His baton raised above this international amalgam of musicians, Andris Nelsons represents what the Boston Symphony Orchestra has become. He and his wife, soprano Kristine Opolais, travel incessantly, and still make Europe their home. Beginning next year, he will take over the famed Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, adding that conductorship to his BSO duties. It's a historic joint appointment, spearheading an effort to bring Gewandhaus and the BSO closer together. But Nelsons lives in a world where the most high profile conductors all keep multiple positions, in addition to guest conducting around the world. For the energetic Nelsons, having just two appointments seems like settling down. "For me it means concentration on Boston, and, from 2018 on, concentration on Leipzig as well," Nelsons says. We sat together at Tanglewood, where he was interrupted in the sun-splashed press porch in between practicing trumpet scales (before the baton, the trumpet was his instrument). READ THE FULL WBUR: Boston ARTICLE

New Classical Tracks is a Syndicated Feature airing Nationally on Classical 24 & Statewide on Minnesota Public Radio. Listen to Julie Amacher's Feature with Joshua Bell. READ THE TRANSCRIPT - Violinist Joshua Bell. You probably know him as a soloist. He's also a conductor, who's beginning his fifth season as the music director with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. "I'm just loving these days," Bell says, "getting to make my way through the Beethoven symphonies and directing the sixth for the first time in January. I love doing those things." Joshua Bell also loves working with two of his closest friends, cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk. On their latest collaboration, they unite with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields to celebrate their love of Johannes Brahms. "I know the title, For the Love of Brahms, may be a little corny but it's kind of a double meaning in a way," Bell says. "For our love of Brahms - Steven Isserlis and I have played the Double Concerto so many times over the years, we finally wanted to record it. And Jeremy Denk - we all just love Brahms." You said that you, Steven and Jeremy all just love Brahms. What it is that you love about this composer? "Oooh, how do you put that into words?" Bell muses. "He just goes for that depth, there's never anything frivolous. It's beautiful but also structured in the way … like Beethoven has that kind of amazing overall architecture and structure which is so admirable … see, I'm having a hard time putting it into words! How do you describe what you love about a composer like that? "The early Brahms Trio is interesting because I actually didn't know of its existence until maybe seven or eight years ago in this form until Steven told me about it," Bell continues. "Because I'd known the Opus 8 Trio in its revised form - early Brahms but revised by later Brahms. And this early version has a little bit less of that perfect architecture. It's a little more raw, a little more impetuous. And more reflective of a 20- or a 21-year-old Brahms. And I found it fascinating to hear that side of Brahms, really heart on sleeve. And I fell in love with that version and that's why I wanted to record it. Joshua Bell and Steve Isserlis have been performing Brahms double concerto for violin and cello the past 30 years. It's an iconic work that has been binding friendships since it was first written 150 years ago. "Brahms was so connected to Joachim for so many years," Bell explains, "but somewhere along the line, toward the later part of their lives, they had a falling out. But I guess at some point Brahms probably thought to himself, 'This is ridiculous. Let's mend our fences.' And his way of doing it was to write this piece for Joachim, this double concerto with unusually two soloists in a concerto which was not done very often, certainly not in the Romantic era. And so you see these two, the cello and the violin you know fighting or sometimes finishing each other's sentences and sometimes you can feel this sort of offering of love and friendship in the piece - you can really feel that." In addition to these two major works, Bell features the slow movement from Schumann's violin concerto. "It really is one of those desert island pieces that I think is just such a gem," he says. "I first learned the violin concerto in my 20s and recorded it … along with the Brahms concerto. But I've always loved this piece and the gem is this incredible slow movement. A couple of years ago, Steven told me he found in some library some version of it that includes a coda of Benjamin Britten. I guess Benjamin Britten loved the piece too and wanted to play it I think at a funeral for a friend and he put his own coda at the end so it could be sort of … play it as a complete work. No one seems to know about it, I'd never heard of it … I thought it would be neat to include it on this album." Since first meeting Steven Isserlis at the Spoleto Music Festival 30 years ago, Joshua Bell says their friendship making music together has really nurtured their friendship. "He's an incredible musician, uncompromising," Bell says. "There's no holding back, he's really in the moment and inside a piece like a great actor being inside the role, you always feel that in Steven. And it's inspiring. And the very same quality in Jeremy Denk. It's one of the reasons why I've been playing recitals with him for many years. He's just so committed on stage. He gives really everything he has." And, as you might imagine, Joshua Bell's colleagues and friends, express the same sentiment about him. This week on New Classical Tracks, you can enter for a chance to win a copy of For the Love of Brahms by Joshua Bell, Jeremy Denk and Steven Isserlis. The winner will be drawn at random. Be sure to enter by 9 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016.

