Led by guest conductor Marek Janowski, the all-Beethoven program at Davies Symphony Hall proceeded in a entirely unexpected order, yet one with exceptional verve and focus, and results that were both bracing and a little disorienting.
In a delightful recital Tuesday night, Lang Lang — probably the best pianist around, and once likened to Elvis in stature — presented a different pianist, who was also subtle, self-effacing, while exhibiting the highest level of artistry.
The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet brought charisma and virtuosity to a program of mostly Renaissance music (bookended by 19th-century opera arrangements and leavened by a modern classic) at a recital presented on Saturday.
A new performance can make you re-imagine a piece you thought you'd known cold: Two new discs, by the Pavel Haas and Artemis Quartets, remind me of that. And what the two groups share is extraordinary technical crispness coupled with tenderness and intelligence; the ability to refresh and renew.
In Music@Menlo's latest concert in this year’s winter series, festivals co-director and pianist Wu Han, Alessio Bax, and Anne-Marie McDermott performed fairly indulgent music from the turn of the 20th century, all of it written for two pianos.
There's a powerful magnetism about a great professional countertenor, a singer who exhibits both fantastic vocal range and crystalline purity of tone. David Daniels has built an impressive career as a countertenor, with luscious tone and careful craftsmanship among his assets, as demonstrated in Philharmonia Baroque’s lively program on Saturday.
Music truly is the international language. Case in point at the San Francisco Symphony: A French conductor leads an American orchestra in an all-Russian program — and it all sounds amazingly authentic, and mostly excellent.
Escaping from “lake-effect” snow and winter, the venerable Cornell Glee Club brought a warm mixture of Romantic-inflected music to its Bay Area concerts.
It’s not often that we get to hear such a large body of new music, developed over a long time, by one composer and played by a single ensemble. No one could listen to Lisa Bielawa's two-CD set and not marvel.
I rarely feel surprised by programming at a concert. Normally, by looking at the repertoire and the performers, I have a good idea of the type of event I’m in for because I go in ready and prepared. So I was eager to hear some of the three-night San Francisco Tape Music Festival at Fort Mason last weekend, with its surround-sound system supporting 16 loudspeakers.
