Boston Chamber Symphony: Masterworks by Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms

My cello teacher, Ana Ospina-Edwards, recently joined the Boston Chamber Symphony, and she alerted me to the symphony’s first concert, “Masterworks by Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms,” presented last night (October 17, 2026) at First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The program was:

Mozart: Overture to Così fan tutte
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8
Brahms: Violin Concerto, Joshua Brown, soloist

First Church in Cambridge, located adjacent to Cambridge Common, was an easy thirty-minute walk from my house. (I walk by this church every week on my way to my cello lesson at New School of Music.) I found a seat in the third row of pews with a good view of the conductor, the soloist, and the cello section.

Mozart’s Overture to Così fan tutte was a light introduction to the evening, a nice warm-up for the musicians and listeners.

For me, the highlight of the evening was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93, which is a compact but brilliantly composed symphony containing many musical jokes. I find the second movement, which ticks along like a metronome or clock, especially fun.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77. I am usually indifferent to Brahms, but I had never heard his violin concerto before, and I greatly enjoyed it. Joshua Brown, the violin soloist, was outstanding, playing with little effort a piece that was originally considered unplayable. Brown received a standing ovation, and he returned to play a short virtuoso piece that consisted seemingly entirely of double stops (I don’t know what the piece was).

Avlana Eisenberg, the music director who is also a professor at the Boston College Law School, did a wonderful job of conducting, with gestures that were easy to interpret even by myself, a musical novice.

The orchestra itself is filled with young, skilled musicians who play beautifully. I look forward to attending the remaining two concerts of the 2026/2027 season.

There was a reception for the musicians after the performance, and I and at least one other of Ana Ospina-Edwards’s cello students were able to chat with her.