BBCNOW/Elts – review

Hoddinott Hall, CardiffIn the BBC National Orchestra of Wales's first public performance of the year, there was no question of comfort-zone programming. A foxtrot to open may seem like easing an audience in gently, but this was John Adams's The Chairman Dances, the composer's initial exploration of the themes on which he would base his opera about Richard Nixon's 1973 visit to China. Conductor Olari Elts trod a delicate line between carefully engineered tempo and injecting a more menacing underc...

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