Year-End Honors

The New York Classical Review, a reliable and well-respected source of music criticism in the New York area, has a year-end tradition of listing the year’s top performances. Their 2019 list, posted a few days ago, honors the Montclair Orchestra in an entry titled “Suburban Surprise”:

photo by Elizabeth Bowman

“The Montclair Orchestra, in the affluent New Jersey suburb of the same name, is a “developmental” ensemble, with the worthy goal of assisting music education by mixing promising students with seasoned pros in its ranks. Led by David Chan, whose day job is concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, it gives half a dozen well-attended and well-received concerts a season. But maybe it took a jaded New York critic, at a concert in March, to sit up and realize that Chan had just led his band in a performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor that, for crisp execution, fleet pacing, and dark expressivity, would best most or all of this country’s major orchestras.”

These words would be high praise anywhere, but in the ultra-saturated New York market, with its abundance of world-class orchestras (both resident and visiting), such accolades are truly humbling. We’re proud of these accomplishments, but not content to rest on our laurels in 2020. Look for exciting content in this space soon about our upcoming concerts!