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Press: Orchestra

"BMOP, Gil Rose, Lisa Bielawa and the composers are to be thanked for a memorable, resonant, and extraordinarily meaningful evening's farewell until the next season."
- Erica H. Adams, May 25, 2009

"It seems odd to call a program with five brand new orchestral pieces commonplace. But somehow it seems apt when talking about the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, a group for whom the unexpected has become almost predictable."
- David Weininger, The Boston Globe, May 25, 2009

"Gil Rose is a wonderful conductor, and amazes everybody around this city with his undertakings with this ensemble and also with Opera Boston, which he directs."
- Charles Warren, The Berkshire Review for the Arts, March 30, 2009

"On the whole, it was a delight to hear this challenging yet redeeming score performed with such care and precision as BMOP brings to each of its endeavors."
- Scott J. Ordway on John Harbison's Winter's Tale, ArtsEditor on Winter's Tale, March 28, 2009

"Riveting, an emotional roller-coaster performance from Boston's top vocalists, chorus and orchestra was masterfully conducted by Gil Rose, BMOP's Artistic Director."
- Erica H. Adams, Berkshire Fine Arts, March 24, 2009

"Gil Rose conducted Harbison's score with conviction and precision."
- David Weininger on John Harbison's Winter's Tale, The Boston Globe, March 24, 2009

"The 11th such performance, was a typically substantial affair, dexterously played by the ensemble and conducted with authority by Gil Rose."
- David Weininger, The Boston Globe, January 20, 2009

"This September Gil Rose, the intrepid founder of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, curated the Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music, an ambitious four-day event that, in a welcome and long overdue move, brought ensembles from across the city's new-music scene together under one roof."
- Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, December 28, 2008

"In its 13th year, BMOP provides a valued public service by aiding and abetting new, notorious, transportable and non-transportable things. What a wonderful start to the new 2008-2009 season! Bravo!"
- Chamber Music Society Today, November 15, 2008

"The concert closed with a fine, energetic reading of John Harbison's 2000 Partita for Orchestra...It was a breezy finale for a festival demonstrating the manifold breadth now encompassed by the term ‘contemporary music,' from costume drama to the cutting-edge."
- Matthew Guerrieri, The Boston Globe, September 25, 2008

"The concluding BMOP concert...was rhapsodic and sentimental...intricate and mesmerizing..."
- Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix, September 25, 2008

"Sharafyan creates complex, deliberate, ultimately captivating grandeur—artistic director Gil Rose led a terrific, vivid performance."
- Matthew Guerrieri, The Boston Globe, May 27, 2008

"Gil Rose and BMOP played a varied concert with conviction and panache Tuesday night. While there were wonderful soloists on the program, the ensemble really held the spotlight the entire night in the best possible sense..."
- John Clare on the MATA Festival, Sequenza21/, April 2, 2008

"The New England Conservatory's teal and gilt Jordan Hall enjoyed the premiere of no fewer than four new works by living, breathing composers and performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, which parties where symphony orchestras fear to tread."
- Christine Fernsebner, The Boston Herald, March 31, 2008

"As audiences have been spoiled to expect, Rose and the orchestra presented each selected object with enviable polish and commitment."
- Matthew Guerrieri, The Boston Globe, March 31, 2008

"Artistic Director Gil Rose, presented with Columbia University's Alice M. Ditson Conductor's Award prior to the concert, led notably crisp, articulate performances; the ensemble's lean clarity ideally matched each divergent course."
-Matthew Guerrieri, The Boston Globe, January 29, 2008


"Founder Gil Rose and his outstanding ensemble celebrated their 10th season at the New England Conservatory with their annual concert devoted to Boston composers...Rose led an exemplary performance."
- Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix, January 29, 2008

"BMOP director Gil Rose is by far the best interpreter of contemporary music that I have heard, and he has assembled a chamber orchestra of musicians, including Portland Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Charles Dimmick, who share his passion."
- Christopher Hyde, Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, November 14, 2007

"BMOP, under Gil Rose, gave the kind of vital, secure performances we have come almost to take for granted. May the remain glorious and subversive for years to come."
- David Weininger, The Boston Globe, November 6, 2007

