Orchestra

Just from hearing it, it's like any professional orchestra. But the assembly of white-veiled Egyptian women in matching black gowns has a startling difference. Every woman in the orchestra is blind. The women in Cairo's Egyptian Blind Girls Chamber Orchestra first learn the songs by reading sheet music in braille. Since it is impossible to read braille and play an instrument at the same time, the musicians must memorize every note of every song. Pacing is also critical because the musicians cannot see the conductor.

A London museum is putting the conductor's baton in visitors' hands, allowing guests to direct a virtual orchestra using three-dimensional motion sensors. The "Universe of Sound" installation is an effort by the British capital's Science Museum to dissect how classical music is made, using specially shot footage, immersive sound, and 360 degree projections to give an unusually close-up view of the well-regarded Philharmonia Orchestra. "At the end of the whole installation you become part of the entirety," said David Whelton, the museum's managing director.

CAMBRIDGE -- Introducing John Harbison's Viola Concerto to the audience at Friday's Boston Philharmonic concert, Benjamin Zander remarked that the viola "lives in the middle of things. " He meant that this darkest of string instruments finds its place deep within musical textures rather than at their extremes. Something similar could be said for Harbison's piece, which brings together many of the conflicting tendencies that drive his music. Stretches that sound free, almost improvisatory, alternate with passages of strict counterpoint, and broad, intricate melodies sit side-by-side with close,...

Just from hearing it, it's like any professional orchestra. But the assembly of white-veiled Egyptian women in matching black gowns has a startling difference. Every woman in the orchestra is blind. The women in Cairo's Egyptian Blind Girls Chamber Orchestra first learn the songs by reading sheet music in braille. Since it is impossible to read braille and play an instrument at the same time, the musicians must memorize every note of every song. Pacing is also critical because the musicians cannot see the conductor.

The Chamber Orchestra of Boston came into a crowded field when David Feltner founded it in 2001, but those who have discovered it speak of it with enthusiasm. Feltner, a prominent freelance violist, is still a little stiff-looking as a conductor, but he's an intelligent and insightful musician with a strong enough technique to get his ideas across. He's also a good program maker, on Friday evening pairing Benjamin Britten's Sinfonietta (Op. 1) with one of Mahler's late works, "Das Lied von der Erde" ("The Song of the Earth")

NEW YORK — Mitch Miller, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to “Sing Along With Mitch’’ on television and records and produced hits for Tony Bennett, Patti Page, and other performers, has died at age 99. His daughter, Margaret Miller Reuther, said yesterday that Mr. Miller died Saturday in Lenox Hill Hospital after a short illness. Mr. Miller was a key record executive at Columbia Records in the era before rock ’n’ roll, making hits with singers Bennett, Page, Rosemary Clooney, and Johnny Mathis.

ENGLEWOOD, N.J. -- Bassist Jack Lesberg, who played with many of the jazz greats of the 1940s and '50s and had a distinguished career in orchestras, has died. Mr. Lesberg, 85, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Sept. 17 at the Lillian Booth Actors' Home, his daughter, Valerie Kaplan, said in yesterday's New York Times. A Boston native, Mr. Lesberg played violin in area clubs before switching to double bass in the late 1930s. He was a survivor of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, in which 492 people died in 1942.

With his signature fusion of West Coast jazz optimism and classical influences, Dave Brubeck makes a perfect guest for the Pops. The 89-year-old pianist entered Symphony Hall to a standing ovation to start the concert’s second half Tuesday night. His pianism, always more dogged than dazzling, has lost some of its force, but his compositions stand strong. On a widescreen arrangement of his “Summer Music,’’ Brubeck’s blocky chords and Bill Militello’s fleet alto saxophone were swingingly supported by bassist Michael Moore and drummer Randy Jones.

It is truly unfortunate that, in the end, James Levine’s recovery from back surgery has forced his withdrawal from the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s entire Beethoven cycle. It must surely be frustrating for him personally (he spoke about the project with his self-described “kid in the candy store’’ enthusiasm); it is a missed opportunity for the orchestra, which stood to gain from sustained immersion in this repertoire with its own music director; and of course it’s a big disappointment for the audiences, who are losing out...

