Jason Victor Serinus

Ample musical excerpts plus intriguing interviews (in German and English) distinguish a DVD on the life and works of a great American composer.

Claudio Abbado delivers a radiant, believable version of Beethoven’s sole opera, aided by a sterling cast, including Jonas Kaufmann and Nina Stemme.

Despite several performer mishaps, four singers and their accompanists valiantly presented intimate songs of love by Brahms and cohorts.

On the musical/dramatic edge, a new opera drawn from The Tempest is both vastly entertaining and a chance to hear a marvelous tenor and promising newcomer soprano.

An Austrian documentary about the painstaking work of a master piano-tuner Stefan Knüpfer's year-long pursuit of perfection — to perform Bach's Art of Fugue perfectly — has reeled in several international awards.

The Oakland City Council stepped up, big-time, in a budget that closes a $58 million deficit yet with no cuts to arts funding and libraries. SFCV interviews several major players to find out how that was achieved.

A member of the progressive string quartet amplifies the group’s mission, methods, and music.

George Crumb and Peter Sellars' creation for Dawn Upshaw — The Winds of Destiny — offers a deeply affecting experience, one that inhabits your being long after the music stops.

The superb Wagnerian soprano talks about her early training, developing a big voice, and loving those bad-boy Siegfrieds.

Looming budget cuts will devastate Oakland’s lively arts and education scene.