New York Philharmonic. Xian Zhang, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, piano. January 16, 2026.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat AA104, $87).

Bronfman and Zhang after performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto.

Program

Landscape Impression (2023) by Chen (b. 1953).

Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 (1841-45) by R. Schumann (1810-56).

Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17 (1872; 1879-80) by Tchaikovsky (1840-93).

A keen observer will notice some overlap between last Friday's NJSO concert and this NY Phil concert: same conductor, and one piece in common.  I was quite curious to see if there is daylight between my "hometown" orchestra (well, more like my home state) and one of the better known orchestras in the world.  Same conductor, same piece, what better comparison can there be?

This comparison would have been unthinkable say 15 years ago, a time when I described the NJSO as a "Jekyll and Hyde" ensemble, depending on who was doing the conducting.  This is much less so nowadays, although the orchestra every now and then would disappoint.  As it did last Friday.

Before I launch into the Tchaikovsky, let me first talk about the two other pieces.

We missed the premiere of Chen Yi's piece with NJ Symphony in early June, 2023.  It was commissioned by the NJ Symphony with Zhang at the helm.  Su Shi, a well-known Chinese poet, wrote two different poems in the 1070s (yes, about a thousand years ago) called Landscape and The West Lake, both describing the famous lake near Hangzhou.  The former painted a stormy scene, and the latter a serene one.  Chen combined (and intermixed) the images in this 10-minute composition.  While it was written for a Western orchestra, many elements of Chinese composition (e.g., echoes of Chinese music instruments, melodic arcs).

I caught some of the Chinese elements in the music.  But the landscape was more difficult to pin down.  I visited the West Lake once, on a nice day, where people enjoyed themselves by the lake shore, in boats on the lake, or along footpaths with blossoming shrubs (Osmanthus).  The calm sections didn't remind me of that short experience.  In any case, things may have changed a bit over the last millennium. 

Chen has a compelling life story.  Born in 1953, hers was the generation that had their high school and university education interrupted by (or even lost to) the Cultural Revolution.  She managed to maintain and hone her craft during those difficult years.  She now lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Chen's Landscape Impression led the program this afternoon.

The Schumann piano concerto is always enjoyable when played well (perhaps it doesn't even have to be played that well).  Bronfman as usual put in an excellent performance.  For encore he played Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18, also by Schumann (thanks Google for identifying the piece).  Although Bronfman grew up in Israel, he was born in today's Uzbekistan.  So perhaps there is a strong tradition of classical music in that part of the world after all.

Now to the Tchaikovsky, and mostly about how NJSO compares with NY Phil.  There certainly was a lot of daylight between the two, one might even go as far as saying day and night - but I won't.  An observation that pains me.  The major distinction was how precise the performance was.  The large number of instruments increased the volume of the sound, but not how chaotic the sections sounded.  Certainly the NJSO musicians are capable of pulling the piece off.  After all, one of them played as a temp today, and the solo horn sounded equally solid in NJSO's performance; but they couldn't begin and end at the same exact moments.  To be charitable, NJSO does not do as many concerts (not even half the number) as NY Phil, so the musicians have less time to do music together.

The conductor was the same for both performances, so I assume she worked equally well with both orchestras.  Zhang worked a few years with NY Phil assisting Loren Maazel about 20 years ago; and she has been with NJSO for 10 years.  Somewhere I read (probably in then Avery Fisher Hall) the conductor adds about 10% to the performance; that would imply the difference was in the orchestras. NJSO still has a long way to go yet.

Actually even the Program Notes made quite a difference in my appreciation of the piece.  The NJSO notes doesn't go beyond mentioning that Ukrainian melodies are used in three of the four movements.  The NY Phil notes, however, gives brief descriptions of the three - and that made a ton of difference in my understanding of the piece.

Musicians from different sections being acknowledged by Zhang after the Tchaikovsky Symphony.

These points came to me only afterwards.  I just sat there and enjoyed the piece as it was performed.

And I continue to wish NJSO great success.

New Jersey Symphony. Xian Zhang, conductor; Randall Goosby, violin. January 9, 2026.

Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, NJ.  Balcony Left (Seat DD1, $65).

Randall Goosby after performing the Barber Violin Concerto.

Program

Finlandia, Op. 26 by Sibelius.

