Cellist Laurence Lesser, New England Conservatory’s president from 1983 to 1996, “now functions as a guiding spirit and keeper of some of the conservatory’s institutional memory,” writes David Weininger in Sunday’s (9/23) Boston Globe. “Lesser will turn 80 in October…. Lesser will join the NEC Philharmonia, its flagship orchestra, and conductor Hugh Wolff for a Sept. 26 performance of [Ernest’ Bloch’s] ‘Schelomo.’ … When Lesser arrived at NEC, Gunther Schuller was president, and ‘it was a place on the cutting edge, looking toward the future.’ That adventurousness … has never wavered, he said…. The most publicly noted achievement of his presidency: his oversight of the restoration of Jordan Hall, most of the work for which was carried out in 1995…. The goal was not to remake the hall but to modernize it … without losing the acoustics that make it perhaps the best chamber music hall in the country…. Lesser is not alone in thinking that ‘the hall is at least as good as it was before the restoration. You can hear a clavichord recital or a jazz band. The hall takes that.’ ”
Posted September 25, 2018
