Mark Bartlett pianist

Mozart and Richard Strauss shouldn’t be a controversial programming choice, even if the orchestra is digging a little deeper into each composer’s catalog. Apparently there’s a Strauss recording project afoot because we have more of it on the docket for next week. This time around the audience was treated first to the Love Scene from…

Thursday was my first ever attendance at the BSO’s opening night. In years past it was a gala occasion with a special program and special prices to match, outside of the subscription series and really only for donors and benefactors although still available to the public. In the last decade or so they scaled it…

the story we’ve all been living began last March 16, the day after returning a day early from Florida to start a two-week work from home quarantine that has now extended 10 months. in those first weeks everything was closed, no one was on the road, it seemed safer to wear gloves along with a…

it’s MLK day 2021. Been a while since i posted here, longer ago than i would have thought. but time has no meaning during a pandemic, we just passed 10 months of quarantine/working from home/shunning human contact, maybe the end is in sight, but not sure when that end will be, maybe this summer, maybe…

While technically still in 2015, New Year’s Eve last year was a warm First Night in St. Petersburg Florida, where I saw a few vocal concerts by local singers and a chorus in some old churches. Then I got stuck in traffic going back to Clearwater and watched the midnight beach fireworks from the rental…

After an embarrassingly long yet strangely typical hiatus, let’s try to get back on track with something that will be interesting to my future self, the story so far in the college search round 2. This time last year, and all the way through the spring, you couldn’t get Justin to talk at all about…

There aren’t enough hours in a day.  There aren’t enough days in a year.  Every year the resolution is the same, to make better use of the time in those days and hours, to be more efficient, more expansive, more diligent, more focused, more creative, to name just a few.  But one thing that always…

Justin finished 10th out of 40 in the Y-14 men’s epee division at this weekend’s tournament at the University of New Hampshire.  According to Coach Bob, who knows how this works, this means he’s qualified to compete in the national tournament, which this year is in scenic Columbus Ohio.   He had 3 rated fencers in…

In no particular order, and not counting the ones who’ve already snuffed it: Quentin Tarantino Jet Li Mike Myers Johnny Depp Helen Hunt Greg Kinnear Brigitte Nielsen Phoebe Cates Elisabeth Shue Rob Schneider Tatum O’Neal Brad Pitt Lisa Kudrow Jennifer Beals John Stamos Vanessa Williams Alex Kingston Michael Chiklis Lisa Whelchel Norm MacDonald Conan O’Brien…

The bowl drought is over!  I was there to see the first bowl game loss in 1996 (the Rose Bowl, 17 years ago, ouch!), and went back for more in 2000 (a blowout to Nebraska at the Alamo Bowl) and 2005 (blew a huge lead to UCLA in the Sun Bowl), and there were five…