Violin Concerto, Op. 14 by Barber.

Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 17, Ukrainian, by Tchaikovsky.

Short - not necessarily the best or the most accurate - descriptions of the three pieces on tonight's program.

Today's program consisted of one very well-known piece by Sibelius, a violin concerto we heard 1 1/2 months ago, and a Tchaikovsky symphony I hadn't heard before.

The venue is rather small (seating capacity of around 900), thus giving the concert an intimate feel, even for those seated in the last row of the balcony.  We had a good view of the stage and all the musicians.

My expectations were thus quite high, even though I didn't know what to expect of the Tchaikovsky piece.  While the concert was enjoyable, those high expectations unfortunately were not met.

At the conclusion of Finlandia.

For the orchestral pieces two issues stood out.  One was the lack of precision.  That may be a bit more difficult with the Tchaikovsky symphony, but with the Finlandia it shouldn't be a problem - but it was.  The other was the lack of  consistent story-telling in the performance.  The music was going somewhere most of the time, but every now and then the players seem to have lost the plot.

The Tchaikovsky piece used to be called "Little Russia" (think politics at that time) because the composer used several Ukrainian melodies in the symphony.  Perhaps due to my unfamiliarity with those melodies, I couldn't quite pick them out beyond fragments that got repeated here or there.   The four movements of the symphony are Andante sostenuto - Allegro vivo; Andante marziale, quasi moderato; Scherzo: Allegro molto vivo; and Finale: Moderato assai.

Zhang after the Tchaikovsky.

The Program Annotator mentions Tchaikovsky's use of his contemporaries' techniques, probably true, but not meaningful to those who do not know what those techniques were - and I assume that was most in the audience, even an audience in Princeton.

 

However, it is likely that many in the audience also attend NY Phil concerts regularly, given how easy it is to get to NYC from the Princeton area.  So I wonder how many of them heard Augustin Hadelich perform the Barber violin concerto with the New York Philharmonic.  And I wonder what they think.  Goosby put in a good performance, but one that was far from being inspiring.  The first two movements of the concerto are known not as virtuoso pieces, but rather as contemplative and melodic ones.  I wish Goosby had put more of himself into these movements, rather than simply let the music speak for itself.  That attitude served him well for the third movement, which was basically a fast-paced piece, lasting about 4 minutes, with only two short breaks for the soloist.  Goosby just made it look like a day in the office.

For encore he played Bach's C major sonata, Largo.

I remarked that Hadelich's Guarneri violin sounded very well at David Geffen Hall.  I was surprised to find out Goosby performs on a Stradivarius.  I expected a much brighter and strong sound to reach the top of the balcony (I could certainly see the instrument clearly); it was barely adequate against a "modest-sized" orchestra.  And I was surprised at how harsh the E-string sounded.

Xian Zhang will be conducting the New York Phil later this week (writing this entry on 1/13), and the Tchaikovsky symphony is also on the program.  It will be interesting how the two orchestras compare.

For some reason I thought the concert began at 8 pm, so it was a mad scramble to the car when I finally realized it was a 7:30 pm start.  We made it by about 10 minutes.  It was disappointing that there were many empty seats in the auditorium.  The applause was more enthusiastic than what one typically gets at other NJ Symphony concerts, so that's good.

New York Philharmonic. Gianandrea Noseda, conductor; Behzod Abduraimov, piano. January 8, 2026.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat W109, $106).

Program

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (1874-75; rev. 1879, 1889) by Tchaikovsky (1840-93).

Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43 (1935-36) by Shostakovich (1906-75).

The two pieces on the program were both composed by Russian composers.  Students of Russian music can probably trace an arc for the development of the Russian repertoire in the intervening 60 years; to the less erudite they simply sounded like pieces from two different centuries - which of course they are.

Tchaikovsky's piano concerto is well-known, though not as popularly programmed as one would think (at least as far as my encounters are concerned).  My last encounter was Joyce Yang and the New Jersey Symphony (very recent, October 2025), but the one before that was in 2016 (also with NJ Symphony).  It turns this piece would be played at the BSO next week, with Seong-Jin Cho as the pianist.  Perhaps the piece is popular again?  Or I need to go out more?

