On Thursday night in Symphony Hall, Andris Nelsons returned to the podium with works by Brahms, Shostakovich, and a new ‘Concerto for Curved Space’ by Steven Mackey Only through art, Proust writes, are we released from the confines of our own senses and allowed to look out at the world through another’s perspective, “to possess …
Going into 2023, the Boston Symphony Orchestra had played Brahms’s Fourth Symphony 457 times. You could imagine BSO patrons might have had enough of the piece by now, but for No. 458 on Thursday, under music director Andris Nelsons, Symphony Hall was pretty well filled for a cold, windy January evening. It should be noted …
Under the baton of Andris Nelsons, a listless Boston Symphony Orchestra delivered flat renditions of works by Shostakovich and Brahms. On paper, Thursday night’s Boston Symphony Orchestra concert promised to deliver seismic urgency. But the program proved the old maxim that great music is better than most performances of it. Under the baton of Andris …
In January, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons give the world premiere of Steven Mackey’s Concerto for Curved Space, a work that draws on the composer’s interest in physics and contemplates our perceived reality of the universe. A physics major in college, Mackey has frequently written works that reflect his awe and wonder of the …
Featuring the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Led by David Robertson in Mackey’s Mnemosyne’s Pool and his Violin Concerto Beautiful Passing with Anthony Marwood On Friday, December 9, 2022, GRAMMY-winning composer Steven Mackey releases a portrait album of his music for violin and orchestra, Beautiful Passing, on Canary Classics. Works include Mackey’s violin concerto Beautiful Passing (2008), …
Steven Mackey is far from the first composer to try his hand at the Orpheus myth, but he may be the first to treat it in what he calls a wordless opera for electric guitar. The piece, “Orpheus Unsung,” which also has a drum part written with Jason Treuting of So Percussion, came to Princeton …
When the PRISM Quartet decided to commission a body of work built around the idea of musical colors, it seemed a natural next step for a group that has already created a substantial and diverse repertoire of music built around the almost infinitely variable sounds of the saxophone family. The sax has a long tradition …
Anthony Marwood weaves different eras together in an extraordinary concert built around Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. He performs this musical monument in conjunction with one compelling 21st century work : Four Iconoclastic Episodes, composed especially for Mr. Marwood by Steven Mackey. Here is M. Mackey describing his compositions. www.violonsduroy.com
“Some of my favorite pianistic influences have a charming wrongness to them, like Thelonious Monk, who just managed to play the right ‘wrong’ notes,” Mr. Mackey said. “At the other end of the spectrum is Bach’s ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’ — to me that is still the most virtuosic sounding piano music.”