Concert Review: Catching the Waves

The Seattle Symphony plays Spring for Music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Ludovic Morlot in rehearsal.

On Tuesday night, the fourth and final Spring For Music festival--that week-long celebration of of North American orchestras at Carnegie Hall with a dedicated focus on modern and obscure repertory--welcomed the Seattle Symphony for a rare New York appearance. The concert, under the baton of Seattle music director Ludovic Morlot featured the New York premiere of Become Ocean, the work that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Music for its composer John Luther Adams.

Concert Review: The Thunder of Invention

The American Symphony Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

American Symphony Orchestra music director Leon Botstein.
Image from Orchestra in Exile © 2013 Aronson Film Associates.

A Carnegie Hall concert by Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra demands commitment. The ASO's yearly Vanguard Series offers works from dark corners of the orchestral repertory, often presented in an unyielding marathon of music that packs as many as five compositions into a single musical evening.

On Thursday night, the ASO's first Carnegie concert of the season (and, due to an Oct. 2 strike by Carnegie Hall stagehands, that venue's de facto opening night) featured five musical behemoths, enormous works for orchestra from the 20th century. The common thread: all of these works were by American composers (the last, Edgard Varèse, lived here for 50 years) and all broke new ground in terms of changing how audiences listen to music. A program note (by Dr.  Botstein) tied all five pieces to the Armory Show, a seminal art exhibition from 1913 that introduced new concepts (like cubism) to American eyes.