Word: virtuosos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years back the innocuous if slightly disturbing cable TV network made classical music headlines when it began to accompany its scrolling local weather reports with recordings of young violin virtuoso Gil Shaham and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Sales for the CD and for classical music in general skyrocketed, and Shaham rose to megastar status on the tide of his impeccable, resonant, almost glowing violin playing. At that time, however, Shaham was already a well-respected figure in the music world, having debuted at the age of 10 with the Jerusalem Symphony, attended Juilliard after graduating...
...Shaham is now recognized as a consummate virtuoso the world over, and his recital last Friday (as part of BankBoston's 60th Annual Celebrity Series Concert Series) proved to a packed audience at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall why this is the case...
...signs seemed to point elsewhere. Opening with Sonata No. 3 in E Major by J.S. Bach, Shaham was quick to highlight his remarkably fluid sense of a musical line and his impressive control of dynamics and tempo. However, the work was fairly unimpressive as an opening to a virtuoso's concert, and Shaham often failed to infuse the more lyrical sections with enough musical vitality and frequently attacked the quieter parts too aggressively. On a positive note, the choice of an early work did reflect the rest of the programs excellent selection of music from all genres and time periods...
Ferguson remains jazz's greatest, most charismatic trumpet virtuoso, even at age 70. He can still play arabesques at double-high-C, but he now uses his incredible technique and rich tone more expressively. And at a time when jazz ensembles struggle to survive, his small but versatile big band, Big Bop Nouveau, now in its ninth year, plays nearly 200 mostly sold-out gigs annually. Ferguson's stature and nurturing generosity have long attracted talented young musicians, but this exceptional group really cooks with revitalized standards (Just Friends gets a swinging, brassy treatment spiced with a fugue) and exciting...
...club owners passably honest, locking himself in his motel room to go over the accounting ledgers. So now he spent freely to turn his concerts into spectacles, building elaborate stage sets with erupting volcanoes and such. He also tightened up the music and hired the Trinidadian steel-drum virtuoso Robert Greenidge. Eventually he brought in clowns on stilts and a storyteller for the children and sent bands into the parking lot to play for the fans. He launched a newsletter and later a website to sell his merchandise and was among the first stars to land a corporate sponsor, Corona...