Reviews

Powerful American tenor Matthew Polenzani knocked a delightfully eccentric program out of the (First Congregational) Church in Berkeley Saturday night.

Noe Valley Chamber Music returned after four years off to draw the largest audience in its 22-year history in San Francisco on Sunday, in a performance hosted by SFOO cellist Emil Miland.

One of SFCV’s emerging writers takes you into the world of contemporary master Wolfgang Rihm in a premiere with the National Symphony Orchestra.

ABS did a terrific job with the most winning of Handel’s theater works, introducing a fine soprano in the process.

Tobias Picker's opera is revived by the adventurous, if shoestring-budgeted, Los Angeles company.

Meeting the challenge of Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony is a struggle for both orchestra and audience, but the OEBS made it look easy.

Continuing on from Infinite Jest, John Adams continues to mine Beethoven for musical ideas.

Forget “autumnal”: The Budapest Festival Orchestra brought full-throated, heroic Brahms symphonies to Davies Symphony Hall.

Anne Sofie von Otter is a great performer you root for. But her recital with pianist Angela Hewitt was not all gold, despite that.

A star-studded week wrapped up as John Adams conducted his Grand Pianola Music and Malcolm MacDowell and Elvis Costello headlined A Soldier's Tale.