Thierry Fischer returned to NOVA Chamber Music Series to conduct a spectacular performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

The quartet’s performance accentuated properly all of the work’s emotional swings, extricating the Shostakovich trademarks of heartfelt lyricism morphing to simmering anger and finally withering ferocity. The Fry Street Quartet’s supreme commitment to sincerity of interpretation never wavered, whether it was in the opening pizzicato, the intense Adagio, the sprightly played Allegretto or the hurricane-like force of the final movement. 

NOVA’s March 13 Songs of Play concert brought two delightful premieres to Salt Lake City.

A rare all-British NOVA Chamber Music Series concert was an exquisite treat last weekend for the organization’s only Gallery Concert of the current season in the G. W. Anderson Family Great Hall of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

No better way to enjoy a spectacular, mild Sunday afternoon came than in the second subscription concert of the NOVA Chamber Music Series, which presented six short works with the theme of Songs of Life.

The pure, transparent chords by the Fry Street Quartet, starting with the upward major sixth in the first violin, which make up the first three minutes in Beethoven’s Heiliger Dankgesang (Holy Song of Thanksgiving, Opus. 132), set the ideal opening of NOVA Chamber Music Series’ new season and return to Libby Gardner Hall at The University of Utah after the long pandemic hiatus.

In the performance, Smith curates an ideal sampler to introduce viewers and listeners to a composer, whom he hopes people will be motivated to learn more about, as they deepen and lengthen their appreciation of chamber music.

A transfixing film that signifies the enlightened intertwining of science, social conscience, music and art

A deeply invigorating afternoon of music-making

Fierce Grace, the most recent NOVA Chamber Music Series’ concert, was more than a credible parallel where music and song stood in for the stemwinders one might have heard at a political rally during the suffragette and civil rights movements.

The recent Contrasts concert made for an ideal season centerpiece

The utmost clarity of technical execution and emotional expression

NOVA’s musicians seem eternally fearless.

The Utah Enlightenment is about remaking the spaces where art and creative expression occur and this Odyssey program was as brilliant a case study as seen recently in the local arts scene.

Reflections, the most recent NOVA Chamber Music Series concert, eloquently conveyed its theme in a cohesive, imaginative way that any artistic director should envy.

Royal Musings, its all-British offering, was a more than gratifying musical experience. There was an acute, wise and incisive take on each of the concert’s works.

The sextet bathed the hall in the full luminous potential of Verklärte Nacht. Adkins’ decision to conclude the first program of her season as NOVA’s music director was perfect as a point of artistic mission.

Adkins…chose a wonderfully diverse yet cohesive program to open the ensemble’s 41st season.

If every orderly transition in an organization or institution came off as exquisitely as last weekend’s closing concert for NOVA Chamber Music Series’ 40th anniversary season, we would be fortunate to move forward with less stress and more promise.

Les Roka of The Utah Review called last week's performance of On the Threshold of Winter “an astonishing production.”