A well-performed Tchaikovsky is exhilarating, and leaves the audience with a few hummable tunes afterwards.  That's certainly the case tonight.  Even though the piece is familiar, it was still amazing to see how the pianist's fingers move so quickly across the keyboard, pounding out one impossible passage after another.  The balance between the soloist and the orchestra was generally excellent, except for a few instances here or there that the pianist was drowned out by the huge ensemble (we are talking at least 10 first violins here).

Abduraimov is Uzbekistani (or simply an Uzbek), and I am sure the first "world class" musician I have seen from that country.  Before this concert - his NY Phil debut - Abduraimov also performed at many well-known venues, famously substituting for Yefim Bronfman and Leila Josefowicz in 2014.  (Well, he doesn't play the violin, so he substituted a Prokofiev Piano Concerto instead.)  I was assuming it was talent that managed to flourish despite its surroundings; not quite true, as he began piano lessons with his mother, and enrolled in Park University (in Parkville, Missouri) at age 15.

Per the Program Notes, Tchaikovsky showed an early version of the concerto to his colleague Nikolai Rubinstein.  The way Tchaikovsky recounted it was that Rubinstein claimed that some ideas were plagiarized, and that only a few pages of the manuscript were worth saving (my words).  Tchaikovsky turned to Hans von Bulow for help, and that explains (?) why the work debuted in Boston.

In another part of the Program Notes the composition is described as "more notable as an effusion of themes than as a tightly organized structure."  Doesn't that in a way prove Rubinstein's point?  For most people, of course, these criticisms don't matter.  The concerto is just thrilling to sit through.  Incidentally, the opening melody, introduced by the orchestra, would not reappear in the concerto again after a few minutes.  A similar construct is in the composer's violin concerto.

For encore, he played Liszt's Paganini Etude No. 3.  Anne knew it was Liszt, Google provided the title.

The Program Notes contains a lengthy description of Shostakovich's problems with the Russian authorities.  It explains why the composition, first completed in 1936, was removed from its premiere and didn't emerge as a limited edition for two pianos until 1951, and in its full form 10 years later.  Shostakovich himself claimed in 1931 that "there can be no music without ideology ...," so one can assume there are messages strewn throughout the work.  Beyond the phrase "... always fascinating - if cryptic - in its narrative: a many-layered metaphor of Shostakovich's life and oeuvre," I couldn't find any additional insight into what ideology Shostakovich was trying to share with this composition.

The work calls for a large ensemble.  I counted eight percussionists (Anne counted nine, which is the correct number), and two sets of timpani.  There were also two tubas and a xylophone - they all got a proper workout.  The first (Allegro poco moderato) and last (Largo - Allegro) movements were quite long (at around 25 minutes), the middle one (moderato con moto, probably the one described as "vulgar" by the Annotator) is quite short at around 10 minutes.  The music was correspondingly loud.  At one point I looked at my Apple Watch and it registered 94 db.  And I was seated at around the middle of the auditorium.  I can't image how loud it was for the musicians.

Noseda shaking hands with Huang at the conclusion of the concert.

I took this from Tier 3 during intermission while the chairs were being rearranged.  There is a reason why there is a big gap in front of the brass instruments.  Some passages in the Shostakovich were very loud.

Even without much understanding of the music, I didn't find the 60 plus minute symphony long.  I do need to read up on the symphony a bit, though, before I hear it again.

This was my fourth concert this season - the prior three were unplanned late additions.  Today (writing this Friday 1/9) we would go to Princeton for a NJ Symphony program.

Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse. Menoti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. January 3, 2026.

Mitzie E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center.  Seat H118 ($102).

Curtain Call.  The people (dressed in black) on the left of the photo constitute the "orchestra."

Story.  Amahl lives with his mother.  He walks with the aid of a cane.  One night three visitors come to knock on his door.  He tells his mother that there are three kings visiting.  His mother at first doesn't believe him, but eventually they welcome in their modest home the three visitors, who are on a journey to visit this new-born king.  Neighbors are invited to join in the celebration.  After things quiet down, and the neighbors have left, Amahl's mother tries to steal the visitors' gold, but is caught.  The visitors forgive her.  When the visitors get ready to leave, Amahl offers up his cane as a gift for the king, and he finds himself cured.  With his mother's blessing, Amahl joins the visitors in the journey.

