By Kevin McLaughlin
The Marsalis–McAllister–Ames Trio arrived at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall on March 3, with a program for Tuesday Musical that strolled through several musical neighborhoods — French impressionism, a touch of Scotland, American concert music, and Kansas City jazz. Branford Marsalis and Timothy McAllister handled the saxophones, Liz Ames the piano.
Between them, the saxophonists covered much of the instrument’s extended family, from baritone sax upward, switching horns as the repertoire required. For the first half, Marsalis stayed with the soprano — Coltrane’s instrument — which, in Marsalis’ hands, had a sweet, veiled quality that especially suited the program’s opening music.
Marsalis is widely known as a jazz musician, but he has long been at ease in classical repertoire as well — an aspect of his playing documented early on, as in his 1986 album Romances for Saxophone.
Performing a work as ubiquitous as Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons requires a delicate balance. At its best, the musicality and intention must be crystal clear, so that the end result feels as fresh as it does familiar. It’s a high bar, but one that Les Arts Florissants cleared with the utmost ease.
On Tuesday evening, October 21, pianist Marc-André Hamelin opened Tuesday Musical’s 2025–26 season in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall with a program of unusual range and scale. He mapped the human mind and heart across an often-epic landscape — Beethoven’s granite Hammerklavier, Robert Schumann’s not merely scenic Waldszenen, and Ravel’s hallucinatory Gaspard de la nuit.
There are very few American cities who can count themselves as having an official fanfare. But now, Akron is one of them.
Composer and conductor Peter Boyer has a lot on his plate. But when recording producer Elaine Martone called him two years ago with an offer from Tuesday Musical, he just couldn’t say no.