IN THE NEWS

"What could have been a crushing series of somber meditations on loss turned out to encompass a broad, compelling range as the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra took on composers’ tributes to loved ones at the State Theatre on Saturday. In an inspired program led by music director Jacques Lacombe, guest violinist Gil Shaham and the NJSO transcended expectations. Shaham [was] technically superb and full of heart; charismatic, but immersed in collaboration rather than showmanship."

Read the article [nj.com]

"The world-class violinist has taken up works by composers as diverse as Igor Stravinsky, Samuel Barber and Alban Berg, whose 1935 violin concerto, “To the Memory of an Angel,” he will perform with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra this weekend under music director Jacques Lacombe."

Read the article [nj.com]

“With the return of conductor laureate Neeme Järvi, a chance to hear concertmaster Eric Wyrick in the spotlight and a program that strayed just enough from the usual fare, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra had plenty to offer during Thanksgiving weekend.”
Read the article [nj.com]

Ross Amico previews “Järvi Returns,” an NJSO program that features Concertmaster Eric Wyrick performing Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto for his annual concerto with the Orchestra. NJSO Conductor Laureate Neeme Järvi takes the podium.
Read the article [nj.com]

“Whether despairing or euphoric, soul-searching or lighthearted, Beethoven's music often contains a concentrated intensity of feeling and generosity of spirit that Kahane exemplified in the composer's concerto as the star of "The Pianist Conductor" with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Kahane led the orchestra in an interpretation that acknowledged the work's stormy heroics, but that was at least as noticeable for the brightness and animation of its sunnier moments.”
Read the article [nj.com]

“Under music director Jacques Lacombe, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra gave a full, respectful portrait [of Franz Liszt] at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Thursday … Liszt specialist André Laplante appeared as the soloist for both of the composer's piano concertos. In Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1, the orchestra opened with a galvanizing burst of energy in its martial double-dotted rhythms. Laplante asserted an ample, orchestral sound and built suspense as he intrepidly scaled the range of the piano ... In the episodic tone poem ‘Les Preludes,’ Lacombe led an evocative, buoyant performance, [with] moments of deep, trembling string sound that built anticipation, gushing waterfalls of cleanly arpeggiating violins, heroic brass cries, prettily fluttering flutes leading into a pastoral section, strings sweetly shimmering over a delicate harp, and a final triumphant fanfare.”
Read the article [nj.com]

“As part of their continuing summer collaboration, Opera New Jersey (ONJ) and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) brought these two pieces together (apparently a rare occurrence) last Thursday night in Richardson Auditorium. [The] concert brought Mendelssohn’s dramatically-crafted choruses and melodic solo writing to a sold out and very appreciative house … Neither [ONJ] nor [NJSO] is by any means finished with their summer seasons, but this mid-summer “gumdrop” of Mendelssohn choral music (generously sponsored by William and Judith Scheide) was a pleasure to hear all the way around.”
Read the article [towntopics.com]

“The ‘Festgesang’ (‘Festive Hymn’) and the Symphony No. 2, ‘Lobgesang’ (‘Hymn of Praise’), both rousing pieces, were played back to back, on either side of the scheduled intermission, and the effect was exhilarating … It was the orchestra’s third annual concert sponsored by the philanthropists William and Judith Scheide, who own a Gutenberg Bible that is kept in the Scheide Library at Princeton. Beyond the galvanizing beauty of the music, it was as a tribute to two things whose future seems uncertain — individual patronage of the arts and the printed book — that the performance took on a special poignancy, even a quiet majesty.”
Read the article [nytimes.com]

See video of the impromptu outdoor music shot by New York Times photographer Tom White.

U.S. 1’s Elaine Strauss previews the unique “Exploring Mendelssohn and the Gutenberg Bible” program, sponsored by William and Judith Scheide.
Read the article [princetoninfo.com]

“[Music Director Jacques Lacombe’s] affinity for the “Best of Ballet,” in which he and the orchestra focused their full attention on ballet scores — minus ballerinas — was clear.”
Read the article [nj.com]

"The orchestra played with focused power when it had to, as in a sweeping first movement energized by subtle yet sturdy percussion playing. But Mr. Lacombe also highlighted the work’s gracefulness, in passages like the start of the minuet in the second movement and the hints of street music in the third."
Read the article [nytimes.com]

"The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra performed every summit and valley, every growing leaf and gut-wrenching sob of that total landscape in a concert Friday night at Richardson Auditorium in Princeton. From the opening moments of the first movement, the interpretation was electric, the execution nuanced and captivating. There is an obvious rapport between the conductor and the orchestra, the musicians responded to him with a gripping performance, a deep level of expressive detail and a single, over-arching focus."
Read the article [mycentraljersey.com]

"Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 was a bold choice for Jacques Lacombe to close his first season as music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Throughout the season, the rapport between Lacombe and the orchestra has grown continually stronger. [The] concert at the Richardson Auditorium in Princeton on Friday was no exception. Overall, the performance was an impressive showing—authoritative in many of its exposed solos, thrilling in fever-pitch climactic moments that set all instruments to high speeds, dynamics and registers, nuanced in its varied styles and given a careful, cohesive reading by Lacombe."
Read the article [nj.com]

“‘[Mahler 3] uses a fairly big orchestra,’ Lacombe says. ‘But in my opinion it’s probably one of the most inspired in terms of (its music) and feeling that you get in a piece like that, it has a great depth to it. It’s one of his most important symphonies. Of course they’re all special but this one, for a lot of conductors, is one of the things that you really want to do and have in your repertoire. It’s a really wonderful piece of music.’”
Read the article [eastbrunswick.patch.com]

"Music director Jacques Lacombe has chosen a big piece to conclude the 2010-’11 New Jersey Symphony Orchestra season — Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. The longest piece both among Mahler’s works and in the standard repertory, the composition takes more than 90 minutes and consists of six movements."
Read the article [princetoninfo.com]

The Montreal Gazette profiles several Quebec natives, including NJSO Music Director Jacques Lacombe, whose conducting careers have brought them international success.
Read the article [montrealgazette.com]

“With a classic concerto, a little bit of hip-hop and a lesser-known work by one of the luminaries of American music, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra offered something for just about everyone at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Thursday.”
Read the article [nj.com]

"When Vadim Gluzman was loaned the Stradivarius violin for which Tchaikovsky wrote one of classical music’s most beloved concertos, the instrument changed his life. 'It’s like somebody gave me a new pair of hands and ears,' he says. 'I started to realize I can express so much more.'"
Read the article [nj.com]

“Outside the Mayo Center for the Performing Arts in Morristown on Thursday night, shamrocks reigned, with a crowd decked out in green streaming from the nearest bar. But inside … [with] “The Best of Spanish Flair,” the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra played a globetrotting program of music, with works from the United States, Latin America, France and Russia—each distinctive, but with the vivid rhythms and sensuality often associated with the music of Spain never far away."
Read the article [nj.com]

"The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s ‘An Italian Excursion’ at the Richardson Auditorium in Princeton on Friday was not always as obviously musically linked to Italy as the program title would suggest. But for the fiery spirit, bubbling energy and generous feeling one might associate with the Italian style, the concert did not disappoint."
Read the article [nj.com]

“Under music director Jacques Lacombe, the performance was mesmerizing from its first notes to its conclusion—and one of the most compelling classical performances in New Jersey so far this season.”
Read the article [nj.com]

"Most impressive was Rimsky-Korsakov’s 'Scheherazade,' which was masterfully crafted by Lacombe and played with rich, unified sound and vibrant expressivity by the NJSO. The music often pushed to the brim of excess but never went overboard. And, in the work’s many solos, the principal players seemed to feed off of each other, showing the orchestra all around to be in excellent form."
Read the article [nj.com]

“Ranjbaran believes in music as a social and sometimes political force. In ‘Seemorgh,’ with its focus on mountain landscapes in moonlight and at sunrise, the societal function is one of preserving and refreshing a sense of community that knows no bounds. ‘I think that there’s an inherent truth in all cultures and that is the respect for others and respecting others’ ideas,’ Ranjbaran says. ‘Music reflects that unity, that sense of inner peace that exists in all nations and in all people.’”
Read the article [nj.com]

“Music Director Jacques Lacombe and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) perform Iranian-born composer Behzad Ranjbaran’s Seemorgh: Persian Trilogy for Orchestra on the NJSO’s ‘Arabian Nights’ program this weekend in Newark, Morristown and New Brunswick. Praised for its ‘lush exoticism’ by American Record Guide, Seemorgh appears as part of the NJSO’s New Jersey Roots Project, an initiative celebrating the music of composers who were born in New Jersey or whose artistic identity was shaped by time spent in the Garden State.”
Read the article [payvand.com]

"[In] a performance as good as this, you end up rolling over and caving in to [Carmina Burana's] riotous mix of clanging bells and shouty choruses. The percussion writing is brilliantly served in this live performance from New Jersey forces ... It’s an electric, live performance in the best possible sense, all concerned giving their all in this debut concert with the young Canadian conductor Jacques Lacombe, who was offered the post of chief conductor several months later. Marvel at the way the brass and strings tear into the tiny Tanz 10 minutes in, or, how Lacombe’s huge chorus abruptly raise and lower their volume against the oompah orchestral backing to In taberna quando sumus. Sorry, but it’s impossible not to enjoy."
Read the article [theartsdesk.com]

