BSO/Classical New England — 2025/05/17

 Again this week the encore broadcast is taken from last year's Tanglewood season. Most of it is the concert of July 14, but it is supplemented by one piece from the concert of July 8. Here's WCRB's synopsis:

Saturday, May 17, 2025
8:00 PM

Augustin Hadelich is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in a Boston Symphony concert led by Andris Nelsons that also features Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 and Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light, a meditation on “perseverance, bravery, and alliance.”

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Sarah KIRKLAND SNIDER Forward into Light 
Sergei PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Ballade in A minor (Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Na'Zir McFadden, conductor, recorded on July 8, 2024)
Antonín DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 7

This concert was originally broadcast on July 14, 2024, and is no longer available on demand.

The program notes for the three works on the July 14 concert are available on the performance detail page for that concert.  https://www.bso.org/events/snider-prokofiev-dvorak?performance=2024-07-14-14:30  That page also provides the following overall description:

Tanglewood

Koussevitzky Music Shed, Lenox/Stockbridge, MA 

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor 
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Sarah Kirkland SNIDER Forward into Light 
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2 
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 7
 

Written as part of the NY Philharmonic’s “Project 19” — which commissioned 19 female composers to write new works commemorating the ratification of the 19th Amendment — Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light is a meditation on “perseverance, bravery, and alliance.” The title is derived from a suffrage slogan, and the music contains quotes from the woman’s suffrage movement anthem, “March of the Women.”

Grammy-winner Augustin Hadelich rounds out the program with Prokofiev’s intense Violin Concerto No. 2, and Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 – sometimes called the composer's greatest symphony.

I can't find a performance detail page for the Coleridge-Taylor piece, but most of his music is good.

The Globe reviewer was happy with the July 14 concert; the Intelligencer didn't review it.

 I wrote about the July 14 concert back then, and I think it should be worth listening to along with the interpolation from the 8th.

P.S. Next weekend, WCRB will give us four evenings of rebroadcasts: the full cycle of Beethoven symphonies from last winter. They'll begin with Nos. 1, 2, and 3 on Friday evening of the long weekend, followed by 4 and 5 on Saturday, 6 and 7 on Sunday, and 8 and 9 on Monday, all at 8"00 p.m. Boston Time.

Tanglewood — 2023/07/23

 WCRB tells us https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2023-06-08/midkiff-and-wilkins-with-the-bso-at-tanglewood about this evening's Tanglewood broadcast of the afternoon concert:

Sunday, July 23rd, 2023
7:00 PM

Jeff Midkiff is the soloist in his own Mandolin Concerto From the Blue Ridge. Thomas Wilkins leads the BSO at Tanglewood in Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade and Ellington’s Suite from The River.

Thomas Wilkins, conductor
Jeff Midkiff, mandolin

Samuel COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Ballade in A minor
Jeff MIDKIFF Mandolin Concerto, From the Blue Ridge
Duke ELLINGTON Suite from The River

There's not much more at the BSO site. https://www.bso.org/events/bso-wilkins-ellington

This could be enjoyable.

Note that the Sunday show begins at 7:00.

BSO — 2023/03/04

 WCRB says:

Saturday, March 4, 2023
8:00 PM

Encore broadcast on Monday, March 13

André Raphel conducts the Boston Symphony in the first part of “Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope,” including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Petite Suite and William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony, as well as Uri Caine’s The Passion of Octavius Catto, commemorating the life of the 19th century civil rights pioneer.

André Raphel, conductor
Barbara Walker, vocalist
Uri Caine Trio
Catto Chorus

Samuel COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Petite Suite de Concert
William Grant STILL Symphony No. 1, Afro-American
Uri CAINE The Passion of Octavius Catto

LOUD SOUND WARNING: About 25 minutes into The Passion of Octavius Catto, a starter's pistol is fired several times.

Read program notes for this concert

To hear a preview of the program with André Raphel, use the player above, and read the transcript below:

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with André Raphel, who is here with the Boston Symphony for a fascinating program:

And here's the synopsis from the performance detail page:

American conductor André Raphel leads this first program in a series exploring complex social issues. The centerpiece of these concerts is Philadelphia jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine’s gospel and popular music-based The Passion of Octavius Catto, which tells of the 19th-century civil rights leader’s fight for justice. English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s charming potpourri Petite Suite de Concert dates from about 1911. In four movements, “Longing,” “Sorrow,” “Humor,” and “Aspiration,” William Grant Still’s 1930 Afro-American Symphony, his best-known work, is a blues-tinged panorama of the composer’s heritage.

Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope is supported by the generosity of the Elinor V. Crawford Living Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation.

Support for these performances of “The Passion of Octavius Catto” has been generously provided by Vita L. Weir and Edward Brice, Jr., and Pamela Everhart and Karl Coiscou.

---

André Raphel, conductor
Uri Caine Trio
Uri Caine, piano
Mike Boone, bass
Clarence Penn, drums
Barbara Walker, vocalist
Catto Chorus

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Petite Suite de Concert 
STILL Symphony No. 1, Afro-American
---- Intermission----

Uri CAINE The Passion of Octavius Catto

There is not a review but a preview of this and the next two weeks in the Globe.  The Intelligencer has nothing I could find. Since it wasn't part of my subscription, I can't shed any light beyond what you read in the BSO's program notes, other than to say that I have generally good impressions of Coleridge-Taylor and Still and no idea about Caine.

BSO/Classical New England — 2022/05/28

 This evening, while we wait for the BSO's Tanglewood season to begin, WCRB rebroadcasts the concert of October 30. Here's the outline from their page:

Saturday, May 28, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8, the celebrated electric bassist is the soloist in his own concerto, La Lección Tres, and the BSO's Thomas Wilkins conducts music from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha and Duke Ellington’s The River.

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Wilkins, conductor
Victor Wooten, electric bass

Samuel COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Suite from the ballet Hiawatha
Victor WOOTEN La Lección Tres, for electric bass and orchestra
Duke ELLINGTON Suite from The River

This concert is no longer available on demand.

Hear conductor Thomas Wilkins describe his longtime friendship with Victor Wooten, why Coleridge-Taylor's ballet music for Hiawatha is a relatively new discovery, and Ellington is a natural fit for the BSO with the audio player above (transcript below).

In a conversation with WCRB's Brian McCreath, Victor Wooten describes the artistic opportunities of bringing his musical voice to the symphony orchestra, and why he's perfectly comfortable being out of his comfort zone

It seems that I didn't post about it back then, nor do I recall hearing it. I just remembered: that was the weekend I was in the hospital being pumped full of antibiotics to cure my cellulitis. Let's see if I can find reviews.

The Intelligencer urges us not to miss the Wooten piece and is pleased with the whole concert. The Globe reviewer is equally enthusiastic.

So I guess this is worth hearing. 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, this evening.