“ ‘In Focus,’ the Cleveland Orchestra series that headlines the [Adella digital] platform, has a whole new look,” writes Zachary Lewis in Friday’s (2/11) Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH). “Season one was impressive enough, but the first episode of season two, released Friday, offers an experience altogether more intimate, dynamic, and insightful…. Filmed on new and better equipment under Habib Azar, the first of several directors slated for season two, ‘Aftersilence’ is more than a recording of the orchestra’s first live concerts of 2022. It’s a fully crafted mini-documentary…. Season one had bonus content, but ‘Aftersilence’ has a whole feature on Hans Abrahamsen, composer of ‘Vers le Silence’ (‘Toward the Silence’), filmed in and around his Denmark home. We see him hiking in the woods and sitting at his piano and listen, rapt, to the sounds and motifs that inspired him. The performance itself is a delight…. The camerawork [toggles] between broad panoramas, close-ups on individual players, and straight looks at music director Franz Welser-Möst, from the perspective of a musician…. The second half contains … a focus on pianist Igor Levit, the soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2…. Azar is the subject of a mini-feature during the credits.”
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