Reviews

Stanford's Dinkelspiel Auditorium is not a large hall, but the St. Lawrence String Quartet played there on Sunday afternoon with a sense of intimacy worthy of a far smaller venue. Not that it couldn't be heard, or anything like that. The nearly full audience hung on every note.

One great performance, one disappointment, and one bore were offered on last week’s San Francisco Symphony program. At least, that’s how it came across on Thursday’s matinee opening in Davies Symphony Hall.

Many observers, myself included, tend to put Philip Glass in an uncomfortable box: He writes repetitive drones, he's been writing the same thing over and over for more than 35 years, he can't compose a melody worth a hill of beans, what was revolutionary in his earlier music now seems dated, and so on.

From the evidence of the inaugural concerts of its 80th season, conductor Bruno Ferrandis has found a secure home with the Santa Rosa Symphony. Now the third-oldest in the state, this orchestra is playing better than ever for the French maestro, clearly finding his incisive section control and sonic balance to their liking, which was something not always present under predecessor Jeffrey Kahane.

The Marin Symphony launched its 55th season with a nearly impossible task — keep a full house at the Marin Civic Center concentrating on the music from the stage during a simultaneous screening of the famous film The Battleship Potemkin.

Every year the music department of Mills College in Oakland presents a concert prominently featuring the music of Darius Milhaud, in celebration of the long and fruitful association between the college and the composer, who was in residence there for many years.

Appomattox, Philip Glass' much-anticipated new opera, rolled into San Francisco on October 5 as part of a wave of premieres by the composer, who celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year.

An all-Vivaldi program is a tricky proposition.

Oakland Opera Theater’s The Turn of the Screw is both a triumph of spirit and a stumbling of conception.

Philip Glass turned 70 this year, and the Bay Area is celebrating in style, with performances of two high-profile new works, Appomattox at San Francisco Opera and The Book of Longing, a collaboration with Leonard Cohen, at Stanford Lively Arts.