LENOX — It is 1947, and we are in Switzerland with Willem Mengelberg, the disgraced conductor of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw orchestra. When he’s not conducting his phantom musicians (with the aid of scratchy vinyl on a wind-up Victrola) or communing with absent friends, he rails against the “pious Calvinists’’ at home who have exiled him here. Bitterly, he reflects that he has spent his career creating music for a philistine “herd of sheep,’’ then explodes: “Is there a more horrendous human tragedy than that: wasting the sublime on boors?

When flowers bloom, temperatures rise, and spring starts to arrive on the South Shore, the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra is preparing its final concert of the season. This year the orchestra is bringing the familiar sounds of the Broadway stage to Braintree's Thayer Academy Center for the Arts, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The orchestra, conducted by Jin Kim, will perform a medley of songs from the beloved musicals "Phantom of the Opera," "The King and I," "Oklahoma!" and "Les Miserables.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced Monday that it will begin streaming recordings of its concerts free on demand from its own website. During the orchestra's subscription season, the streams will be made available at www.bso.org/mediacenter on the Monday or Tuesday following the program's initial performances in Symphony Hall. The BSO streams will be digital versions of Classical New England's radio broadcasts of the Saturday night performances, which air live on Saturday nights (on 99.5 FM)

Aaron Copland's "An Outdoor Overture," Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2, and Richard Strauss's "An Alpine Symphony" rarely appear on an orchestral program together. In fact, they rarely appear at all. So it was a pleasure to hear them Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall, in energetic, full-bodied performances from Vladimir Ashkenazy and the 120 members of the European Union Youth Orchestra. Founded in 1976, the EUYO draws on all 27 countries of the European Union. The members range in age from 14 to 24; it was appropriate that they started off their...

Formed in 1958 by Neville Marriner, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields has always, been, like the church in London's Trafalgar Square from which it takes its name, a model of classical probity. A small, originally conductorless ensemble, the group has represented a middle ground between standard-size orchestras and period-instrument groups. Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall, in a Celebrity Series-sponsored appearance, it showed off its new music director, superstar violinist Joshua Bell, in a Beethoven program, and the result was anything but middle of the road.

Area male vocalists will compete for a $200 prize and an opportunity to perform with a live orchestra during auditions from noon until 2 p.m. Saturday in First Congregational Church, 785 South Main St., Raynham. The winner will perform Jean Valjean's lament "Bring Him Home," from "Les Miserables" during the Southeastern Massachusetts Festival Chorus' spring concert on May 19 and 20, backed by a 24-piece orchestra. For more information and to schedule an audition appointment, e-mail ebrown@national-amusements.com or call the chorus office at 508-781-9571.

Maybe it was the weather - who wants to be indoors on a winter afternoon that feels like summer? - or maybe it was the fact that these 15 musicians had been on the road for a month. Whatever the cause, there was something missing from Sunday's concert at Symphony Hall by Wynton Marsalis's Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Oh, everything sounded just fine. In fact, it was all executed so perfectly. Perhaps the lack of sizzle and spark had something to do with the fact that these guys know their material too well.

Area male vocalists will compete for a $200 prize and an opportunity to perform with a live orchestra during auditions from noon until 2 p.m. Saturday in First Congregational Church, 785 South Main St., Raynham. The winner will perform Jean Valjean's lament "Bring Him Home," from "Les Miserables" during the Southeastern Massachusetts Festival Chorus' spring concert on May 19 and 20, backed by a 24-piece orchestra. For more information and to schedule an audition appointment, e-mail ebrown@national-amusements.com or call the chorus office at 508-781-9571.

Formed in 1958 by Neville Marriner, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields has always, been, like the church in London's Trafalgar Square from which it takes its name, a model of classical probity. A small, originally conductorless ensemble, the group has represented a middle ground between standard-size orchestras and period-instrument groups. Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall, in a Celebrity Series-sponsored appearance, it showed off its new music director, superstar violinist Joshua Bell, in a Beethoven program, and the result was anything but middle of the road.

When Stow resident Barbara Jones considers the rigors of participating in a volunteer chorus or orchestra like the one she directs, she acknowledges it might be surprising that anyone participates. "After a long day of work, our members subject themselves to the discipline of linguistic challenges, the technical demands of the music, the physical rigors of singing or playing an instrument; yet they continue to return for the rewards that only the collective musical experience can give," she said of the more than 80 members of the Sounds of Stow Festival Chorus & Orchestra.