"BMOP's performances draw the city's youngest concert crowds by far, with their combination of Rose's savvy programming, the orchestra's incisive and stylish playing, and a general vibe that somehow weds a breezy coolness with a healthy dose of chaos."
- Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, October 28, 2007

"Under the poised direction of conductor Gil Rose, BMOP sounded full and fearless throughout the evening."
— Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, May 21, 2007

"For eleven years Conductor Gil Rose of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) has been bringing contemporary music to Boston listeners, and he always pushes the envelope. Sometimes he plays famous twentieth century groundbreakers like George Antheil (Ballet Mécanigue). Other times the works are by living composers. This evening he played works by Boston-area composers and the results were intriguing and even exhilarating."
— Peter Bates, Boston Fine Arts Reviews, May 19, 2007

"The BMOP players and conductor Gil Rose gave performances that were skilled, exacting, and humane. Especially notable was the focus maintained throughout "Sixteen Dances," such that one could still detect, from deep within the Cagean vortex, surprising flashes of beauty."
— Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, March 24, 2007

"Rose conducted strikingly assured performances, and the playing was up to BMOP's usual high standards."
— David Weininger, The Boston Globe, March 13, 2007

"Throughout the night, conductor Gil Rose and his protean ensemble gave exciting and exacting performances of these challenging scores. Local composers are lucky to have BMOP around. So are the rest of us."
— Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, January 22, 2007

"...sculpted with conductor Gil Rose's characteristic verve and clarity."
— Kevin Lowenthal, The Boston Globe, November 7, 2006

"All throughout, the orchestral playing, under Gil Rose's unshowy but energizing direction, spoke volumes, it inspired trust."
— Richard Buell, Sequenza 21, November 18, 2006

"The audience went wild for the soloist, the band, the piece, the composer, and BMOP's animator, the versatile, unobtrusive, and expert Rose."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, May 29, 2006

"The orchestra, under Rose's vigilant direction played superbly."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, March 14, 2006

"Rose displayed a keen understanding of how to pace the large work."
— Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 30, 2006

"Gil Rose's conducting was bracingly clear."
— David Weininger, The Boston Globe, February 21, 2005

"Throughout the evening the wonderful BMOP players performed with attention, commitment to the music, and visible enjoyment; the admirable conductor Gil Rose balances advocacy with a dual focus on detail and the big picture."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, January 24, 2005

"When the music finally stopped, the audience brought Gil Rose out for three curtain calls - deservedly so."
— Sequenza 21

"Gil Rose led his excellent ensemble with unmistakable skill, featuring a meticulous ear for balance and detail."
— David Cleary, New Music Connoisseur, January 2005

"Throughout, Rose and the orchestra nailed every detail, in every style. BMOP's opening concert set a high bar for all contemporary-music events this season."
— Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix, October 7, 2004

"Rose and varying chamber orchestra combinations met every challenge."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, October 2, 2004

"Rose and company then dazzled with their go-for-the-gusto playing."
— Ted Medrek, The Boston Herald, October 3, 2004

"Wagner's rapt "Siegfried Idyll," offered by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players under the sensitive direction of conductor Gil Rose."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, August 3, 2004

"The Boston Symphony Chamber Players, led by conductor Gil Rose, delivered a positively glowing rendition of Wagner's
"Siegfried Idyll."
— Ted Medrek, The Boston Herald, August 4, 2004

"BMOP Music Director Gil Rose - who in less than a decade here has become one of the most important musicians in this city - led his marvelous orchestra..."
— Ted Medrek, The Boston Herald, May 23, 2004

"Gil Rose never met a score he couldn't tame."
— Keith Powers, The Boston Herald, January 18, 2004

"The whole concert, led with assurance by Rose, provided another demonstration of how classy our community of freelance players is and how essential the Boston Modern Orchestra Project has become to our understanding of our time as it is reflected in contemporary music."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, November 18, 2003

"Gil Rose and his BMOP forces gave it their everything — a detailed, rich, ravishing performance."
— Richard Buell, The Boston Globe, October 6, 2003

"Kenneth Frazelle's "Concert for Chamber Orchestra" was an impressively high-gloss affair that grandly exploited the orchestra's sonic palette. Rose seemed to revel in that exploitation, eliciting a performance from his band that any orchestra would be proud of."
— T. J. Medrek, The Boston Herald, March 8, 2003

