Photo: Hilary Scott, Courtesy of the BSO

Before Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra stopped at Carnegie Hall last week with a program of Dvorák and Adams, they presented the same concert with the same soloists at Symphony Hall in March.

Parterre Box critic Emma Hoffman was lukewarm about the Adams half of the program, saying:

If the quality of Nelsons’s Nixon left me confused as to why, beyond the question of respect for the musicians, one should care so intently about his professional fortunes, his reading of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, clarified matters.

This week, Parterre Box proposes a broadcast of “Three Scenes from Nixon in China” from last month in Beantown so you can hear for yourself how Boston’s Maestro-on-the-outs is keeping things together these days.

This performance can also whet your appetite for more Adams coming later this week: on Sunday, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino will broadcast live a performance of Adams’s controversial The Death of Klinghoffer in a production by the improbable Luca Guadagnino.

Adams: Three Scenes from Nixon in China 

Renée Fleming
Thomas Hampson

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts
March 28, 2026
Broadcast