Thomas Busse

Opera San José’s sumptuous new production of Idomeneo marks a step forward for the South Bay company.

A performance by the San Francisco Bach Choir of the B-minor Mass doesn't take advantage of a wealth of resources available in the talented group.

In a program of difficult Bach cantatas, the singers of the Pacific Collegium — men and boys — came through impressively.

Antonio Lotti’s astonishingly good Mass emerges from history’s shadows, thanks to the American Bach Soloists’ efforts.

The Tallis Scholars give splendid, well-blended performances of music from the Spanish Renaissance.

In the Marin Symphony’s lively pops-cum-masterworks concert Sunday, Bay Area composer Nathaniel Stookey ran away with the show.

It would have been hard to tell, observing the small, graying audience in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Saturday, that videos of the early-music band Voices of Music had received, as of this writing, 3,558,070 hits on YouTube. I suspect a good deal of those came from Web queries for the famous Pachelbel Canon, of which VOM has posted an excellent recording.

“The Electric Voice,” Stanford Lively Arts' program of new works for electronics and voice, featuring bass Nicholas Isherwood, reinforced the contradictions and arrogance often associated with the field of highbrow electronic music.

A concert put on by the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony offered great variation in technical accomplishment — often very good — and it took on interest for the wider musical community with the appearance of Brian Thorsett and with the premiere of three songs by S.F. composer David Conte.

You rarely hear French Baroque music performed as exquisitely as the Aulos Ensemble did it on Sunday at Kohl Mansion. That's what 40 years of experience will get you.