Heuwell Tircuit

For those of an eclectic bent, pianist Ivan Ilić’s Friday recital at San Francisco’s Old First Church proved a delight. The program was an adventure in learning as well as a brilliant display of technical prowess, all free of clichés.

It was almost as if Herbst Theatre itself were smiling in delight Thursday as Nicholas McGegan and his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra played a memorial tribute to Felix Mendelssohn’s bicentennial. The audience seemed even more delighted. Glancing up and down my aisle, I noted that every face had a broad expression of pure pleasure.

While not flawless, pianist Lise de la Salle's Sunday afternoon recital in San Francisco Conservatory's Concert Hall proved that, at all of age 20, she's already a virtuoso of the front rank. A few minor problems turned up along the way, but nothing that could dim an otherwise startling event. Her San Francisco Performances program opened with Mozart's showy Sonata No. 9 in D Major, K.

Yo-Yo Ma’s and his Silk Road Project have come up with a new CD featuring a host of young performers supported by the Chicago Symphony. Titled Traditions and Transformations, the disc includes two standard works, Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo and Prokofiev rambunctious Scythian Suite, Op.