Stop. Look. Listen.

Like many concertgoers, I’ve heard a lot of music but I don’t always recognize what I hear. It’s not usually an issue. Concerts have programs, radio stations now have playlists you can look up online. But encores are not always announced, and this was the case at last Friday’s Lancaster Symphony Orchestra concert. The pianist […]

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My review of Sunday’s second Chamber Music Series concert is posted here. The next concert won’t be until May 17, with two big works planned: Brahm’s Sextet in B flat Major, Op. 18 and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence Sextet in D Minor, Op. 70. Details here. So far, so good: I hope the LSO does this […]

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My review, from the March 2 Lancaster New Era …
Classical musicians, like many other musicians, like to get out from under the umbrella of larger groups and take the spotlight in smaller ensembles.
The Lancaster Symphony Orchestra’s new chamber music series put violinist Igor Yuzefovich, the orchestra’s concertmaster, pianist Michael Sheppard and cellist Dariusz Skoraczewski in […]

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Felix Mendelssohn, born in 1809 and died in 1847, a child prodigy who became a man of great accomplishment in a variety of fields and a transitional figure between the classical and romantic periods of music, is drawing plenty of attention in his bicentennial year. Even a small amount of reading reveals that there is still much to […]

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The Lancaster Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Sounds of the Season’ concert is reviewed here. A tip of the Santa hat to concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich and the rest of the musicians, who turned in a warm and spirited performance. A few orchestra members actually wore Santa hats for the second half of the concert, and one double-bassist put the hat on her […]

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I have actually heard, I forget where, the complaint that classical music “isn’t loud enough.” Friday’s Lancaster Symphony Orchestra concert at the Fulton Opera House was more than loud enough, with a program that was full both musically and emotionally. And not only was the orchestra expanded for the occasion but the concert marked the […]

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This weekend’s Lancaster Symphony Orchestra program features Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Miguel del Aguila’s Choral Suite No. 2 (read more about the composer here)and John Williams’ “Call of the Champions,” composed for the 2002 Winter Olympics. All this and art, too!

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Israeli violinist Hagai Shaham gave a fiery account of Jenő Hubay’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 3 in G minor at Friday’s opening concert of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Gunzenhauser, who dedicated the performance to the memory of Dorothy Ann “Dot” Haley, 1986-1988 symphony board chairman, and also to the memory of […]

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That curious sound you hear: random bleats, tweets, twangs and thumps, fragments of melody and the hum of strings, coalescing around the plangent “A” from the oboe. Here, there and all around, musicians are hauling their black clothes out of the closet as symphony orchestras get ready for the upcoming season. Here’s a look at some […]

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I wrote a review of this weekend’s Lancaster Symphony Orchestra concerts, which is being published in today’s New Era, but there were a few things I didn’t have room for. One was to note Ian Hobson’s encore, Sergey Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesleid, in a performance that was one of the highlights of the […]

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