In Tuesday’s (9/14) Boston Globe, Jeremy Eichler writes, “Charles Ansbacher, the founding conductor of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, whose free concerts at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade and in many city neighborhoods brought live classical music to thousands of Bostonians, died on Sunday in his home in Cambridge. The cause was a brain tumor, according to spokeswoman Harron Ellenson. He was 67. Ansbacher was a firm believer in the power of the arts to lift individual spirits regardless of one’s background while also strengthening the bonds of civic life. His populism seemed indistinguishable from his love for the art form itself. … When he founded the orchestra in 2000, Mr. Ansbacher placed the word ‘landmarks’ in its title to signal his belief in the ‘synergy,’ as he often called it, between music and location, or in other words, the power of the arts to deepen one’s sense of place. … Each year the group typically commissions a new family-friendly work on quintessential local subjects or institutions, such as ‘Make Way for Ducklings,’ Old Ironsides, John Adams, and the Red Sox.”
Posted September 14, 2010
