The Week in Reviews, Op. 36: The summer season begins...

Written by Robert Niles
Published: June 24, 2014 at 5:40 PM [UTC]

In an effort to promote the coverage of live music, each week Violinist.com brings you links to reviews of notable violin performances from around the world.

As we move into the summer festival season, we would love to include more performances in our weekly round-up. If you know of a published review of a professional violin performance, please email a link to robert@violinist.com. (Publicists, here's your chance to get your clients' reviews on the site!)

Anne Akiko Meyers performed works by Mozart, Somei Satoh, Bates, and Ravel in recital in Coral Gables, Fla.

• South Florida Classical Review: "Performing with pianist Max Levinson, the violinist made the most of this music, giving a clean, energetic account of the first movement (of Mozart Violin Sonata in F Major), a high-spirited few minutes that bubbled along on sheer momentum."

Stefan Jackiw performed Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 with the Grant Park Orchestra (despite a serious rainstorm!)

• Chicago Tribune: "Particularly winning was Jackiw's suave cantabile treatment of Mozart's slow movement, here truly an operatic aria without words. Fingers and bow a blur, the fiddler flawlessly whipped through the 'Turkish' portion of the finale that gives the concerto its nickname – it was as if he and Kalmar sensed the heavens had nastier tricks up their sleeve."
• Chicago Sun-Times: "Jackiw had the audience, orchestra and conductor Carlos Kalmar wholly on his side both musically and in terms of the weather circumstances. (He even humorously mimed pouring rainwater out of his violin in the break after the concerto’s first movement.) He’s surely, in his late 20s, someone we’ll be hearing more from."
• Chicago Classical Review: "...the concert began 45 minutes late with Jackiw managing to perform all of Mozart’s 'Turkish' concerto with Kalmar and the orchestra. After the Mozart, Kalmar began the scheduled performance of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 3. But with the weather beginning to worsen again, festival officials called the concert off for good a few minutes into the first movement."

Matthew Truscott performed the Bach with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

• The Telegraph: "Matthew Truscott’s performance of Bach’s A Minor Violin Concerto, which was at the evening’s core, didn’t fit at all. Not because it wasn’t beautifully played; it was, both by him and the OAE. And that was the problem. A dreamy procession of musical flavours seems satisfying enough, until something really gripping comes along."

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