“If anyone had told me I’d be reviewing the fourth season of ‘Mozart in the Jungle,’ I would have suggested psychotherapy,” writes David Wiegand in Tuesday’s (2/13) San Francisco Chronicle. “The comedy-drama is set in the world of classical music; the main characters are a young Mexican conductor and members of the fictional New York Symphony, including a young oboe player; and the show features guest stars like [composer] Caroline Shaw, [actor] John Cameron Mitchell, [conductor] Pablo Heras-Casado and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Well, his ghost, anyway. Not exactly what you’d call the makings of a hit show. But the series, whose delicious fourth season is available … on Feb. 16, has succeeded not in spite of its quirky creative choices, but entirely because of them. The series was created by Alex Timbers and cousins Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, and is based on the memoir by oboist Blair Tindall…. The set-up is clearly inspired by the Los Angeles Philharmonic hiring Venezuelan hotshot Gustavo Dudamel [who] made a guest appearance in season two…. It’s not just the occasional dead composers who show up—not to mention Fanny Mendelssohn—it’s the ever-present awareness of the synapse linking the world of art and the real world.”
Posted February 16, 2018
In photo: Actor Gael García Bernal plays Rodrigo de Souza—music director of the fictional New York Symphony—in the TV series “Mozart in the Jungle,” now in its fourth season. Photo by Sarah Shatz