Conductor - Steven Osgood; Amahl - Albert Rhodes, Jr, Amahl's Mother - Joyce DiDonato, The Page - Johnathan McCullough, The Three Kings - Bernard Holcomb, Todd Thomas, Phillip Boykin.

The last (and only) time we saw this opera was when Ellie was in a play put out by her school - she probably was one of the many neighbors.  Beyond that I didn't remember much of the opera, although one could guess from the title what the story is.

The story is simple enough, indeed so simple that some "extraneous" vignettes have to be inserted so the opera would last more than 30 minutes.  I include in that the neighbor scene, and the dancing that takes place.  Even the mother trying to steal the gold is so "les miz." Which is okay, one attends a performance of this work as a pleasant event for the season, and not necessarily as a masterpiece.  Indeed the opera was written for TV as a way to popularize the genre.  Opera goers were even more snobbish 70 years ago, I suppose.

The performance was very enjoyable.  From the very beginning, one could sense the great relationship between mother and son, and how they hang on to each other for strength despite their lack of material things.  Given how small the theater is (seats around 400), all the singers came across clearly.  DiDonato's voice is strong, but I wish she showcased her ability to capture an audience with her signature soft deliveries.  She is quoted as wanting to this for a long time.

The set did its job.

The three visitors all had booming voices ("one of them is white," a line I am quite sure not in the original; they are most likely Persians anyway).  The "orchestra," so to speak, consists of two pianos and an oboe.

The visitors promised to bring Amahl back after their visit to the king.  We know that probably didn't happen as Matthew 2:12 tells us the visitors took a different way home.

Anne really wanted our grandchildren to see this, but couldn't pull it off during Christmas week.  Ellie and Reid came along this afternoon.

New York Philharmonic. Louis Langree, Conductor. January 2, 2026.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  First Tier (Seat BB1, $25).

At the conclusion of the concert.

Program

Serenade for Wind Instruments in E-flat major, Op. 7 (1881) by R. Strauss (1864-1949).

Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, Gran partita, K. 361/370a (1783-84) by Mozart (1756-91).

Both pieces on this evening's program used a wind ensemble.  The Mozart piece calls for a bass that most musicologists believe is of the "stringed" kind, and for two basset horns - which looked like clarinets to me.

The piece by Strauss was written when the composer was 17.  Per the Program Notes, Strauss's arc as a composer started with this work scored for 13 instruments; and this work earned him wide attention, including that of the famed pianist/conductor Hans von Bulow.  (As a side remark, von Bulow had been closely allied with  until Wagner seduced and married Cosima, von Bulow's wife.  No wonder he was looking for new associates.)

Strauss himself characterized the work as "respectable for a music student;" most listeners would think grander descriptions are warranted.  The Program Notes contains a description of the work which one could follow, somewhat successfully in my case.

After the short (10-minute) piece by Strauss.

No matter what "gran partita" conjured up in my mind, it certainly wasn't a collection of 12 wind instruments plus a double bass.  Partita and serenade were used somewhat interchangeably in Mozart's day, and the word "gran" was addition by someone other than Mozart (different handwriting).  I am assuming "gran" means "grand," which may be a right adjective in Mozart's day, but even Strauss may call that a petit serenade, given how large ensembles had become by his time.

Dating when Mozart's pieces must be a popular area of pursuit for musicologists.  In addition to when the word "gran" was added to the title, there was also a discussion on how it was eventually determined that the piece was completed in 1784, rather than the riginal date of 1780 when von Kochel first catalogued Mozart's works.  Even the type of paper used was used to do the date alignment.

While the Program Notes refers to the popularity of the piece,  tonight was the first time I heard it since I started this blog.  The serenade has six movements, and it was easy enough to follow the tempo markings provided in the Program Notes.

With a small ensemble of very high caliber musicians, one wonders if a conductor was necessary for the two pieces on the program.  It was good to see Langree enjoying himself on stage though.  (He didn't use a podium.)

This concert was reasonably well-attended.  While the low cost of tickets helped, it was still a good thing that people showed up early in the year.  The concert was also short, lasting less than an hour.

After the 2 pm concert Anne and I had a late lunch at Dim Sum Palace.  She returned to South Amboy afterwards, I stayed behind to catch this concert.

