Concert Review: Freedom For Free

The New York Philharmonic plays Central Park.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert (left) conducts soloist Anthony McGill (right) and the New York
Philharmonic (foreground) in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2016 The New York Philharmonic.

The New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Park are a proud 51-year tradition. This year though the concert took place under a cloud, and not the wispy bits of cirrus fluff that hovered high over the stage. The cloud: the June 12 massacre in Orlando, Florida.  At the start of this concert, Philharmonic music director  Alan Gilbert stepped forward to announce a program change for the evening. The loping, playful overture to Rossini's La Gazza Ladra ("The Thieving Magpie") had been scrapped in favor of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, in memoriam of the victims. The remainder of the evening: with a Mozart concerto and a Strauss tone poem, would proceed unaltered.

Concert Review: The Three Other B's

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Barber, Bartók and Bruckner.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo by Marco Borggreve.

On Friday night, the Philadelphians closed out this year's Carnegie Hall series with a concert featuring music by the "other" three B's: Samuel Barber, Béla Bartók and Anton Bruckner. These three very different compositions formed an effective tryptich, giving indications at the state of the orchestra, as music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin wraps up his second season at the controls.