Reviews

Bach Among the Folkies

Michael Katz - February 19, 2008
The classics are invading Berkeley's venerable folk-music coffeehouse, the Freight and Salvage. It started with one harmless Monday night per month. But on Feb. 12, the Freight added a second classical show for leap month: Solo Bach Night. Where will it all end?

Controlled Pyrotechnics

Anatole Leikin - February 12, 2008
Although Yuja Wang's recital program Sunday at Herbst Theatre was not the longest I have heard, it was definitely one of the more technically demanding and emotionally intense. The 20-year-old virtuoso played three sonatas in a row: Liszt’s monumental B minor; Scriabin’s Sonata-Fantasia, Op. 19; and Bartók’s Sonata from 1926.

Reclothing the “Emperor”

Michelle Dulak Thomson - February 12, 2008
In the mid-1980s, when period-instrument bands began venturing out of the Baroque into music of first the late 18th and then the early 19th centuries, many had names at embarrassing variance with the sort of music they were playing.
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Review

Out There ... But Where?

Jason Victor Serinus - February 12, 2008
As Bang on a Can approaches its 20th anniversary, the group's founders — composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe — can rightly rejoice that their creation has become a major presence in the new-music scene. Dedicated to "commissioning, performing, creating, presenting, and recording contemporary music" (that's what the official bio says), the organization has expanded to encompass th
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Review

Triple Threat

Jeff Dunn - February 12, 2008
An ominous postcard greeted San Francisco Symphony subscribers a month ago.
Review

White-Hot, and New

Lisa Hirsch - February 12, 2008

Reputations are funny things. In the classical music world, technical virtuosity can lead to charges of superficiality or emotional coldness. Some listeners, especially opera fans of a particular ilk, prefer guts and heart to good intonation and steady tone. The great Jascha Heifetz had a reputation for playing with more technical perfection than musical soul; today, both Maurizio Pollini and the Emerson String Quartet have sometimes been labeled cold.

Grand Tour of the Unorthodox

Heuwell Tircuit - February 12, 2008
An encouragingly large and enthusiastic audience turned out Monday evening in Herbst Theatre for a serious, handsomely chosen program of new chamber music presented by the expanded Earplay ensemble.
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Review

Brahms: It's What's for Dinner

Michelle Dulak Thomson - February 12, 2008
There's concert programming as science, programming as art — and programming as pure, primal indulgence.

Renaissance Faire

Joseph Sargent - February 12, 2008
In an increasingly crowded field of Bay Area choral ensembles, certain groups have devised creative methods of garnering attention.

Musical Alchemy

Jonathan Wilkes - February 5, 2008
The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players performed its first concert of 2008 on Monday. Some last-minute changes to the program affected its theme, as the “Strongbox of American Music” was pried open to accommodate British and French composers who live in the U.S.