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

A Beautifully Voiced Recital

Jason Victor Serinus - January 20, 2009
Soon into tenor Brian Thorsett's benefit recital Friday in Calvary Presbyterian Church, I could not help but reflect on the arc of a singer's maturity. Some artists emerge at a young age with voice, technique, and intelligence so fully developed that one can only marvel as they continue to grow and mature.

Singing for the Joy of It

Jason Victor Serinus - December 16, 2008
What would Bay Area choral groups do without Christmas? Even if our amateur choruses can’t compete with the professionals, the warmth and good cheer they generate among audience members, plus the delicious postconcert receptions, go a long way toward justifying the price of admission. A good example is Voices of Musica Sacra, a chamber chorus of some 40 volunteer members.

Change in the Garret

Jason Victor Serinus - December 2, 2008
Miracles do repeat themselves ... sometimes. Reportedly, the heartwarming sweep of San Francisco Opera music director designate Nicola Luisotti's magnificent conducting became even more revelatory after opening night as he proceeded to push SFO's first cast (Gheorghiu, Beczala, Kelsey, Amsellem, Gradus) of Puccini's La Bohème to its limits.

Singing With Love

Jason Victor Serinus - November 25, 2008
Moments arise when the usual checklist of critical absolutes gets set aside and you just listen and sit back and enjoy. Such was the case at the first of two fall concerts by the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir (SFBACC).

Love and All That Jazz

Jason Victor Serinus - November 18, 2008
On the face of it, there may seem to be little in common between George Antheil's A Jazz Symphony, the world premiere of Nathaniel Stookey and Dan Harder's ZIPPERZ: A soaPOPera, and Sergei Prokofiev's suites from Romeo and Juliet. But on Friday Michael Morgan and his Oakland East Bay Symphony knew something that their enthusiastic Paramount Theater audience was
Feature

Nurturing the Singers of Tomorrow, Part 2

Jason Victor Serinus - November 11, 2008
Last week, Jason Victor Serinus investigated singer development in the San Francisco Opera Center's Merola and Adler Fellows programs.
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Nurturing the Singers of Tomorrow

Jason Victor Serinus - November 4, 2008
Who are they? Who will replace the generations of singers who thrilled us and brought us to tears when we first fell in love with opera and art song?
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Review

Accepting Carmen's Challenge

Jason Victor Serinus - October 21, 2008
Why do so many folks disparage Bizet's Carmen? While certain pre-Freudian elements of its plot strain credulity, like Corporal Don José's instant obsession with the Gypsy woman Carmen and her final quest for death, Henri Meilhac and Jacques Halévy's libretto is far more believable than many.

An Evening of Beauty

Jason Victor Serinus - October 7, 2008
Sometimes the act of artistic creation is more involving than the music itself. On the first stop of a coast-to-coast “"Remembrance Concert Tour” that will culminate in Carnegie Hall, soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian graced the stage of Herbst Theatre on Saturday night.
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Review

Ever Wonderful

Jason Victor Serinus - September 30, 2008

Chanticleer celebrates several musical milestones this fall. The men's chorus' opening program of the season, titled "Wondrous Free," honors the 250th anniversary of America's earliest surviving secular composition, Frances Hopkinson's My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free. The concert program, heard last Thursday, was a marvelous gambol through five centuries of the repertoire Chanticleer so frequently champions, choral music of the Americas.