Steven Winn

The S.F. Conservatory of Music’s New Music Ensemble served up a tantalizing program of nibbles from Kirke Mechem’s 1980 opera Tartuffe, with enough music and artistry to convey a tantalizing sense of the whole.

It was altogether fitting that the San Francisco Symphony had all those climate conditions to simulate in Richard Strauss’ An Alpine Symphony this week.

Celebrating the orchestra’s 25th anniversary, the Oakland East Bay Symphony and Michael Morgan have one of the few long-term orchestra-conductor relationships that have grown more fruitful with time.

A spectacular chamber concert by the Musicians from Marlboro, presented by Cal Performances,  made a gleaming case in point of how fortunate the Bay Area is musically.

In the second of three concerts in their season-opening Salon Series weekend, the Cypress String Quartet looked comfortably at home at SFJazz.

The piano duo ZOFO regales its audience with a bright, brainy, bravura all-American program.

Benjamin Britten’s moody Turn of the Screw, based on the Henry James novella, compels and produces shudders at the same time.

Full-on piano artistry from all hands (and there were many) marks Music@Menlo’s initial outing in its summer series.

The Marin Symphony, with pianist Joyce Yang, provides an illuminating session of compare-and-contrast of Debussy’s La Mer, along with some delicious Ravel.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra, superb and often startling performs in what anything but an ordinary night of music-making.