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BSO spotlights Shostakovich’s rebel journey

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

Who never wrote a bad note? If Mozart springs to mind, you’re in good company. Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons would agree with you. But next to Wolfgang Amadeus, Nelsons would also offer up a more controversial choice: Dmitri Shostakovich.For a decade, Nelsons has been exploring Shostakovich with the BSO. The project has won the maestro and symphony an armful of Grammys and may earn them a few more when the final installment of the recordings of the composer’s symphonies, featuring nos. 2, 3, 12, and 13, is released on Oct. 20. And that exploration continues this week, through Oct. 15, with Nelsons conducting Yo-Yo Ma through both of Shostakovich’s cello concertos at Symphony Hall.Nelsons, who grew up in Latvia during Soviet rule, learned about Shostakovich as a boy in music school.“I remember reading Russian books that said, ‘15th symphony of Shostakovich is a milestone, a wonderful work where the confused artist has lost his orientation and then he finds t...

‘Joan Baez I Am a Noise’ captures voice of iconic artist

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

Executive produced by Patti Smith, “Joan Baez I Am a Noise” begins with the artist digging through a large collection of notebooks, drawings, videotapes and recordings. She is excavating one of the most remarkable and notably political artistic careers in American history. A lifelong advocate for civil rights and a staunch, early opponent of the war in Vietnam (and later the war in Iraq), Baez has combined musical stardom with political outspokenness in ways that few have before or after her heyday. For people who grew up in the 1960s, Baez, who made her debut on Harvard Radio and in clubs in Boston and Cambridge in the late 1950s, was a powerful voice in more ways than one.A tall, slender, olive-skinned “Madonna” as she was often described, Baez was hard to pin down. Was she white? Was she Black? Both? As it turns out, the artist, who spent 60 years on the road, performing and trying to make the world a better place, was of Mexican descent with a Quaker background.The film, directe...

Editorial: Sorry Far-Lefties, America stands with Israel against terror

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

You can’t walk back antisemitism. Nor can a mea culpa camouflage support for terrorists.Many who followed last weekend’s attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists with cheers for the massacre and tacit blame for the victims are finding that out the hard way.Take the elitist students of the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups who wrote a letter blaming Israel for the attacks and found themselves ridiculed as being “intellectually weak and morally repugnant.”Their critics were being nice. The backlash mounted.Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman called for the signatories to be named so that companies could make a point not to hire them. Other execs followed suit.After their lesson in consequences, many students couldn’t remove their signatures from the letter fast enough. In this day and age, however, digital trails follow us all, as a truck which made its way around Harvard Square Thursday displaying the alleged names of those who signed the Harvard letter demonstrates.The s...

Dear Abby: MIL’s cranky cat is on hubby’s last nerve

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

Dear Abby: My mother-in-law, “Irma,” is a peach — she’s the sweetest person in the world. She will do anything for anyone to lend a helping hand. Two weeks ago, she fell and broke her femur, which resulted in a significant hospital stay and needed rehabilitation. My wife and I have been taking care of her house and managing all her other daily tasks while she recovers, but one of these has become an issue.Irma has an old, needy, unfriendly cat (“Mehitabelle”) we have taken into our home during all of this. She hisses and growls at me constantly and won’t allow me to give her medication, which is required twice daily. Irma loves her kitty and asks about her often.We have two cats of our own, so we created a home for Mehitabelle in an upstairs bedroom in an effort to keep all the cats in the house amicable. (She doesn’t get along with one of ours.) My wife and I have managed this so far, but things have grown dramatically worse.In additi...

Israel’s military orders civilians to evacuate Gaza City, ahead of a feared ground offensive

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military directed the evacuation on Friday of all of the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The order comes after Hamas militants, and the United Nations said Israel has warned it wants the evacuation of all 1.1 million people from the northern part of the Gaza Strip.The directive, which comes on the seventh day of the war after a deadly Hamas assault on Israel, directs residents of Gaza City to flee deeper south into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal territory. Israel’s directive charged that Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels under the city.“This evacuation is for your own safety,” the Israeli military said, in a warning it said was sent to Gaza City civilians.The flurry of directives could signal an impending ground offensive, though the Israeli military has not yet confirmed such an appeal. On Thursday it said that while it was preparing, no decision has been made. Israel delivered an eve...