New York Philharmonic. Gil Shaham, Leader/Violin. January 2, 2026.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat CC117, $68).

Shaham and Huang doing a fist bump at the end of the concert.

Program - All Mozart.

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D major, K. 211 (1775) by Mozart (1756-91).

Adagio in E major for Violin and Orchestra, K. 261 (1776).

Rondo in C major for Violin and Orchestra, K. 373 (1781).

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219, Turkish (1775).

New York Philharmonic is offering two concerts each day on January 2 and 3, at reasonable prices.  Anne and I attended this 2 pm concert with Gil Shaham as both the leader and the soloist, and I would then take in the 7:30 pm concert with Louis Langree conducting.

My initial thoughts was the two can be covered in one write-up, since the pieces were nearly all-Mozart.  As I went through the concerts, different thoughts came to mind, so writing them up separately may make a bit more sense.

For a long time I was led to think all of Mozart's violin concertos were written when he was young (around 17), and thus lacked the maturity of his later compositions.  The current thinking (as described in the Program Notes) is that Mozart indeed wrote his first violin concerto at age 17, but the 2nd through the 5th were written in 1775, thus belong to his mature period.  (Most references have the mature period starting later than 1775, so perhaps his "more mature" period.)  And the Annotator leaves open the possibility that the last two concertos were written even later.  I wait with bated breath.

The two short pieces also have stories attached to them.  One obvious question would be why Mozart would write these short pieces at all.  Well, here are the explanations.  Mozart fell out with his benefactor Prince-Archbishop Colloredo and Brunetti was asked to perform the Fifth concerto.  The latter was not satisfied with the slow movement, so Mozart wrote another slow movement in the same key and tempo.  Nowadays performers of the concerto usually use the "original" slow movement, and the new slow movement is a standalone piece cataloged as K. 261.  The K. 373 piece was also composed for Brunetti, probably intended as part of another violin concerto that never got written.  In all that, Mozart wasn't a fan of Brunetti, calling him "a disgrace to his master, to himself, and to the whole orchestra."  Well, this is what I gleamed from the Program Notes anyway.  All subject to change, I suppose, as more musicologists dig into this issue.

In any case, this was a delightful concert.  The good thing about Mozart is one could simply sit there and let the music wash over you, or one can choose to analyze how the pieces are structured, and admire Mozart's genius in how things were put together.  We were seated in the back of the main auditorium, and the acoustics worked just fine.  Shaham didn't move around as much as I remembered him doing in prior concerts.

Quite a sizeable orchestra for a Mozart Violin Concerto.  The balance was fine.

There were quite a few cadenzas in the program, some rather short.  I wonder who wrote them: I don't recall any of these cadenzas when I was learning these concertos.

The concert's duration was about an hour.  Just the right amount of Mozart in one sitting.

New York Philharmonic. Jane Glover, conductor. December 12, 2025.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat X103, $0).

After Part 1.  From the left: Soloists John Holiday, Amanda Forsythe, Nicholas Phan, and Kevin Deas.

Program

Messiah (1741) by Handel (1685-1759).

Artists

Amanda Forsythe, soprano; John Holiday, countertenor; Nicholas Phan, tenor; Kevin Deas, bass-baritone

Music of the Baroque Chorus, Andrew Megill, chorus director

Continuo: Carter Brey, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; Christopher Martin, trumpet; Kent Trittle, organ; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichordeve

Because of our travel towards the end of the year, we could attend only this Messiah concert for this season.  (We were in the Boston area but couldn't attend an H+H concert because of other commitments; the NJ Symphony events will take place while we are out of town.)  And it didn't disappoint, mostly.

A couple of "peculiarities" stand out with Jane Glover's take on the music.  First is she seemed to like to introduce the different lines quietly - instead of stressing how they should sound at the beginning.  It took me a while to get used to that, but it was generally to good effect.  And she seemed to do less of it in Acts 2 and 3.  The other is how the word "like" was stressed in the chorus "For we like sheep."  The word falls in the 4th beat of the measure, so the loudness sounded a bit awkward (for me, anyway).  We heard her 10 years ago, and I made a similar remark.  (I just saw a YouTube broadcast of her conducting Huddersfield Choral Society Northern Sinfonia, there the word isn't stressed.)

