Reviews

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Review

A Marvelous Curio

Heuwell Tircuit - March 9, 2009
Although the music of Olivier Messiaen is extremely popular these days, his songs are rarely encountered in live performance. Little wonder, for they're so overly demanding. Dramatic soprano Heidi Melton and pianist John Parr took on the major beast of the field, his largest cycle, Harawi, Sunday afternoon in Old First Church, and pulled off a triumph.
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Review

Wondrous Mechanism

Jessica Balik - March 9, 2009
Who is László Klangfarben, and what is a Schick Machine? Those were the two burning questions on the minds of audience and protagonist alike during Schick Machine, a theatrical and musical work commissioned by Stanford Lively Arts and premiered Saturday evening at Stanford’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium.
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Review

Charming Communicator

Jason Victor Serinus - March 9, 2009
How many tenors who hail from New Zealand can put across the Neapolitan songs of Francesco Paolo Tosti as if born and raised in southern Italy? James Benjamin Rodgers can.
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Review

The Music of Sounds, Apotheosis of the Piano

Janos Gereben - March 6, 2009
Recession be damned: for the second week, new, complex, "heavy" music and Ravel have filled the 2,743-seat Davies Symphony Hall.
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Review

Honoring a Pioneer

Scott Cmiel - March 3, 2009

The Spanish guitarist Margarita Escarpa offered a recital notable for finely wrought emotion, beautiful sound, and flawless technique on Saturday at the Green Room of San Francisco’s War Memorical Veterans Building.

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Review

Poet Tells the Tale

Anna Carol Dudley - March 3, 2009

Berkeley Opera’s performance of The Tales of Hoffmann, which opened Saturday at the Julia Morgan Center, is a resounding success.

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Review

All-American Songstress

Georgia Rowe - March 3, 2009

The American song repertoire is often an afterthought for recital singers, but soprano Nicole Cabell made it the centerpiece of her program Sunday afternoon at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. It was a wise choice, one that showed the young artist’s voice to better advantage than the more traditional repertoire that comprised the balance of the program.

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Review

Our Youth Have It All

Jason Victor Serinus - March 3, 2009

For an orchestra that devotes a full third of its budget to youth outreach and music education, the Oakland East Bay Symphony’s “Celebrating Youth” concert was a major event. The culmination of decades of outreach to youth in the most challenged neighborhoods of Oakland and Livermore, the concert displayed the extraordinary level of musical excellence that youth can achieve when given opportunities for musical expression.

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Review

A Plethora of Amazement

Janos Gereben - March 3, 2009

The North American premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s 2007 Violin Concerto No. 2, In tempus praesens (In the present time), arrived Thursday as an important musical event, revealing a strong, compelling, unusual, and rewarding work.

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Review

Hearts Unmoved

Stephanie Friedman - March 3, 2009

Time and adversity have not been kind to Barbara Bonney, once the possessor of a silvery, clear soprano that responded to her every musical intention. After time off for personal reasons, she has been attempting to place her voice once again on its former secure plane. But the voice will not cooperate: It is unresponsive and unyielding. Gone is the pliability, the suavity, the subtlety — and with them, the artistry.