SF Classical Voice’s writers reviewed more than 200 performances in 2024 — and that’s not counting everything they attended on their own time. In every direction across the Bay Area, our writers made it to the big productions and the bare-bones recitals. For their hardest assignment all year, we asked them to whittle all of that down to three favorite performances apiece. Here are their picks for this year’s standout offerings:
Dalia Stasevska at the San Francisco Symphony (Jan. 18–20)
Stasevska led an exciting, pile-driving performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”), full of stunning expressive contrasts and shattering fortissimo explosions, the SF Symphony at its dazzling best. Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto was more sedate but brilliantly colorful, and soloist Seong-Jin Cho managed to be both crisp and lyrical. (Read SFCV’s review of the concert.) —David Bratman
Wild Up at Stanford Live (Feb. 9 and 10) and Cal Performances (March 9)
Conductor Christopher Rountree and Wild Up played Julius Eastman’s Femenine in Stanford in February. Then, with different musicians, the group gave another Bay Area performance of the piece in March, providing a rare look at the brilliant, enigmatic Eastman and his half-notated, half-improvised music. The two performances, played with virtuoso panache, were vastly different and equally valid. (Read SFCV’s review of the Stanford program.) —Lisa Hirsch
Erin Morley at Cal Performances (Feb. 18)
Soprano Morley and pianist Malcolm Martineau gave a marvelously varied recital where each song focused on some aspect of a garden. Both performed brilliantly and with searching intelligence. Morley is a marvelously expressive singer, and Martineau is as good as it gets among collaborative pianists. They made a fabulous team. (Read SFCV’s review of the recital.) —Lisa Hirsch
Bluebeard’s Castle at the San Francisco Symphony (March 1–3)
During San Francisco Opera’s offseason, it was a treat to hear this stage work across the street at the Symphony. Though a dazzling lighting scheme didn’t necessarily detract, this spectacular performance of Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle needed no trimmings — not with Gerald Finley as Bluebeard, Michelle DeYoung singing a magnificently characterized Judith, and Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting an orchestra at the height of its powers. (Read SFCV’s review of the concert.) —Rebecca Wishnia
Jakub Józef Orliński and Il Pomo d’Oro at Cal Performances (April 9)
Countertenor Orliński was dazzlingly theatrical, performing with a physicality that made Baroque songs as vivid as the latest pop extravaganza — especially when joined by the scintillating early-music orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro. This was far from your usual recital — an example of old music’s enduring dramatic power. —Nicholas Jones
Quatuor Ébène at Cal Performances (April 16)
Every year, a string quartet comes to the Bay Area and wows me. In 2024, that group was the Quatuor Ébène, whose interpretations, particularly of Alfred Schnittke’s weighty Third Quartet, were meticulous. But it was the ensemble’s combined tone — an impossibly pure blend — that made the performance truly unforgettable. (Read SFCV’s review of the concert.) —Rebecca Wishnia
William Walton’s Viola Concerto at the San Francisco Symphony (April 25–27)
It’s not often that you get to hear three 20th-century works in the same SF Symphony program, let alone a piece featuring the viola. William Walton’s Viola Concerto, a taut and pensive work, was the perfect vehicle to showcase the virtuosity and lyricism of principal Jonathan Vinocour. (Read SFCV’s review of the concert.) —Rebecca Wishnia
Innocence at San Francisco Opera (June 1–21)
On a revolving transparent set that whirled a keenly honed ensemble cast through time and place, the late Kaija Saariaho’s operatic tragedy churned up the turbulent wake of a school shooting. Every moment deepened what came before, right up to a mother’s wrenchingly tender farewell to an adult daughter she would never know. (Read SFCV’s review of the production.) —Steven Winn
Cappella Pratensis at the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition (June 13)
Not your usual choir concert: eight guys clustered in front of a single giant choirbook, singing an hourlong mass from the 15th century. At BFX, Cappella Pratensis delivered Jacob Obrecht’s Missa Maria zart with perfect tuning and total commitment to each line of shimmering counterpoint. —Nicholas Jones
Jacqueline at West Edge Opera (Aug. 10–18)
In this monodrama about the life and death of cellist Jacqueline du Pré (1945–1987), soprano Marnie Breckenridge gave one of the most vivid, fearlessly committed performances of the year. Partnered with cellist Matt Haimovitz, the singer brought lacerating intensity and a voice by turns ravishing and raw to composer Luna Pearl Woolf and librettist Royce Vavrek’s work. (Read SFCV’s review of the production.) —Steven Winn
Oakland Symphony’s Season Opener (Oct. 18)
“Inextinguishable Oakland!” exulted the program book cover. But there was nothing hyperbolic about new Music Director Kedrick Armstrong’s auspicious debut. The performance of Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 (“The Inextinguishable”) was powerful, expansive, and disciplined. If three commissioned jazz works stuttered, they nevertheless signaled Armstrong’s commitment to fresh voices. (Read SFCV’s review of the concert.) —Steven Winn
Tristan and Isolde at San Francisco Opera (Oct. 19 – Nov. 5)
This production of Tristan, the first at SF Opera in 18 years, had it all. Simon O’Neill’s tireless, clarion, and moving Tristan and Anja Kampe’s imperious yet tender Isolde led the way. Paul Curran’s sensitive direction gave all of the singers the right dramatic framing. Magnificent playing by the SF Opera Orchestra and breathtaking conducting by Eun Sun Kim made Tristan a transcendent experience. (Read SFCV’s review of the production.) —Lisa Hirsch
Galina Ustvolskaya’s Complete Piano Sonatas (Oct. 28)
Pianist Conor Hanick played these six rarely heard ultra-modernist sonatas in one unbroken 70-minute set, presented by Other Minds. This is tough and brutal music with tremendous tension and drive. But it spoke its strange and hard language clearly and compellingly here, and it was of obvious intellectual substance. Challenging listening but so artistically satisfying. (Read SFCV’s review of the production.) —David Bratman
Igor Levit at Cal Performances (Nov. 19)
The Russian-German pianist played daunting masterworks by J.S. Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven (the Seventh Symphony, arranged for solo piano by Franz Liszt), never ducking the virtuosity of this grand and difficult music. At the same time, he reached out to the audience with a focused and heartfelt intimacy. (Read SFCV’s review of the recital.) —Nicholas Jones
Shostakovich’s Fourth at Redwood Symphony (Nov. 23)
The community orchestra that plays such excellent Mahler did an equally spectacular job on Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony, the Soviet composer’s most Mahlerian. This enormous and cryptic work was performed with fine control and utter commitment. Also on this program conducted by Eric Kujawsky, Yueh Chou soloing in Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto with graceful virtuosity. (Read SFCV’s review of the concert.) —David Bratman
