I received this recording in the mail earlier in the year, and have to admit I've just recently listened to it, airing it for the first time today.

Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra turn in an impressive rendition of Mahler's last completed symphony.  Pulitzer Prize winning arts critic Lloyd Schwarz is quoted on the inside cover as saying "I wish more professional orchestras played as thrillingly as this."

Indeed, there are some professional orchestras who should play this well.  If you like Mahler, this is worth a listen.

​

(from a press release)

At 8:00 p.m., Sunday, May 5, 2019, Alexander Blachly and members of Pomerium will present a lecture-recital at the Church of the Transfiguration (“The Little Church Around the Corner”) at 1 East 29th Street, New York, NY. 

As a complement to Pomerium’s concert “Number Mania: Hidden Structures in Medieval Music” on March 14, 2019, in the Midtown Concerts series, the May 5 lecture-recital will explain in detail what is happening beneath the surface of pieces performed on that occasion.

The philosophical conception of a numerically ordered universe inherited from Pythagoras and his followers—Plato, Ptolemy, Boethius, and many others in the late Middle Ages—had a profound effect on the composition of polyphonic music from the earliest measured polyphony we know of: music from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in the decades around 1200 AD. The first such pieces in the thirteenth century were short, but by the fourteenth century Philipppe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut were writing longer and more complex works structured on numerical frameworks, culminating in the great isorhythmic motets of the early fifteenth century by Johannes Ciconia, John Dunstaple, and Guillaume Du Fay. After each piece is discussed, it will be performed by Pomerium singers Kristina Boerger, Amber Evans, Chloe Holgate, Dominique Surh, Nathaniel Adams, Christopher Preston Thompson, and Michael Steinberger.
​
Admission is free.

Musicians of the Chicago Symphony came to terms with orchestra management over the weekend, voting unanimously to accept a new contract.  Musicians are guaranteed raises of a certain percent over the next five years.  They will also be converting from a defined benefit retirement plan to a defined contribution plan.

​More details can be found here.

Gustavo Dudamel sustained a fall in December, and is still suffering  from the effects.  On his doctor's advice, he is withdrawing from a series of concerts in Boston.

​The Boston Globe has the story here.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra strike continues, now in it's fifth week.  Orchestra musicians have rejected what CSO management called their "last, best and final offer".

All events have been cancelled through April 23rd.

More details on where things stand can be found here.