By Laurie Niles: In an effort to promote the coverage of live violin performance, Violinist.com each week presents links to reviews of notable concerts and recitals around the world.![Benjamin Beilman]()
Violinist Benjamin Beilman.Benjamin Beilman performed Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.Itzhak Perlman performed Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the BYU Philharmonic at Brigham Young University.TwoSet Violin performed live in San Francisco.
Violinist Benjamin Beilman.
- The St. Louis American: "The flourishes of dynamic interplay aside, for long stretches of the concerto, its a dance song. You could grab your partner and dance to it. Beilman, though not stagey about it, danced throughout the entire performance. I was thinking Beilman danced with his violin more like a village fiddler than a concert violinist. Then, for his encore, he called Macelaru now toting a fiddle of his own! back onstage to play two Bella Bartok fiddle duets with him. It was a brilliantly generous and loving idea."
- San Francisco Classical Voice: "Though he conceived some of this music as far back as 2000, 'Convergence' does have a Zoom aesthetic. Real-time playing dovetails into its augmentations, the lags creating joyful, unexpected distortions. On Friday, Kuusistos variegated tone shone throughout."
- Chicago Classical Review: "The violinist sailed through the complexities and gave its impassioned flights full-throated lyricism in music that, Cziner said, was inspired by Chens 'artistry and infectious personality.'"
- Focus Taiwan: "Taiwanese violinist Tseng Yu-chien (???) was the star of the violin concerto with a performance full of creative ideas arranged in multiple layers that reflected his maturation eight years after winning second prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition."
- Deseret News: "He knows this piece backward and forward. And even after more than six decades, his fingers havent slowed down a bit. Perlman approaches his music with such an ease and comfortability that you almost forget youre watching a master craftsman at work."
- The Cavalier Daily: "...the pair serenaded listeners with an array of classical melodies, elegant sonatas and contemporary showpieces that left the audience fulfilled and warmed on an otherwise chilly Tuesday evening."
- Boston Musical Intelligencer: "Its also a difficult work to put across, but Ma and (conductor Andris) Nelsons did so brilliantly."
- Limelight: "The slow movement was rather lovely, though, perhaps because there was a little more space for Bell to direct rather than simply play, and the shift into the third movement was neatly done."
- The Stanford Daily: " I was more impressed by their ability to deliver a decent rendition of 'Meditation' while hula-hooping nonstop for five minutes than by their comedy."
- The Strad: "Seven violin concertos presented a surprisingly diverse bouquet of idioms at the 2023 BBC Proms, and a remarkably consistent level of finesse in performance."
- The Strad: "Lamsma gave Barbers luscious vehicle added strength with her 1718 Mlynarski Stradivari, its tonal beauty completely filling the recently renovated David Geffen Hall."
- The Strad: "It was truly a privilege to hear the birth of a new work in such an atmosphere of warm collaboration."
- The Week in Reviews, Op. 420: Patricia Kopatchinskaja; Mark Wood; Tianwa Yang
- The Week in Reviews, Op. 419: Joshua Bell, Two-Set Violin, Clara-Jumi Kang
- The Week in Reviews, Op. 418: Ilya Gringolts; Leonidas Kavakos; Carolin Widmann
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