Light Up the Sky lights up Lyric Stage

The Lyric Stage's revival of Moss Hart's charming comedy Light Up the Sky is aptly named, as the cast in this fast-paced comedy make for a delightful evening's entertainment. The play tells the story of a pre-Broadway Boston tryout of a new play by a neophyte playwright. The characters include the playwright, an over-the-top director who cries at the drop of a hat, the producer and his wife who have put up the money after reading the script, the leading lady and her dull stockbroker husband and her caustic mother, as well as an accomplished playwright who acts as a form of Greek chorus, a visiting Shriner and a new grad who is ghost-writing the leading lady's autobiography. The opening appears to be a flop and the the three main experienced characters berate the playwright, who decides to give it all up and go home. The morning papers, however, give the show rave reviews and so they must convince the playwright to return.
The lines are witty, the acting superb, and the time just flies by.  A wonderful ending to the 2014-15 season.

Spanish Baroque at Jordan Hall

As part of the Boston Early Music Festival, Jordi Savall and his ensemble joined with the Tembembe ensemble to perform a feast of early Hispanic music on a variety of period instruments. Despite the logistic flaws (more on that below), it was received with thunderous applause. Mr Savall, of course, is one of the great names in early music. A gambist, he has been performing widely since the 1970's with his group Hespérion XXI. Mr. Savall played a treble viol built in Venice around 1500 and a bass viol built in 1697. His ensemble played a variety of percussion instruments, guitars, theorbo and vihuela. Joining them was the Tembembe Ensamble from Mexico, all teachers at the National University, playing a variety of guitars, violin, and maracas and singing. The first half of the concert included four lengthy pieces from the 16th and 17th centuries, and after intermission began with some traditional Scottish pieces transcribed from bagpipe to viol. They then returned to their Spanish roots, and even favored the appreciative audience with an encore. The playing was sublime, and the few vocal pieces featured Tembembe members with superb tenor voices. The only fly in the ointment was the amateurish logistics. I dropped my wife off 30 minutes before concert time, with everyone milling about in the street and returned about 15 minutes later to find the doors just opened and the audience sent in a conga line down and back a long corridor to be checked slowly in by two ticket checkers. After intermission, Mr Savall made a number of remarks about the instruments and introduced the players, but even though we were in the 11th row dead center, I could barely hear half of what he said. Surely a microphone could have been made available! Jordan hall was almost 100% filled. If you plan to go next year, get your tickets early!

Classic Pops - why we love it

Thursday, June 4 was Tech Night at Pops - all of Symphony Hall was filled with MIT alumni back for reunion. The program was varied and lovely. After a lively Festive Overture by Shostakovich we had the haunting Ayesh's Dance and Lezghinka by Aram Khachaturian. This was followed by Stokowski's transcription for orchestra of Bach's Toccata and Fugue; this was BSO playing at its finest - you could actually "hear" the organ. The final selection before intermission was a fascinating diversion: the ensemble Gamelan Galak Tika, a nine-member group playing the traditional Balinese gamelan - a sort of ancient xylophone struck by hammers - played a selection from a concerto for gamelan and string orchestra. The audience was mesmerized. Starting the second half was the MIT school song and then an MIT senior, John Bowler, soloed in the first movement of Grieg's wonderful Piano Concerto in A minor. Having been subjected to various "talents" from sponsoring organizations, I was skeptical, but was wowed by the virtuoso performance. Mr Bowler could probably give up engineering and make his way on the concert stage if he desired. The finale of the concert was three Pops renditions of popular music from the past - with a twist, that Keith Lockhart gave us each time three selections from which to choose and used audience voting to make the choice. There are not many venues in which one could hear the Toccata and Fugue and Dancing Queen on the same program! All in all, one of the best Pops concerts we have heard.