I’m not sure how many of you have seen Justin Davidson’s article in New York Magazine listed his top ten classical music concerts of the year (8 of them featured music from the 20th or 21st centuries!!).
Because Mr. Davidson only writes about concerts in New York, I am curious about other people’s favorite concerts from this year.
This year I’ve only really gone to concerts in Ann Arbor, so mine are pretty lame:
Michigan Symphony Band, October 1
The second Student Composer’s Concert, November 15
Please share your favorites no matter what they are!
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Hey Garrett. Interesting question. I’m in the awkward position of attending very few concerts in which I’m not involved in some way, so this may sound like tooting my own horn. That being said, these were among the best concert experiences I’ve had in 2010:
The American Modern Ensemble: Pieces of Eight (12/15/10 Galapagos Art Space).
I had a piece on this program, sure, but it was the first concert of new music I’ve attended in a LONG time in which I liked EVERY piece on the program, all expertly and amazingly played by some of the best musicians working in New York.
Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble: La Commedia (4/10 Carnegie Hall)
National Symphony Orchestra with John Adams (Kennedy Center, 5/10)
(I wrote a review on these pages, so you can see what I thought there.)
What a coincidence that we each had a favorite concert on November 15 in which one of our pieces were played and we liked everything on the program, the planets must have been aligned a la 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Meanwhile, here in the SF Bay area:
1. March 4-6, 2010: Other Minds Festival (http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/Festival15.shtml), with works by Tom Johnson, Gyan Riley, Jurg Frey (see also Jason Subol’s blog) among others.
2. (Okay, so this was not a concert, but it was quite an event nonetheless) October 20, 2010: Gane 4, National League Championship Series, Philadelphia Phillies at San Francisco Giants. The Giants win a seesaw battle in the bottom of ninth inning with a sacrifice fly for the their third win of the best of seven series (who would later go to that series, then win the World Series).