Jason Victor Serinus

Jason Victor Serinus regularly reviews music and audio for Stereophile, SFCV, Classical Voice North America, AudioStream, American Record Guide, and other publications. The whistling voice of Woodstock in She’s a Good Skate, Charlie Brown, the longtime Oakland resident now resides in Port Townsend, Washington.

Articles By This Author

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Review

Grand Ensemble Marks Merola Così

Jason Victor Serinus - August 10, 2009
The extra excitement of Merola Opera’s performance of Mozart’s Così fan tutte could be felt on both sides of the metaphorical footlights. As the house lights dimmed on Sunday at the outset of the production in Fort Mason’s intimate Cowell Theatre, you could almost hear the anticipatory questions in people’s minds: Were they about to witness one or more major stars in the making?
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Review

A Full Plate of Previn

Jason Victor Serinus - August 10, 2009
To celebrate André Previn's 80th birthday, Deutsche Grammophon has released André Previn: A Celebration, a six-CD set chock full of his recordings for the DG and Decca labels. Chosen by Previn, the performances highlight his accomplishments as both a conductor and composer of classical instrumental and vocal works.
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Review

Together? And How!

Jason Victor Serinus - July 27, 2009
Those of us who attended violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg’s opening concert as music director and concertmaster of the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO) can hardly forget her bracing and authoritative playing.
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Review

A Tempest of Torments

Jason Victor Serinus - July 13, 2009

Chromatic gales, emotion-churning dissonances, and vocal writing so torturous it makes you wonder whether the all-star cast is composed of masochists: Such is the score for Thomas Adès’ three-act opera, The Tempest.

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Review

Songs Worth Far More Than a Smile

Jason Victor Serinus - July 7, 2009
Pentatone Classics has issued a veritable bonanza of recent American song, half of which come from Bay Area composers. And if the Song Be Worth a Smile, which takes its name from a line in Gordon Getty’s setting of his poem “The Ballad of Poor Peter,” features songs by William Bolcom, Jake Heggie, David Garner, John Corigliano, Luna Pearl Woolf, and Getty himself.

The Remarkable Accomplishments of Alondra de la Parra

Jason Victor Serinus - July 6, 2009
Not yet 29, conductor Alondra de la Parra made history as the first woman from Mexico to conduct in New York City. In her short career, she has presented more than 20 world premieres by such composers as Clarice Assad, Enrico Chapela, Paul Brantley, Paul Desenne, and Eugenio Toussaint.

In 2000, de la Parra moved to New York City where she received her B.A.

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Review

La Traviata Reborn

Jason Victor Serinus - June 30, 2009

What a difference a change of principals can make. Instead of the overhyped Anna Netrebko, who, as Violetta in the first five performances of San Francisco Opera’s production of Verdi’s La traviata, simplified her coloratura, shunned the much-anticipated E-flat at the end of a hardly free “Sempre libera” (Forever free), and mostly scratched the surface of her role, we now have the alive-in-the-moment soprano of Elizabeth Futral.

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Preview

Festival Honors Composer Victims of the Holocaust

Jason Victor Serinus - June 29, 2009
How would classical music have evolved in the last century had not the Holocaust robbed us of some of our greatest composers? That is but one of the questions that preoccupied Susan Waterfall, cofounder of the Mendocino Music Festival, as she prepared for the festival’s July 16 evening program, They Left a Light: Masterpieces From Nazi Prison Camps.
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Review

Soprano Kate Royal's Sweet Midsummer Night

Jason Victor Serinus - June 22, 2009

For her much-anticipated second EMI recital disc, the elegant British
soprano Kate Royal (b. 1979) graces us with a collection of gorgeously
sung arias from the last century. Inspired by the role of the Governess
in Benjamin Britten’s gothic psychodrama The Turn of the Screw, which
she sang with Glyndebourne on Tour in 2006, Royal hones in on
20th-century operatic females who, in her own words, share the
Governess’ combination of “intensity and abandon.”

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Feature

CDs for a Sizzling Summer

Jason Victor Serinus - June 2, 2009
Summer, they say, is the time to unwind and relax. Whether you choose to do so at the beach, in your garden hammock, or at the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome, you’ll certainly welcome music to carry you one step farther toward infinite bliss. Here, then, is a Critic’s Choice classical potpourri specially tailored for the summer season.

J.S.