Geoffrey Newman, Seen and Heard International, 13th August 2015
For a long time, I was suspicious of how good national youth orchestras could be. This all changed about 20 years ago when I heard Christopher Seaman put the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain through its paces at the Barbican and bring an unforgettable freshness […]
Charles Pope Jr., Concerto.net, 30th July 2015
Canada’s National Youth Orchestra again gave a stunning summer performance in Ottawa during late July. As always, the orchestra comprised the cream of top young players, most of them already well launched on careers as orchestral musicians and future teachers. A good deal of the credit this year […]
Arthur Kaptainis, Musical Toronto, 28th July 2015
The main event was Holst’s The Planets. Mars is in no danger of losing its bellicose reputation. All the same, the British conductor Michael Francis managed to add an edge by upping the tempo while keeping articulation clear. Seldom has that quintuple beat sounded so convincingly like a […]
Ken Herman, San Diego Story, 21st June 2015
“Michael Francis climaxed his first Mainly Mozart Festival with a rousing program that had Saturday’s (June 20) sold-out Balboa Theatre patrons on their feet cheering. Like his pedal-to-the-metal Beethoven Seventh than concluded his opening night concert two weeks ago, his Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G Minor […]
Ken Herman, San Diego Story, 11th June 2015
“Ever since Robert Schumann proclaimed Felix Mendelssohn as ‘the Mozart of the Nineteenth Century,’ it has seemed entirely natural to program the music of these two composers side by side. Too often, however, Mendelssohn’s mellifluous ease is overshadowed by Mozart’s quicksilver psychological complexity, but Mainly Mozart Music […]
Jim Chute, U-T San Diego, 10th June 2015
“…The Mendelssohn symphony that closed the program, the ‘Italian’ symphony, had plenty of light and warmth. Francis was careful to keep things relatively light through the first three movements, but in the Saltarello Presto, the final, dance-like movement, Francis let the orchestra out of its constraints and […]
Garrett Harris, San Diego Reader, 8th June 2015
“The final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 made everyone’s temperature rise as wave after wave of sound washed over the audience. Just when we thought there couldn’t possibly be more, Beethoven and the orchestra ratcheted it up another notch. The effect was explosive — if you […]
Ken Herman, San Diego Story, 7th June 2015
With newly minted Mainly Mozart Festival Music Director Michael Francis on the podium Saturday (June 6), the first festival orchestra concert of the 2015 season catapulted the packed Balboa Theatre audience into an ebullient mood. A combination of Francis’ bracing tempos, pianist Jon Kimura Parker’s keyboard wizardry, […]
Jim Chute, U-T San Diego, 6th June 2015
“Francis’ gift is his ability to energize a melodic line, or a phrase, or a group of phrases, or an entire section of music. There are no dead spots. The line, whether on a micro or a macro level, is always in a dynamic state, and most […]
Elizabeth Bloom, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 16th May 2015
“To keep the symphonic literature fresh, the only thing as effective as premiering a new work is giving a repeat performance of a slightly older one. To that end, Friday’s Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concert marked one of the most important artistic endeavors of the season.
Led by British conductor […]