"Jacques Lacombe is now the music director of the NJSO, but a look at his first performance with the orchestra — as a guest conductor, in November 2008 — offers an intriguing window into his gifts and his rapport with the musicians. Many performances of Orff’s bawdy oratorio are energized and joyously noisy — this one really is more than that. In addition to the requisite firepower, Lacombe draws out the many textures and colors within Orff’s orchestration, making for freshness even in wild celebratory movements."
Read the article [nj.com]

"Opera New Jersey, long known in the Princeton area for its summer series, has in the past few years added a winter production in collaboration with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJS0). This year’s joint production, presented last Friday night in McCarter Theatre’s Matthews Theatre, treated the nearly full house to a very entertaining evening of wonderful singers telling an emotional and poignant story."
Read the article [towntopics.com]

“Puccini’s classic story of a young geisha who marries a cavalier American naval officer may be one of the most beloved in all of opera—but it is still a challenging venture, especially with the young singers that Opera New Jersey admirably promotes … The title character, who waits years with her son for the man she has married in a union he considers insignificant, has to seem strong and honorable in her devotion, even as she is helpless. And the setting, which is as colorful and sensuous as the music, calls for a magnificent spectacle. Given these conditions, the company made clever choices. And in her American debut, soprano Inna Los displayed a rare talent.
Read the article [nj.com]

“‘Madame Butterfly’ consistently occupies a spot as one of the five most popular operas. Giacomo Puccini’s heart-wrenching story of a Japanese girl betrayed by an American naval officer makes audiences weep. People who like their operas astringent give their subscription tickets away to soft-hearted friends when this Puccini’s on the program. In an ongoing multi-year partnership, Opera New Jersey and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra present a co-production of ‘Butterfly,’ Friday, February 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Princeton’s McCarter Theater, and Friday, February 11, at 8 p.m., at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.”
Read the article [princetoninfo.com]

Tammy La Gorce previews the NJSO and Opera New Jersey's joint production of Madama Butterfly in Princeton and Newark in February. NJPAC collaborates on the Newark performance.
Read the article [nytimes.com]

"Järvi kept the NJSO on its toes, at one point resting his hands at his sides, trusting the orchestra to maintain the music. If something of a stunt and not one that would work in more challenging repertoire, it showed the conductor demanding freshness—and receiving it."
Read the article [nj.com]

"On Jan. 7, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, an underrated group with a history of adventurous programming, arrived at NJPAC to kick off its monthlong Winter Festival ... the orchestra sounded rejuvenated."
Read the article  [newyorker.com  - subscription required]

Read the artist's perspective of creating the Lacombe image for the New Yorker piece: danielhertzberg.blogspot.com

US1's Elaine Strauss chats with Music Director Jacques Lacombe about the upcoming Winter Festival and the art of making music with water.
Read the article  [princetoninfo.com]

"Debbie Gravitte, Jan Horvath, and Christiane Noll will join the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) for Jacques & The Divas, to be offered on February 12 at 8pm at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). NJSO Music Director Jacques Lacombe will conduct the concert. The event will be a celebration of Valentine's Day, featuring songs from such shows as Gypsy, Funny Girl, Wicked, Evita, My Fair Lady, and Candide."
Read the article [theatermania.com]

"The first piece ends with a flourish. From here it’s not too difficult to believe Conductor Jacques Lacombe when he says man and the music he makes [have] been forever influenced and inspired by water ... Intentional or not, the comparisons are obvious. The way music develops slow, languishing textures like a still pond or violent crescendos like waves crashing on a beach, it’s a perfect fit. The bows of two-dozen violinists glide up and down over their instrument strings, all of them uniform, like ripples over water. It's something more than interpretation."
Read the article [redbank.patch.com]

"We are on a trip to many places this evening. The program is presented as a whole with no intermission, a rarity in my experience,. This is a perfect format for this particular program, as it gives as sense of roundness, much like our drop of water."
Read the article [QOnStage.com]

“Czech composer Bedrich Smetana’s ‘Moldau’ movement of ‘Ma Vlast’ receives no shortage of performances, but the orchestra gave a dynamic rendering of its anthemic melody and a sense of the river’s streaming rivulets with well-articulated, surging phrases. A similar commitment marked Mendelssohn’s tribute to the Scottish ‘Fingal's’ Cave’ from ‘The Hebrides’ Overture.”
Read the article [nj.com]

