Reviews

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Review

Taking Flight

Anna Carol Dudley - September 23, 2008

Schola Cantorum San Francisco, having lost its founding director John Renke to retirement, is fortunate to have in Paul Flight an able successor. Friday night's concert in St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley, well programmed and beautifully sung, featured English music from the time of Henry VIII. Said Henry, he of the many wives, turns out to have been not only a strong patron of the arts — especially music — but an able musician and composer himself.

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Review

Bicultural Opera's Grand Spectacle

Janos Gereben - September 16, 2008
"These are the things I know," begins Amy Tan's novel The Bonesetter's Daughter.

New Star on the Horizon

Jeff Dunn - September 16, 2008
The New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO), with its inspired choice of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg as its music director, has remade itself in such a way that its biggest problem is one that most musical organizations would be envious to have: too many syllables.

A Wonderfully Troubling Ninth

Michelle Dulak Thomson - September 16, 2008
If you had been in the audience for Saturday's Michael Tilson Thomas–led San Francisco Symphony concert, and had opened the printed program at random, more likely than not you would have hit the page of bios for the soloists in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which are just at the midpoint of the booklet.

Lessons in Love

Georgia Rowe - September 16, 2008
The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra opened its 28th season in an amorous frame of mind last weekend in Berkeley.
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Review

The Angela Gheorghiu Show

Jason Victor Serinus - September 9, 2008
Welcome to the Angela Gheorghiu Show! I make three costume changes, one of which leaves precious little to the imagination. To complete the spectacle, I present two radically different hairdos designed to set off my runway model figure and beautiful countenance. And for this special occasion, the entire San Francisco Opera Orchestra accompanies me, conducted by Marco Armiliato.

With Riveting Artistry

Michelle Dulak Thomson - September 9, 2008
It was a hot and sticky night, and the gut strings weren't staying where they were supposed to.
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Review

Striving for Unity

Lisa Hirsch - September 9, 2008
San Francisco Opera launched its 2008-2009 season on Friday with a comparative rarity, Verdi's great opera of reunion and reconciliation, Simon Boccanegra, using the revised version of 1881. This revival, led by outgoing Music Director Donald Runnicles, is blessed with a much better cast than that of the 2001 production.

Teach Your Children Well

Heuwell Tircuit - September 9, 2008
A large, enthusiastic crowd greeted the season opener of the Conservatory Orchestra in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Saturday evening in the school's concert hall. Conductor Andrew Mogrelia built his program around new or relatively new music by two of the Conservatory's resident composer-teachers, Elinor Armer and Conrad Susa.

Man of the (Blue) Hour

Jeff Dunn - September 2, 2008

How can one hour sum up 642,000 hours of a lifetime in music? Conrad Susa, 73, is being honored for his service to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with the second hour of a concert on Saturday, Sept. 6.