“It is customary for a symphony orchestra to commission a new work in celebration of an important anniversary,” writes Benjamin Dunham in Wednesday’s (12/9) Sentinel (Plymouth, Mass.). “That’s what the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra did for its 90th birthday, going to famed opera composer Stephen Paulus to create ‘Sea Portraits,’ an evocative, four-movement orchestral work suggesting aspects of the city’s maritime heritage…. ‘Sea Portraits’ was well received a decade ago and is an important part of the NBSO’s history. Why not bring it back [for the orchestra’s centennial], with a newly imagined visual backdrop created by local photographer John Robson? The resulting gestalt of music and images—color and black-and-white, still and moving, clear and filtered, all projected … above the orchestra … transfixed the large audience in the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center in downtown New Bedford.… There was plenty to enjoy in the skillfully drawn miniature tone poems describing Sunrise, Sailing, Storm, and Moonlight on the Sea; in quieter moments, the composer spotlighted the strong, rounded tones of flutist Tim Macri.” Also on the program, led by Music Director David MacKenzie, were Rachmaninoff’s ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,’ with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Click here to read Symphony magazine’s article about how orchestras are evoking their hometowns with commissioned scores.
Posted December 10, 2015
Pictured: One of John Robson’s images that accompanied the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Stephen Paulus’s “Sea Portraits.”
