Sentence examples for bracing programs from inspiring English sources

As if to drive the point home, the Berlin Philharmonic conquered New York this month with three bracing programs at Carnegie Hall, conducted by its dynamic music director, Simon Rattle, now in his second season.

In comparison with the bracing programs Alan Gilbert presented to open his first two seasons as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Wednesday night's concert at Avery Fisher Hall, which began his third, was not as adventurous, nor as clear an artistic statement.

Then again, the San Francisco Symphony under its dynamic conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, facing the same problems that other orchestras cite as reasons for playing it safe, has managed to offer bracing programs of old and new music, entice new audiences and operate in the black.

It opened Sequitur's bracing program on Tuesday night at Merkin Concert Hall, which was nearly packed.

Ms. Alsop, the orchestra's music director since 2007, began her bracing program with John Adams's "Shaker Loops," the 1983 string-orchestra version of an earlier chamber piece for strings.

Their bracing program includes sonatas for horn and piano by Beethoven and Strauss (although the Strauss piece, admittedly, is based on his own cello sonata), as well as Chopin's Ballade in A flat major and an Adagio and Allegro by Schumann.

Once inside, the audience listened intently and responded enthusiastically to this bracing program, brilliantly performed by the Juilliard Orchestra, directed by the esteemed Dutch composer and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw.

If this new festival works as Mr. Morris hopes it will, a chosen orchestra, having played a bracing program at Carnegie Hall, may feel empowered to push the boundaries of creativity at home.

My first impressions of the hall's sound come from three inaugural events: a press preview concert on Wednesday; the first public concert on Friday night, a bracing program of contemporary chamber works conducted by John Adams; and a family concert at 11 a.m. on Saturday featuring the impressive Brooklyn Youth Chorus, directed by Dianne Berkun.

KOZINN VOX VOCAL ENSEMBLE New York concert-goers have gotten to know of George Steel as an agitator for contemporary music of all kinds through the bracing and popular programs he presents at Miller Theater.

(Midgette) Classical Music 'THE ANDSNES PROJECTonightighTheThe remarkable Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes concludes his Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall this season with a bracing chamber music program of works by Kurtag and Schumann.