In recent years, the inimitable Chicago pianist-singer-songwriter Patricia Barber has become fascinated with vocalists. Those other than herself, that is. Last December she collaborated with opera star Renee Fleming in an evening of Barber's music and holiday fare at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance (they went on to take the program to the Kennedy Center, in Washington, and National Sawdust, in New York). To hear this performance was to admire anew the high craft of Barber's compositions, which Fleming rightly calls "art songs." READ THE FULL Chicago Tribune ARTICLE

Neither Wilner Baptiste nor Kevin Sylvester had any interest in learning to play a stringed instrument while growing up. But Sylvester's mom enrolled him in a violin class after he got into trouble, and Baptiste mistakenly got placed in a violin class instead of one for saxophone. Today, they are Black Violin, classically trained musicians who have bridged the gap between classical and popular music. Going by the stage names Wil B. and Kev Marcus, they've performed with Kanye West and Aerosmith and at President Barack Obama's January 2013 inaugural dinner. They've collaborated with Alicia Keys and have performed for more than 100,000 students in North America and Europe in the past year, espousing accessible music education for youngsters. When they come to Genesee Theatre on Oct. 1, their goal is to unite young and old, lovers of all kinds of music and people of all different races through their music. It's part of their Unity Tour 2016. "With all things that are going on in our society, we just felt like we had to come up with a name that represented what we represented," said Baptiste, who plays viola in the duo. READ THE FULL News-Sun - Chicago Tribune ARTICLE

Ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro has announced a new concert on Friday, October 14 at The Republik in Honolulu, HI to celebrate the release of his new album Nashville Sessions. 'Hawaii News Now' talked to Jake about the new CD; it features eleven tracks. Nashville Sessions is Jake's first album of all original songs. At the suggestion of his manager, Jake went into a Nashville studio this past January to jam with two top Nashville session players, Jake's bassist Nolan Verner and drummer Evan Hutchings. "At first I was hesitant," Shimabukuro admits. "‘We're just going to go in and jam? Really? With nothing prepared?' I never dreamed we would leave the studio six days later with a full album."  Jake said: "After many years of working with friends Milan Bertosa, Noel Okimoto, Dean Taba, and Michael Grande in Hawaii, it was a bit scary for me to fly over to Nashville and record with different people. But being in a different environment, out of my comfort zone, challenged me in different ways and I think the new recording reflects that - especially the compositions. Overall it was a positive experience and I learned a lot from it. I am looking forward to sharing it with my friends and family in Hawaii!" We also reflected on the life and times of Hawaii Musicians and Na Hoku Hanohano Award Winners Ernie Cruz Jr. and Guy Cruz who recently passed away within days of each other.  Guy was a bandmate of Jake's when they were part of the group "Colon"; Jake also mentioned that Ernie was part of the Ka'au Crater Boys, which Jake and his Pure Heart band members looked up to. WATCH THE Hawaii News Now VIDEO

Some might say that jazz and country music belong on different continents. Yet at the opening night of his alma mater's annual Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival, John Scofield demonstrated that each genre is merely an island in a musician's pond and that bridges can be built to connect them. From the abstract unaccompanied guitar to the organ chords over syncopated drumming and the jazzier solos, the inherent nuance of the 10-song set list kept the spectators lively and won Scofield a standing ovation. Scofield released his new album, "Country for Old Men," on the day of the concert to high expectations: His previous record, "Past Present," won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and was nominated for another award. Nevertheless, there was no evident pressure in the room as Scofield and his bandmates-drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Steve Swallow, and pianist and organist Larry Goldings-masterfully captured the calming spirit of country balladry and the vivid energy of western rock and roll. READ THE FULL Harvard Crimson REVIEW

The passionate artistic embrace between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Andris Nelsons continues to burn on high flame, now that the conductor revered by the musicians and cheered by audiences is back. "It feels like coming home," Nelsons said, "We feel so close, we really understand each other," the conductor said of his connection with the BSO musicians, pointing out that during rehearsals, "I don't talk too much, the contact gets more intimate with each time performing." Increasingly, he made it clear, the communication is through gestures or key words and when repertoire is repeated, routine is avoided and a sense of mutual rediscovery prevails. "I love them so much, there's this kind of established feelings with the orchestra," Nelsons added. "Now it turns into a more intimate feeling of respect. The highly professional musicianship is valuable, of course, but also their humanity and inner world doing music, and their relationship with each other. I'm just lucky, you know."

