Features

My sister forwarded me a menu last week from an early 1950s Woolworth’s diner counter, which she intended to give me price shock.

It goes without saying that the Cabrillo Festival is going to win next year's ASCAP annual award for the most Adventurous Programming of Orchestral Music by a festival. It has won every year since the award was initiated in 1982. Some might argue that winning the ASCAP award does not signify cutting edge programming.

Last month I witnessed an unusual spectacle at the Bergen Music Festival in Norway. After three or four curtain calls, clapping in unison began and, as if by prearranged signal, everyone stood at once in enthusiastic acknowledgement. The orchestra that did the playing was the visiting Stavanger Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ole Kristian Ruud.

"In chamber music, you play the way you are. Are you generous and giving? Are you responding to your friend's suggestions?

The summer music season has arrived and, as always, there’s no shortage of worthy events in and around the Bay Area.

San José, as its boosters like to point out, is now the largest city in Northern California. But if it’s the leader in population, it has a ways to go to catch up to San Francisco in cultural influence. Still, San José is far from the cultural desert that its flat sprawling landscape might suggest to residents of hillier, more congested parts of the Bay Area.

Philadelphia-born bass-baritone Eric Owens returns to San Francisco Opera this month to sing the role of the King of Scotland in Ariodante.

The setting is as monumental as it is humbling.

I had to look up the date, but the scene itself is still clear in my mind after so many years.