"BMOP's founder and artistic director Gil Rose is an excellent musician, conductor, and advocate, and the players are first rate; he and his organization are a composer's best friend."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, March 8, 2003

"Gil Rose drew a light crisp sound from the orchestra."
— Carl A. Rossi, The Theater Mirror, December 2002

"This listener will sit in a room any time with Gil Rose conducting."
— Keith Powers, The Boston Herald, December 1, 2002

"Artistic Director Gil Rose puts together programs with punch, and he and his ensemble have whacked 20 years off the average age of the usual concert audience."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, October 15, 2002

"Gil Rose conducted the production with a sure hand..."
— Andrew Pincus, The Berkshire Eagle, July 2002

"Gil Rose, director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, has a genius for juxtaposing new works with older works that deserve another chance."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, July 5, 2002

"Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project have done a lot to lift the stigma from new-music events by ingenious programming and top-level performances."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, July 15, 2002

"Conductor Gil Rose led the orchestra in a set of fine performances that ranged from introspective sympathy to feisty verve. And thanks go to Rose and his group for championing a fine, infrequently encountered body of symphonic music written by a composer both aged and accomplished."
— David Cleary, 21st Century Music, May 2002

"All performed flawlessly. And much of the credit for that must surely go to Gil Rose himself — the tall, graceful, soothingly assured figure standing amidst the mayhem, his alchemist's wonder and delight at the transcendent effect of the music's manifold ingredients very much apparent. The fact that such feelings were also rife amongst the audience was unequivocally attested to by the gasps that accompanied the finales of each of the four pieces performed."
— Paul Jump, Arts Editor, March 2002

"Rose and the always sensational BMOP players worked their usual miracles (are they spoiling us or what?)."
— Ted Medrek, The Boston Herald, March 31, 2002

"Rose's conducting was both helpful and spirited..."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, March 30, 2002

"The performance under Gil Rose's baton was charming."
— Ellen Pfeifer, The Boston Globe, February 25, 2002

"New music often makes concert-goers run for the emergency exits. But in the hands of experts like Gil Rose and his Boston Modern Orchestra Project, new work is as comforting as a snug blanket in the winter. The full house at Jordan Hall this snowy Saturday evening enjoyed this expertise in a startling program of recent compositions."
— Keith Powers, The Boston Herald, January 21, 2002

"Gil Rose will try anything. He and his trendsetting ensemble, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, have proved that over the years, with adventurous programming."
— Keith Powers, The Boston Herald, November 17, 2001

"BMOP, under the direction of Gil Rose, sounded terrific in Piazolla's Four Seasons in Buenos Aires."

"Rose and the orchestra were also superb in Osvaldo Golijov's Death of the Angels."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, November 17, 2001

"Some pieces that appear on the wonderful programs by the Boston Modern Orchestra Projects are works you would never hear anyplace else. Founder/music director Gil Rose is so expert at programming that he places such pieces in context."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, October 4, 2001

"Conductor Gil Rose presided over the well-drilled ensemble, presenting all selections with intelligence and sympathy. And thanks to Rose and his group for providing a compelling reason to attend a concert on the cusp of a blizzard."
— David Cleary, New Music Connoisseur, June 2001

"Rose played a risky game of brinksmanship, extending the silences almost beyond endurance. He won."
— Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix, May 2001

"No praise can be too high for conductor Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, May 8, 2001

"Under Gil Rose's enthusiastic, highly capable direction, they played with skill and infectious enthusiasm."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, February 26, 2001

"Rose's careful selection of music and his precise but loving leadership of the orchestra's truly masterful musicians never produces an evening of music as medicine, and they didn't this time, either."
— Ted Medrek, The Boston Herald, February 25, 2001

"Gil Rose and his Boston Modern Orchestra Project certainly know how to have fun, and make a musical statement at the same time."
— Keith Powers, The Boston Herald, January 22, 2001

"Rose's BMOP concert during the convention of the American Symphony Orchestra League last May blew the socks off the jaded delegates."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, October 6, 2000

"The concert by Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project on Saturday morning was sensational; a member of a panel afterward said it may have been the best single concert he had ever heard."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, June 23, 2000

"Mr. Rose and his team filled the music with rich, decisive ensemble colors and magnificent solos. In scores whose dominant expressive position is one of rapture, these musicians were rapturous."
— Paul Griffiths, The New York Times, March 30, 2000

