One of the biggest “Who could have imagined?” flashes I have had in a long time came during the concert by the impressive International Contemporary Ensemble on Monday night at the Rose Theater. Here, as a highlight of this summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival, was a top-notch contemporary-music ensemble, under the brilliant direction of the fast-rising French conductor Ludovic Morlot..
A fascinating mini-festival materialised within the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center this summer. Bearing a generously vague title, Bach & Polyphonies, it was lovingly – sometimes verbosely – curated by the keyboardist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. He managed to celebrate a changing of the avant-garde at every complex turn...
Conductor Ludovic Morlot let the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra relax into a languid trance for the opening movement of the Ibert, subtitled Palermo. It was a beautifully fluid movement and suddenly burst into action...
At 36, still young for a conductor, Morlot has built a sterling resume — including regular gigs with Paris’ crack new-music Ensemble Intercontemporain, as the Boston Symphony’s assistant conductor (the same position that launched Robert Spano’s career) and, more recently, conducting major orchestras around the globe. ..
Somewhat overshadowed by Chen’s wizardry was the return of conductor Ludovic Morlot, the fabulous 36-year-old Frenchman who’s fast become a welcome face here. He opened with a persuasive case for Bohuslav Martinu’s symphonic sketch “The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca” (1956), a richly scored three-movement work, which made its CSO debut Thursday night...
It’s the hall mark of a professional orchestra that when unexpected obstacles threaten to overcome a concert, musicians rise above them and achieve a high level of performance anyway. This week the Seattle Symphony rose to the challenge and triumphed...
The concert started with a decent Prelude to “Lohengrin”, starting with some beautiful string playing – so pure in sound that it was positively Sibelian – Morlot building a strong climax, never allowing the music to get out of hand and become too loud or hard. ..