The soprano was the weakest among the soloists.  For Act 1 she sang like she was singing a Bel Canto opera, which was quite a contrast with how her counterparts did their job.  She "calmed down" a bit in Acts 2 and 3.  One of the highlights of the oratorio is the aria "I know that my redeemer liveth."  The quality and volume of her voice lacked the consistency to make it memorable.

Not memorable can still be quite good.  As were many other choruses and solos.  The trumpet - played by the orchestra's principal Christopher Martin - was a standout.  I could barely see or hear the three reed instruments listed (2 oboes and 1 bassoon).

Last time we heard Glover conduct the Messiah the choir was from Westminster Choir College.  Today's ensemble hails from Chicago, and Glover was its director at one time.  It would be nice to hear the Westminster ensemble again.  I looked at their website, it seems they are not very active this season.

The gentleman on the left is probably the chorus director.

All in all it was a really enjoyable event.

NEC Prep: Preparatory String Orchestra 8:30. Marta Zurad, conductor. December 6, 2025.

Brown Hall, NEC, Boston, MA.  Balcony (free).

Program

Dona Nobis Pacem by Unknown.

Celebration by Dvorak (1678-1741), arr. H. Ashlin.

Waltz of the Flowers by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), arr. J. McLeod.

Emmie continues to play in the NEC preparatory orchestras.  For the current academic year she is in the PSO 8:30 (evidently there is also a PSO 10:30).

Brown Hall is quite a bit smaller than Jordan Hall, Joe P and I were in the balcony with a great vantage point.

As Joe P observed, the level of this ensemble was clearly better than the one Emmie was in last year.  Of course the kids are a year older (generally), and can withstand some amount of criticism.  And the number of players was also smaller.

Both sets of grandparents showed up.

Anne and I left for the airport for our return flight to NJ right after the concert.

Boston Concservatory Orchestra. Jorge Soto, Conductor; Byron Zhou, piano. December 4, 2025.

Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Boston, MA.  Nave (Left side, free).

The orchestra seated in front of the altar.

Program: Building Our Future Together - A Preview of Carnegie Hall's United Nations Concert

The Marriage of Figaro Overture by Mozart.

Piano Concerto No. 3 by Rachmaninoff.

Symphony No. 9 (first three movements) by Beethoven.

Finlandia by Sibelius.

Program for the evening.  I left during intermission.

I came across this event when I was searching for classical concerts during my week in Boston.  Although Anne came back to Somerville after her dental appointment, she decided not to go.  The concert started at 6 pm, so I thought I would give it a try.

Tonight's concert was a warm-up/dress rehearsal event for a private concert at Carnegie Hall for people from the United Nations.  The musicians would board buses the next morning for NY City.  Since the soloists and chorus are based in New York, that would mean for tonight's event they would skip the last movement of the Choral Symphony.  And instead of the Mozart piece, they would do a couple of songs by Florence Price.

I left after the first half.  I rarely do that (even with free concerts), partly because I am stubborn, and partly because I want to support the musicians.  The major reason for my leaving early was the acoustics of the cathedral.  Perhaps it is great for choral music, but for traditional classical music things just sound muddled, very muddled.  I thought of "a wall of music" or "a cauldron of musical notes" during the entire concert, the half I was present for, anyway.

An impressive church on Tremont Avenue.

For the Rachmaninoff, the pianist was just a few pews ahead of me.  Yet it sounded as if the pianist never let go of the pedal, and I could barely make out any of the lines.  Things got even worse when the orchestra chimed in.

Soloist Byron Zhou.

The musicians must have practiced a long time to get to this stage, and I wonder if they realize what a disaster the performance was.  Carnegie Hall definitely has much better acoustics, and I hope they did well there.

I have heard performances in various cathedrals and churches before (both in the US and Europe), and I don't remember anything as bad as tonight.

The area is suffering from a cold spell.  I walked to the Assembly Station to catch the subway; it was around 30F and quite bearable.  It was in the teens when I got back to the Station (at around 7:30 pm), and with a strong wind blowing, it felt very cold.  Joe came by to pick me up.

Roxbury has a reputation of being a rough area.  The situation has evidently improved a lot, and it certainly felt fine walking to the church and back from the Roxbury Crossing Station.  Joe P says his school is a block from the train station, and that the area is fine.