In Friday’s (7/22) Boston Globe, David Weininger writes, “For the last four years, the Mercury Orchestra has led a Brigadoon-like existence, convening once each summer for four weeks of rehearsals and a single concert at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. The ensemble focuses on large-scale orchestral works of the 19th and early-20th centuries. And then it disappears, with plans to reassemble next year when the heat and humidity rise, and much of the city’s orchestral action has headed west to (literally) greener pastures. … Last year the Mercury and its music director, Channing Yu, were awarded the American Prize in Orchestral Performance in the community orchestras division.” On Saturday the orchestra performed Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. “The ensemble grew out of the rhythms of Boston music life: As the Boston Symphony dispatches to Tanglewood, most of the area’s other orchestras shut down for the summer. In part, the Mercury is ‘a place for people from those various orchestras to play some serious orchestra music during the summer,’ said Yu by phone earlier this week. Among the orchestra’s 105 players this summer—all of whom volunteer their services—are members of the Boston Civic Symphony, the New England Philharmonic, the Lexington Symphony, and other groups.”
Posted July 25, 2011
