A Look Back At The BPO In 2024 – Part 1
BPO concert reviews originally published at Media Room January – June 2024
By Frank Housh
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra began in 1935, right before World War II. It is likely that few in the fledging ensemble would have guessed the BPO would last another nine decades.
It has been an eventful 90 years. Music directors, conductors, musicians, staff, and music critics have all passed through and left their imprint on a proud local institution.
The BPO’s annual seasons begin in the fall, and the concerts featured below took place between January and June 2024, the final half of the 2023-2024 Season.
These six reviews (including a visit to Rochester and the RPO) were published at my publication, Media Room, as the performances predated The Buffalo Hive’s July 22, 2024, launch. I am proud to have been one of the founding editors of The Hive, and I served as managing editor until November 2024. I now participate as a contributing editor.
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Watch this space for Part 2 which will look at my final six BPO reviews of performances from the first half of the 2024-25 Season, September 2024 to the end of this month.
Climate Change Comes to Kleinhans
The Buffalo Philharmonic’s ‘Tchaikovsky & Mozart’
On January 12, 2024 guest conductor and Reno Philharmonic Music Director Laura Jackson conducted a performance of contemporary composer Jimmy López Bellido’s “Altered Landscape,” which scored a photographic exhibit of the same name highlighting climate change and humanity’s negative effects on the natural world.
For me, the highlight was Ying Li’s performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20.
January 12th was a Friday, and Saturday’s planned repeat performance had to be cancelled due to a storm. A quote from my review is below.
Thus, tonight’s performance of “Altered Landscapes,” is canceled by dangerous weather created by climate change. Ironic, no?
You can read the review here.
Modernism Conquers The Solar System: The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Performs “The Planets”
Also the Blitzkrieg, Film Cameras, Existential Introspection, and Tommy Chong
On January 26, 2024, I visited Eastman Hall in Rochester for a performance of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” accompanied by NASA footage on a big screen.
My first impression was that Kleinhans Music Hall has spoiled me. Eastman Theater’s sketchy acoustics (it was built in 1922 as a movie hall) made me appreciate our gem on Symphony Circle.
The RPO did right by Holst, playing with bombast and nuance as the music demanded. You will be left with little doubt that the Red Planet is a hostile place, scarred and fearsome.
NASA images of the planets played on a large screen as accompaniment. This creates an immersive, cinematic experience which – be warned – comes with a side effect of existential introspection. So . . . maybe bring a bottle of water. Whatever you do.
You can read the review here.
Concert Review: The BPO Performs “Don Quixote”
The Chivalric Knight In A World Without Honor
On March 1, 2024 the BPO performed Strauss’ “Don Quixote.” This was a favorite performance.
Don Quixote is thus a literary burlesque of chivalric romance and makes Quixote a tragic figure seeking individual salvation as a Man of Honor in a time of community collapse. In such a world Don Quixote appears demented, but I believe Cervantes means for Quixote to represent the last sane man in a world gone mad.
This tragic interpretation of Quixote is, I respectfully suggest, the one that inspired Richard Strauss’ eponymous 1897 tone poem.
You can read the review here.
Concert Review: The BPO Performs Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto
Also Napoleon, War Trauma, Finland, And A Medieval Nun
The BPO performs Beethoven a lot and they do it very well. On April 20, 2024 pianist Stewart Goodyear joined them for a performance of his famous “Emperor” Piano Concerto. It was a memorable evening.
In a mere thirty seconds (:57-1:27) Goodyear demonstrates controlled virtuosity, a delicate touch, and intimate orchestral interplay. While any Beethoven composition requires high-level professionals the Emperor (his final concerto) requires technical mastery, historical understanding, and emotional intelligence.
You can read the review here.
The Chooi Brothers Take Over Kleinhans
Also The Everly Brothers, Violas, and Gen. Burgoyne’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
BPO Concertmaster Nikki Chooi’s brother Timothy joined him and the BPO on May 3, 2024 to perform Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. I have described J.S. Bach as “the greatest artist in human history,” so it’s fair to say I was predisposed to like the concert. That said, the Chooi boys did Bach proud.
In Summer 1985 I drove from Lawrence, Kansas to Waco, Texas in the company of a young woman with whom I was well acquainted. I recall turquoise toenails on the dash and endless waves of heat radiating from Oklahoma highways.
The car radio’s heady brew of vein-throbbing, bug-eyed, end-times evangelism had exhausted its ability to charm us; I desperately sifted through the spiral cassette display at a truck stop. I managed to dig out “The Everly Brothers Greatest Hits” and by the time we hit Dallas we sung a passable “All I Have To Is Dream.”
During a silence, my companion stared out at the dusty middle distance and said, “it’s because they’re brothers. That’s why they sound so good together.”
You can read the review here.
Concert Review: The BPO Closes Its Season With Mahler’s “Resurrection”
A Finale To Remember
The 2023-2024 Season closed with Mahler’s “Resurrection,” June 2-3, 2024. I am not generally not fond of Mahler’s music which makes reviewing performances of his music problematic. I recognize that my opinions about Mahler’s music are my problem and I am very careful not to confuse my bias with a failure by others.
It’s like the restaurant critic who doesn’t like Greek food and gives the new Greek place a bad review because it didn’t taste good to him.
As a critic I strictly adhere to John Updike’s “6 Rules for Reviewing” and seek to maintain “a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.”
Sunday’s season finale performance of the Resurrection (June 2, 2024) filled the stage with an orchestra augmented with two harps, an organ, the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, and the solo voices of Ilana Davidson and Susan Platts (above).
Glowering cellos representing the ever-present specter of death opened the symphony. As the journey of the soul unfolded, the Orchestra filled Kleinhans Music Hall with Mahler’s dramatic trumpet fanfares, wall-rattling percussion, and ranks of heavenly voices.
You can read the review here.
Watch this space for Part 2 which will look at my final six BPO reviews constituting the first half of the 2024-25 Season, from September 2024 to the end of this year.
Frank Housh is a contributing editor of The Buffalo Hive and the publisher of Media Room, an arts and cultural publication that reviews music, film, books, and the visual arts. It is the only publication that offers regular, comprehensive reviews of the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Buffalo AKG Museum of Art.
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