Astoria Symphony Orchestra: A gem in New York City’s outer boroughs

With the sun shining bright and the waning winter months feeling more like spring, it seemed like all of Astoria was out on the streets this past Sunday. Still, the Astoria Symphony Orchestra enticed some of the locals indoors, delighting us with Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven.

With the sun shining bright and the waning winter months feeling more like spring, it seemed like all of Astoria was out on the streets this past Sunday. Still, the Astoria Symphony Orchestra enticed some of the locals indoors, delighting us with Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven.

Solomon Rosowsky, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky form a matinee programme whose deeper connections gradually came into focus. 

Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin deliver a lean, razor-sharp exploration of captivity and survival, balancing Beethoven’s and Brahms’ structural clarity against the devastating, high-fidelity distortion of Henze’s Ninth Symphony.

French clarinettist Raphaël Sévère unearths beauty in Nielsen’s concerto and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta impress in two settings of Pan’s antics at the French May Festival.

The Korean pianist astonishes in Schubert and Scriabin, in a performance sure to be a highlight of Wigmore Hall’s 125th anniversary festivities.