or "post-minimalism," or "third stream."

Media Contact Name 
Matt Temple

BMOP channels India in season-ending show

"Sangita: The Spirit of India’’ was the title of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s season-ending concert Friday night at Jordan Hall. And the program was as dense as the hot, humid, subcontinent-like weather outside, with world premieres by three New England-based composers and a North American premiere by early-20th-century English composer John Foulds.

Media Date 
May 30, 2011
Media Source 
The Boston Globe
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

"Ziporyn wrote his concerto for tabla master Sandeep Das, who played his instrument - two hand drums of contrasting size and timbre - with the prestidigitation of a virtuoso pianist, conjuring colors, seasons, and emotions in his pattering, pounding, and rhythmic pyrotechnics."

Media Contact Name 
Jeffrey Gantz

COT’s “Death and the Powers” proves a dazzling, thought-provoking multimedia experience

When the eleven robots glide gracefully out on the stage of the Harris Theater to take their curtain call with the cast, composer and conductor of Death and the Powers—and bow their triangular heads in unison—-it’s hard to maintain any lingering objection to Tod Machover’s envelope-pushing, thought-provoking and brilliantly executed opera, a work that raises serious contemporary themes while mostly refusing to take itself too seriously.

Media Date 
April 4, 2011
Media Source 
Chicago Classical Review
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

Gil Rose led the BMOP players with fine momentum and balancing of Machover’s undulating textures.

Media Contact Name 
Lawrence A. Johnson

Review: Death and the Powers/Chicago Opera Theater

Combining all of the art forms as it does in a live setting, opera is the ultimate human creation. A cursory look at the history of the genre reveals that, at its best, opera remains a step ahead of culture whether in the form of the cutting-edge eighteenth-century operas of Mozart, or the nineteenth-century “music dramas” of Wagner, which even managed to foresee much of what became twentieth-century cinema.

Media Date 
April 5, 2011
Media Source 
Newcity Stage
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

No less impressive is how precisely conductor Gil Rose holds all of this together with the remarkable new music group that gave the American premiere last month, BMOP.

Media Contact Name 
Dennis Polkow

Robot opera less than meets the eye

The future of opera is a hotly debated topic these days with the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager Peter Gelb taking to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to defend his company’s new emphasis on cinematic-style stagings and HD broadcasts to theaters around the country. Others have questioned what this means for the role of the human voice as opposed to production values and what movie-priced broadcasts do to performance troupes in smaller cities.

Media Date 
April 4, 2011
Media Source 
Chicago Sun-Times
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

The music is performed live by 15 members of BMOP under the direction of Gil Rose, and all parts are quite carefully amplified.

Media Contact Name 
Andrew Patner

COT’s dazzling ‘robot opera’ poses provocative new questions

Our wondrous technology could conceivably evolve to the point that it will enable us to shed this mortal coil and achieve a kind of digital immortality. But is living beyond the corporeal world really worth it if we’ve left our souls, our humanity, indeed other people, behind?

Media Date 
April 3, 2011
Media Source 
Chicago Tribune
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

Machover's tonally grounded music flickers, hums, pulses, thunders and soars from the expert, 15-piece BMOP under Gil Rose’s firm and trenchant baton.

Media Contact Name 
John von Rhein

‘Robots’ Opera’ proves Chicago the next stage in the future of opera

It’s not every opera that has its origins in a visit by a wealthy Iraqi widow from Monaco to a computer lab near Boston.

Media Date 
April 1, 2011
Media Source 
Chicago Sun-Times
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

Gil Rose of BMOP conducts the 90-minute intermissionless work.

Media Contact Name 
Andrew Patner

"Death and the Powers:The Robots’ Opera"

If you missed American Repertory Theater (ART) and MIT’s FAST Arts Festival one-act, 90-minute production of “Death and the Powers:The Robots’ Opera,” I hope it returns, for your sake. You won’t see the likes of it again. Writers Tod Machover, Robert Pinsky and Randy Weiner, with ART Artistic Director-Director Diane Paulus have struck theatrical gold with this innovative, futuristic opera that makes every minute on stage breathtaking.

Media Date 
March 29, 2011
Media Source 
Theater Mirror
Media Location 
Boston, MA
Media 
Media Quote 

The phenomenal BMOP, conducted by Gil Rose, provides superb accompaniment.

Media Contact Name 
Sheila Barth

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