Globe Reviewer Highlights the Awesomeness of Debbie

-- June 8, 2011

We got some nice words directed at us by Boston Globe correspondent David Perkins for last week's Family Concert at the Hyde Park Library.  I'm really glad that he focused his kudos on Chameleon Arts Ensemble's artistic director Deborah Boldin, who year after year, holds steadfastly to her belief that children's concerts can be as sophisticated as her regular season performances. 

Indeed, Debbie puts countless hours of research, thought and passionate hand-wringing into planning Chameleon's concert season.  She takes her art of putting together concerts very, very seriously, examining all aspects of each piece and how it would fit in the overall flow.   The individual concert and even the season as a whole become a work of meta-art: While composers create individual pieces, she composes not only a concert's worth of well connected pieces, but she masterminds an entire through-composed season.

While I was in and out of Boston over the past couple of weeks, she was finishing putting together the 2011-2012 season.  She has an elaborate system for matching potential repertoire selections with interesting theme ideas, which she then cross references against desired and practical instrumentation combinations.  "This sounds like the kind of task a computer database could handle easily," I told her. 

"I have to touch it and see it spread out," she told me. 

That's passion: Talk about a labor of love!

Her zeal for the music itself and her commitment to putting together compelling programs seems to keep her going despite the many financial and practical obstacles she faces in a time when concert attendance is down and orchestras continue to fold.  Nonetheless, the Chameleons continue to pack the Goethe-Institute in Back Bay concert after concert.