Biden is talking about green energy and jobs in Pennsylvania again. Will his message break through?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is returning to Pennsylvania to use the critical battleground state again as a backdrop for some of his favorite political themes, championing steep increases in public works spending and detailing how bolstering green energy can spur U.S. manufacturing. This time, he’ll be in Philadelphia to announce that it will be one of the regional hubs selected to produce and deliver hydrogen fuel that can run factories, ports and other facilities to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The program will eventually include hydrogen production hubs around the country — a key component of the Biden administration’s clean energy plan — and will be paid for using $7 billion from the sweeping infrastructure package that cleared Congress in 2021. The world has changed since Biden visited a familiar place to talk up familiar topics, though. The war between Israel and Hamas has scrambled geopolitics and potentially reshuffled a 2024 presidential race beginni...

A music festival survivor fleeing the attack, a pair of Hamas militants and a deadly decision

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

KIBBUTZ RE’IM, Israel (AP) — The two militants were just ahead of him, spraying gunfire from their motorcycle at passing cars. One militant was driving, the 50-year-old man said, and the other sat behind, shooting at any target he saw. At least one wore body armor.“He didn’t see me,” Michael Silberberg said. So Silberberg made a decision.He and two friends had already managed to escape the slaughter at the Tribe of Nova music festival, where hundreds of militants from the Palestinian group Hamas had swarmed through crowds, killing at least 260 people and taking an unknown number hostage.They survived another attack a few minutes later, with two hiding in a roadside air-raid shelter while the other hid outside.Soon after that they were driving away in Silberberg’s car, trying to get far from the massacre, when they saw the motorcycle.“I knew it’s either I hit him or I know I die, or other people die, or somebody will die,” Silberberg said.So he stepped on the accelerator and slammed ...

Castellanos hits 2 homers again, powers Phillies past Braves 3-1 and into 2nd straight NLCS

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Nick Castellanos became the first player to hit multiple homers in consecutive postseason games, leading the Philadelphia Phillies to a 3-1 victory in Game 4 of their NL Division Series on Thursday night that knocked the 104-win Atlanta Braves out of the playoffs for the second straight year.Matt Strahm struck out pinch-hitter Vaughn Grissom with runners at the corners to clinch the series and send the Phillies rushing the field in wild celebration. Fireworks went off at a frenzied Citizens Bank Park, the Liberty Bell rang and the reigning National League champions were ready to pop bubbly again.“These are moments I’m never going to forget,” Castellanos said.Bryce Harper gave the Phillies a scare when he clutched his surgically repaired right elbow after a collision in the eighth. Matt Olson’s left knee clipped Harper’s elbow on a play at first base that ended the inning. Harper, the two-time NL MVP, flexed his elbow after a quick examination fr...

2 off-duty police officers shot at Philadelphia International Airport

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Two off-duty officers were shot Thursday night at the parking garage at Philadelphia International Airport, it was reported.CBS News in Philadelphia reported the shootings, citing police, and said the conditions of the hospitalized officers weren’t immediately known.The suspects fled in a black sport utility vehicle, the station said.Fox29 reported that a massive police presence that included armored vehicles and SWAT teams gathered at the garage near Terminal D at around 11:30 p.m.The Associated Press

Some want to grant temporary House speaker more power as Republican gridlock stalls Congress

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Rep. Patrick McHenry took the House speaker’s gavel for the first time, he slammed it down with such force at adjournment that it gained viral internet attention as the defining image of a House in turmoil.But since his abrupt appointment as speaker pro tempore last week following the unprecedented ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the top spot, the North Carolina Republican has wielded the gavel with extreme care, making no attempts to test the limits of his unusual role.Day after day, McHenry, in his signature bow tie, follows a standard routine — gaveling the House into session, receiving a prayer from the chaplain and having a lawmaker recite the Pledge of Allegiance, before quickly gaveling out again. In doing so, he is technically keeping the House active but in a suspended state as both parties wait for Republicans to reach consensus on who will be the next new speaker. But as the House nears a second week stuck on pause, and Republicans struggle to unite a...