In Thursday’s (12/20) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, music critic Andrew Druckenbrod puts Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley’s January 2012 concert at the head of his list of the year’s top ten concerts. “There was electricity in the air of the Temple Emanuel in Mt. Lebanon as violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley stepped onto the stage. It was the first Pittsburgh recital of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s new concertmaster…. He displayed a musical sensibility that seemed to channel violinists of old. In repertoire Romantic, modern and Jewish, his dark-hued tone and slight sliding to notes evoked violinists such as Fritz Kreisler…. With pianist Rodrigo Ojeda, Mr. Bendix-Balgley performed Stravinsky’s ‘Suite Italienne,’ Brahms’s Scherzo in C minor from the ‘F.A.E. Sonata, Joseph Achron ‘Hebrew Melody’ and Franck’s Violin Sonata in A major. He had arrived and we were glad to have him.” Also on Druckenbrod’s top-ten list are three Pittsburgh Symphony concerts led by Music Director Manfred Honeck at Heinz Hall: June 15 (Mahler Symphony No. 6, Eugene Goossens’s Concert Piece for Oboe, Two Harps and Orchestra); September 21 (Dvorak Symphony No. 9, Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1); and December 1 (Mozart Clarinet Concerto, Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4, and Mason Bates’s Mothership).
Posted December 20, 2012