"Gil Rose's orchestra is one of the finest freelance ensembles in the town, and its performances show, even for Boston, an unusual degree of consistency in the level of technical accomplishment and musical imagination."
— Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix, March 10, 2000

"The orchestra, splendidly conducted by Gil Rose, performed excellently from start to finish... Congratulations also go to Rose for programming a concert of provocative pieces willing to look history squarely in the eye... The ensemble, conducted by Gil Rose, presented an accompaniment that was clear-headedly conceived, lovingly sculpted, and nimbly executed."
— David Cleary, New Music Connoisseur, Spring 2000

"Rose and the orchestra played their hearts out throughout the evening."
— Ellen Pfeifer, The Boston Globe, January 15, 2000

"Music director Gil Rose is some kind of genius; his concerts are wildly entertaining, intellectually rigorous, and meaningful. He combines a fanatical attention to detail with a hang-loose insouciance that sets the tone for the entire orchestra. With him and the band, music is a liberated living thing, dancing off the page and outside the box."
— Susan Larson, The Boston Globe, October 11, 1999

"The breezy, brainy, and newsy concerts by conductor Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project have greatly enlivened Boston's musical life over the last few seasons."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, October 7, 1999

"Conductor Rose consistently drew masterly, demonstrative performances from the orchestra... BMOP and Rose have made topnotch performances of new orchestral music by local composers a reality once again. Long may they prosper."
— David Cleary, New Music Connoisseur, Fall 1999

"Rose, an incisive and forthright conductor."
— Donald Rosenberg, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 21, 1999

"Gil Rose and his ensemble performed it superbly. This orchestra has become quite good, and Rose continues to do what might have been impossible only a few years ago — bring cheering crowds to contemporary music."
— Michael Manning, The Boston Globe, October 10, 1998

"Director Gil Rose, always a brilliant program maker, offered a lineup of strong works by female composers... Rose always balances his band so that you can hear all the music, even in the most busy and crowded moments."
— Susan Larson, The Boston Globe, May 11, 1998

"Gil Rose, music director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, is a superb program-builder."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, May 7, 1998

"Gil Rose comes up with the most interesting programs in town, hires the snazziest musicians to play them and conducts knock-out performances... Rose led a chamber-sized band in an iridescent performance... Rose kept our feet to the fire throughout this clenched and questioning work, and the orchestra's playing was simply electrifying."
— Susan Larson, The Boston Globe, February 14, 1998

"You're not likely to find local concert programs more unusual, more challenging and more satisfying than those of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and its music director, Gil Rose."
— Ted Medrek, The TAB, February 14, 1998

"What makes the artistic success of this ensemble even more remarkable is that its artistic director, conductor Gil Rose, remains a stout traditionalist, believing that concerts should be enjoyable as well as instructive."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, January 30, 1998

"Music director Gil Rose conducted a ravishing performance."
— Richard Buell, The Boston Globe, October 28, 1997

"The performance directed by Gil Rose was outstanding... directed with sureness of purpose and delight in the wonder of things."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, May 19, 1997

"The BMOP was led with expressive, controlled power by Gil Rose."
— Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix, November 1996

"...music director Gil Rose, a no-nonsense conductor who eschews conductorial choreography in favor of plain competence. He knows the music cold, and never turns his attention from the orchestra. The orchestra, in turn, plays extremely well."
— Michael Manning, The Boston Globe, November 5, 1996

"One of the great things about the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is that you never know what conductor Gil Rose will be up to next."
— Susan Larson, The Boston Globe, April 12, 1996

"...displayed the group's seriousness, awesome chops, and director Gil Rose's ability to put together a fascinating, cohesive program."
— Susan Larson, The Boston Globe, April 12, 1996

"...fabulous timing from Rose (conducting from memory) suffused the piece with wit and style."
— Susan Larson, The Boston Globe, April 12, 1996

"...a gifted music director, Gil Rose. In an ambitious evening Thursday, he proved that his music-making is as lively as his programming ideas."
— Ellen Pfeifer, The Boston Herald, April 12, 1996

"He slices the air with his hands commandingly, eliciting performances by the splendid players filled with energy and rhythmic precision."
— Ted Medrek, The TAB, April 16, 1996

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