A Magical Mix

I love programs of great contrast and variety, and this one certainly qualifies. I conducted Olly Wilson's Expansions III in its Boston world premiere, and it was immediately met with great enthusiasm. It's a jazzy work, composed as sounds and motives expanding outwards from a single source, and it makes an edgy but pleasing experience. Wagner's Siegfried Idyll is everything but edgy; it was a birthday gift to Cosima Liszt Wagner evoking the deepest feelings of peace and comfort. Stravinsky's ballet music to Petrouchka completes the evening, as a colorful and scintillating series of tableaux which tell the tale of the sad little puppet come magically to life.