"Utter joy was on the faces of all the percussionists, and the orchestra was there at every turn in the partnership with the primary soloist and his minions. Inspired by these gifted men, there may have been others in the audience like me, considering which of my kitchen vessels would provide me with the right tones and depth to 'play' water. Brilliant!"
Read the article  [QOnStage.com]

"[Guest soloist David Cossin] will be 'playing water' — sometimes with his hands, at other times with plastic cups. He says the open end of a cup makes bass sounds, and the closed ends sound more like a snare drum. He’ll also create unusual sounds with wet gongs and cowbells. A vibraphone will have pennies taped to the top, so that it has a trickling sound ... In working with Tan Dun, who became internationally famous by writing the music to the 2000 film 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,' Cossin helped develop many of his instruments and developed an affinity for his style."
Read the article  [nj.com]

"The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra rubbed elbows with the likes of Super Mario and Tron this week when the prestigious symphony teamed up with veteran video game music composer Tommy Tallarico for performances of classic and modern video game music. 'Video Games Live: Bonus Round,' conducted in Newark by Japanese video game composer Wataru Hokoyama, features video game imagery and live action interactivity, drawing in a decidedly different crowd from the usual concertgoers at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center."
Watch the video.

“Each ‘Video Games Live’ performance is different. This year’s lineup features music from ‘Mega Man,’ ‘Street Fighter 2,’ ‘Tron’ (for the first time in Newark), ‘Diablo 3’ (which is not yet released) and ‘Chrono Trigger.’ The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will supply music for the interactive show, which includes audience members involved in ‘Guitar Hero’ competitions with live accompaniment. The show features three video screens, upgraded from two and now in high definition.”
Read the article  [nj.com]

"Also a writer on music theory and a musicologist, Cone (1917-2004) was a student of fellow composer Roger Sessions and served on Princeton University’s faculty from 1947 to 1985. Written in 1959, his concerto deviates from the works of his more experimental colleagues in that it adheres to conventional, three-movement structure. "Cone takes a kind of traditional form whereas Sessions went completely off the grid," Wyrick says. "It’s interesting to see the lineage of composers."
Read the article  [nj.com]

"Under music director Jacques Lacombe, the orchestra partnered [Yuja Wang] with striking vigor and finesse. That's not to say that they couldn't be just as enjoyable in a more subdued piece. In Gershwin's 'Lullaby,' a lilting opener, the NJSO showed off an unforced, mellow charm. But the increasingly apparent and impressive ability of the new conductor and the orchestra to pull off a kind of controlled chaos, where ferocity and clarity combine so as to avoid the extremes of sounding clinical or cacophonous, was on full display in Kurt Weill's Symphony No. 1, 'Berliner.'"
Read the article  [nj.com]

"The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has always held a strong position in the state’s arts scene, and has committed to reaching into new corners of repertory and audiences under Mr. Lacombe’s leadership. As he musically announced his governance of the ensemble from the podium on Friday night, Mr. Lacombe made it clear that this is a relationship which will continue long into the future."
Read the article  [TownTopics.com]

"NJSO Music Director Jacques Lacombe said: 'To perform Brahms' magnificent First Piano Concerto, I am delighted to have the opportunity to bring Yuja Wang to New Jersey audiences. I have admired her gifts at the piano, and I am excited that our patrons will be able to experience her interpretation of this great masterwork.'"
Read the article  [BroadwayWorld.com]

"I never thought I'd find myself wanting to review a recording of Orff's Carmina Burana, but this one with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra caught my ear and is so superb—so lively, accurate, cleanly recorded, and handsomely played—that its action-movie, apocalyptic aspects are matched by its introspective moments."
Read the review [ClassicsToday.com]

"Without touching an instrument or playing a note, conductor Jacques Lacombe can achieve the musical sound he wants from the 60 people who are actually doing the work of making music. He does so using the same techniques of corporate leaders: inspiring, cajoling, and directing the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra musicians to perform to his desired end. During an innovative program at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the students in the Rutgers Business School’s Nonprofit Leadership Certificate Program observed Lacombe rehearse [and] saw him put into action the critical management and leadership skills they had been studying all week."
Read the article [nj.com]

"In a program that built to Prokofiev’s vibrant and imposing Symphony No. 5, Lacombe led an invigorated NJSO ... Throughout [Roger Sessions' The Black Maskers Suite], Lacombe’s attentive spurring on of the deeply engaged orchestra made one look forward to hearing more contemporary music from the NJSO this season."
Read the article [nj.com]