. And Ukrainian musicians from our area will perform in the lobby before the orchestra’s Verizon Hall concerts this weekend.
“Time and again we find ourselves bearing witness to the physical, emotional, and psychological trauma of war,” narrator Charlotte Blake Alston told Thursday’s audience before the music began. But she also spoke of resilience, the human spirit, and dedicated the program in “honor of and in solidarity with the resilient spirit of the Ukrainian people.
The conductor — who took over these concerts after Gustavo Dudamel canceled — could have found ways to nudge Shostakovich’s much-lovedseveral degrees more triumphant or bellicose. But there were no distortions. He took the second movement not too fast and shaded it slightly sardonic. There was no Leonard Bernstein moment, no echo of that famous New York Philharmonic recording where the conductor took the very end twice as fast as marked.
What Nézet-Séguin did was to grant several impressively polished players the space to express themselves in a piece they’ve known all their lives — from contrabassoonist Holly Blake to piccolo player Erica Peel, and throughout a five-person percussion section that was extraordinary in its power and precision.
Additional performances: Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Sts. Nézet-Séguin has canceled his appearances for the remaining concerts because of an unspecified illness, an orchestra spokesperson said. Kensho Watanabe was engaged to conduct Friday’s matinee, and the conductor for the two last concerts was not determined as of Friday afternoon. The program remains the same, except without Gabriela Lena Frank’s work. Tickets are $10-$165.
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