The Week in Reviews, Op. 405: Sirena Huang, Hilary Hahn, Jeremy Black

June 21, 2023, 3:51 PM · In an effort to promote the coverage of live violin performance, Violinist.com each week presents links to reviews of notable concerts and recitals around the world.

Violinist Sirena Huang. Photo by Raymond Huang.

Sirena Huang performed Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in D Minor for String Orchestra with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

NUVO: "From the moment of entry, without any hesitancy, Huang dazzled us with brilliant passage work, and her embrace of the full orchestra throughout was a showcase of caring partnership. "

Hilary Hahn performed a concert of American works with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective at Wigmore Hall.

The Arts Desk: "As throughout, Hilary Hahn was happy to be prima inter pares, taking the lead but not dominating. Alongside her in the violins was Elena Urioste, Co-Artistic Director of Kaleidoscope, who looked to be having tremendous fun through the whole thing. Tom Poster at the piano was the lynchpin, his athletic contributions maintaining the forward momentum."

Concertmaster Jeremy Black performed Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 at the opening concert of the Grant Park Music Festival.

Chicago Classical Review: "His technically dazzling but deeply expressive performance made clear the level of talent individual members of the Grant Park Orchestra bring to the Pritzker Pavilion week after week."

The Dover String Quartet, along with violist Barry Shiffman violinists Andrew Wan and Njioma Grevious and cellist Desmond Hoebig, performed the Mendelssohn Octet for the opening of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival.

Boston Globe: "Even a middle-of-the-road account of this festival party-piece will convey something essential of the music’s surging joyfulness, but this performance had an edge-of-the-seat dynamism and genuinely celebratory air from the first bar to the last. Joel Link’s stylishly rhapsodic playing of the concerto-like first violin part was the icing on the cake."

Melissa White performed Vivaldi’s "Summer" from "The Four Seasons" at the Sarasota Music Festival.

Herald-Tribune: "It was a buoyant and evocative performance that fit well with the festival’s theme of music as storytelling."

The Escher Quartet performed with harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani for the Rockport Chamber Music Festival.

Boston Musical Intelligencer: "(Esfahani's) playing and communication— alone and with the Escher Quartet...were nothing short of stunning. Escher Quartet...added focus, verve, concentration and, it seemed, piquancy and humor. The unusual choices of repertoire, particularly the world premiere of Composer-in-Residence Mark Applebaum’s October 1582, for solo harpsichord, and a few other surprises, made for a remarkable concert."

Nicola Benedetti, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor performed Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Gazette: "The three soloists showed razor-sharp interplay in the grand first movement and combined beautifully in the gentle slower section."

Thomas Gould performed Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Omega Ensemble.

Limelight Magazine: "Tackling the concerto’s volatile extremities...Gould was at once technically mesmerising and totally charismatic, manifesting feelings of joy, sorrow and even humour throughout his recital."

Madeleine Easton performed Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, and other Baroque works with Bach Akademie Australia.

Limelight Magazine: "Her bowing attack and control in the mighty (G minor) Fuga were exemplary, with fingers flying up and down the fingerboard with barely a blurred note. As Easton puts it in her programme note: 'If polyphonic music was not meant to be played on the violin, Johann Sebastian Bach didn’t get the memo.'"

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The Week in Reviews, Op. 405: Sirena Huang, Hilary Hahn, Jeremy Black

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