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"great warmth and substance"
New York Times
"an exceptional performance"
Washington Post
"the effect was overwhelming"
Columbus Dispatch
"the sort of music-making that is a credit to Duluth, the region, and the state"
Minnesota Public Radio
"a revelatory performance [with the New York Philharmonic]"
Citysearch
"a Brahms' Second to cherish"
San Antonio Express-News
"the most lyrical the ASO has been all season"
Birmingham News
"Music-making of a quite special kind"
Kansas City Star
"Thakar asked the musicians to perform miracles, and they did."
Colorado Springs Gazette
"SYMPHONY TRANSFORMED UNDER THAKAR'S BATON...the orchestra seemed transformed-smoothly professional, attentively focused, more musically intuitive and its sound full and rounded"
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
"The LSO sounded like a different ensemble....clearly this was an impressive debut."
Lansing State Journal
"How was Mr. Thakar? In a word, brilliant."
Greensboro News & Record
Taking up the baton
Inside the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra Conducting Seminar
Elizabeth Nonemaker, Baltimore Sun
"In 2010, Markand Thakar offered a solution by holding the first Baltimore Chamber Orchestra Conducting Seminar. Students could learn fundamentals of conducting and implement them with a professional ensemble over just four days."
Fine concerts from Music in the Great Hall, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra
Tim Smith, Baltimore Sun
"Markand Thakar demonstrated the art of the unobtrusive conductor -- minimal gestures, maximum expression."
Lyrical afternoon with Baltimore Chamber Orchestra
Tim Smith, Baltimore Sun [February 21, 2012]
"The BCO sounds better each time I hear it...it was remarkable to hear such impressive work"
Chamber orchestra sets 5 concerts in Suzhou, China
Baltimore Chamber Orchestra
"Most of Baltimore's classical music ensembles will take a break during the holidays, but one of them is going full-throttle - half a world away."
DSSO conductor provides appreciation sessions before symphony concerts
Christa Lawler, Duluth News Tribune
"Somewhere in the third movement of a recording of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2, Markand Thakar's right hand began doing the abbreviated movements of a maestro. It was seemingly an involuntary sway for the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchesta's music director in front of a small audience of season ticket-holders. ''Music creates energy,'' he said, after stopping a Panasonic CD player. ''A piece of music is a fight against silence.''"
BCO gets vote of confidence from NY Times
Clef Notes blog by Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun
"The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra isn't the only local ensemble to have made a splash in New York this fall... Today's New York Times carries a decidedly favorable review and a couple of pictures of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra's appearance there over the weekend... My colleague, Steve Smith (no relation, except for the excellent taste), writes that BCO ''produced a rich, finely blended sound'' in the [concerto] and in ''solid accounts'' of adagios by Mozart and Bruckner... To my ears, the BCO has been improving steadily over the past few years since music director Markand Thakar arrived."
Fooled by Fauxharmonic?
Stereophile magazine
"Can audiences tell the difference between a computer-generated orchestra and the real thing? Just how far have digital sampling and loudspeaker technologies advanced? Those questions and more were posed at New York's Bargemusic on November 2, when the Fauxharmonic Orchestra (http://www.fauxharmonic.com) a digital orchestra of sampled sounds programmed and conducted by Paul Henry Smith, shared the stage with the 21 strings of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra (http://www.thebco.org), conducted by Markand Thakar."
Live vs. Digital Orchestra: Let the Competition begin
Opera Online
"Much credit has to go out to Baltimore Chamber Orchestra's Music Director Markand Thakar for giving an audience the opportunity to at least hear the difference"
Things looking up for Baltimore Chamber Orch
In the News
"Tim Smith writes about the bright immediate future for the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. ''Next season the orchestra...will make its New York debut...The orchestra has made two yet-to-be released recordings''..."
Chamber orchestra playing new tune with sponsors' cash
Baltimore Business Journal
"Eight months ago, officials at the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra were staring at an $80,000 deficit that threatened to bring the music to an end if they did not act quickly. Today, the 35-musician orchestra has expanded its programming for next season, broadened its venues and pumped up its operating budget by 18 percent."
Thakar fills up orchestra seats with catchy themes, new sounds
Article by Michael Huebner in the Birmingham News
"Markand Thakar is receiving as much good press lately for programming and audience building as he is for conducting. Since he took the title of Music Director of the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra in 2002, he has built attendance to an average of 93 percent capacity in a 2,300-seat hall..."
Season is all about teaming up
Article by Tim Smith in the Baltimore Sun
"The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Shriver Hall Concert Series have announced new programs in conjunction with the Baltimore Museum of Art. Now the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra has upped the ante by announcing a season built around partnerships with five local ''flagship cultural institutions.''...The novel programming concept comes from the BCO's new music director, Markand Thakar..."
Daring in Duluth
Article by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross TheRestisNoise.com
"On the subject of brilliant programming see this season's programs by the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra..."
Variations on a Theme: At the Duluth Superior Symphony, creative programming and rising artistic standards fill the house
Article by Chester Lane in SYMPHONY magazine
"Thakar's approach is inspiring even in such well-worn works as Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony, something that musicians are often allowed to 'just slop through.'"
Music education strengthens communities
Letter to the editor by Markand Thakar in the Duluth News Tribune
"Music doesn't cost our community, it is an investment, one that pays dividends in multiple ways..."
Composing a Melody for Success: BCO leader Thakar increased patrons for Minn. orchestra
Article by Tim Smith in the Baltimore Sun
"Markand Thakar, mild-mannered professor for a great metropolitan conservatory and soft-spoken music director of a modest-sized orchestra in northeastern Minnesota, may turn out to be a classical music hero. All right, hero is too strong a word, but, these days, anyone who can point to the sort of trend-bucking success that Thakar has generated seems more powerful than a speeding finale by Beethoven."
Thakar jumps right in as BCO conductor with a Beethoven program
Article by Tim Smith in the Baltimore Sun
"There's nothing like an all-Beethoven program to test any conductor's mettle. What emerged most impressively in this season-opener at Goucher College's Kraushaar Auditorium was a deeply serious musicality."
Orchestra league visit sheds light on DSSO's success
Article by Kyle Eller in the Duluth Budgeteer
""Fogel also pulled out kudos for Thakar. 'In addition to the technical level of the orchestra's playing, I frankly found Markand Thakar's conducting to be imaginative, convincing, stylish and completely."