Nelsons previews the new season in this WGBH - 'Greater Boston' interview. WATCH THE VIDEO

Itzhak Perlman, greeted with a cheering, standing ovation from a capacity crowd Sunday night at Dominion Arts Center's Carpenter Theatre in the opening concert of the Richmond Symphony's new season, delivered an affectionate account of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor. Perlman's performance was hardly lacking in brilliance - who else mines as much tonal silver from a fiddle? - but this interpretation was more memorable for its songfulness and seamless phrasing in the central andante movement and its almost giddy playfulness in the finale.  Photo by Jay Paul READ THE FULL Richmond Times-Dispatch REVIEW

The opening program for the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2016-2017 season was all-Russian, and even without any Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, or Rachmaninoff on the bill, it was a memorable evening, as BSO music director Andris Nelsons offered a fresh perspective on works by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Mussorgsky. The opening flourish was Shostakovich's six-minute "Festive Overture," which he wrote in 1954 for a concert at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. The piece, which he's reported to have composed in just three days, is bookended by fanfares; in between, a theme from the composer's "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsenk District" and the influence of the Overture to Glinka's "Russlan and Ludmilla" are both palpable. READ THE FULL Boston Globe review READ THE Harvard Crimson CLICK HERE FOR The Boston Musical Intelligencer

The London Contemporary Orchestra with Terry Riley on piano and Gyan on guitar came armed with bassoon, double bass, chamber organ, a drummer, two percussionists and three vocalists, with each musician using instinct to guide them forward. The second half was the thing: Riley's groundbreaking work In C, a modern masterpiece that starts with a throbbing C note and builds into a trance-like, shapeshifting whole. Hailed for its simplicity - each musician has the same sequence of 53 melodic motifs, to do with as they please - it's a piece that begs reinterpretation, that keeps itself fresh (Africa Express with Damon Albarn and Brian Eno recorded a version).  Small flourishes - a bow on a metal spiral, a hand up the side of a tambourine - overlapped; moments of transcendence came and went. The climax, a wild variation in volume, saw the piece finish abruptly. Leaving, for the briefest of moments before the ovation, a real sensation of peace. READ THE FULL Evening Standard REVIEW

Tuesday Musical's 2016-17 Main Stage Season opens Tuesday, Sept. 27, 7:30 p.m. in EJ Thomas Hall with the Emerson String Quartet's 40th anniversary celebration and world premiere of English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage's "Shroud." The Akron audience will hear the world premiere of "Shroud" before performances of the piece at Lincoln Center in New York City and Wigmore Hall in London. Tuesday Musical is a co-commissioner of the piece, along with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, among others. Acclaimed by Fortune magazine as "arguably the world's best group of chamber musicians," the Emerson String Quartet has amassed an unparalleled list of achievements over three decades: more than 30 recordings, nine Grammys (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, Musical America's "Ensemble of the Year" and collaborations with many of the greatest artists of our time. READ THE FULL Akronist ARTICLE

Resounding applause met the awe inspiring, all a capella group, Vocalosity at the newly renovated Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope PA - opening night for their North American Tour Launch. Ten ultra-talented young performers, directed by Artistic Director, Music Director and Arranger, Deke Sharon, and Director and Choreographer, Sean Curran, demonstrate, with verve and vocality, the amazing sounds the human body can make. They are the very instruments themselves. No other musical instruments are necessary for any of the concert numbers. The energy, enthusiasm, and all-out stunning presentation of their novel musical numbers presents a night of total entertainment. The vocalists, James C. Jones (bass), Hannah Juliano (alto and Associate Music Director), Kelli Koloszar (soprano), Cheeyang Ng (tenor), Nattalyee Randall (alto), Tracy L.J. Robertson (vocal percussion), Bryant Vance (bass), Nicole Weiss (mezzo), Amy Whitcomb (soprano), and RJ Woessner (tenor), rework a variety of music genres to fabulous affect. READ THE FULL DC Metro Theater Arts REVIEW