Orchestra

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Review

The Best and the Beast

Jeff Dunn - March 16, 2009

It has been said that passion arouses the best and the beast in man. On Saturday, visiting conductor James Conlon’s passion for the music to Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District unchained the beast in the music, and let it terrorize listeners in Davies Symphony Hall.

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Review

Pellucid Perfection

Anatole Leikin - March 16, 2009
The program that Evgeny Kissin played at Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday brought together Sergei Prokofiev, a flamboyant 20th-century extrovert — the “Russian Liszt” (as Francis Poulenc called him) — and Frederic Chopin, a reticent bard of the 19th-century piano.
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Preview

Nicola Luisotti Conducts the San Francisco Symphony

Jason Victor Serinus - March 11, 2009
“The man breathes music,” exclaimed one longtime San Francisco Opera Orchestra member after Music Director designate Nicola Luisotti conducted performances of Puccini’s La Bohème a few months back. Since Luisotti clearly has the grand sweep of music in his blood, why should he limit himself to opera?
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Preview

Symphony Silicon Valley

David Bratman - March 11, 2009
Symphony Silicon Valley's chorale is one of its best features, so the opportunity to hear them led by the renowned choral conductor Vance George, retired San Francisco Symphony choirmaster, should be a local highlight — especially when the program features the elegant and airy Requiem of Gabriel Fauré. This concert is not part of the regular Symphony Silicon Valley season.

James Conlon

Janos Gereben - March 10, 2009
When you conduct the San Francisco Symphony March 12 and 14 (and at the March 13 "6.5" concert), you are leading your own suite from the Shostakovich opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtse
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Review

The Music of Sounds, Apotheosis of the Piano

Janos Gereben - March 6, 2009
Recession be damned: for the second week, new, complex, "heavy" music and Ravel have filled the 2,743-seat Davies Symphony Hall.
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Review

Our Youth Have It All

Jason Victor Serinus - March 3, 2009

For an orchestra that devotes a full third of its budget to youth outreach and music education, the Oakland East Bay Symphony’s “Celebrating Youth” concert was a major event. The culmination of decades of outreach to youth in the most challenged neighborhoods of Oakland and Livermore, the concert displayed the extraordinary level of musical excellence that youth can achieve when given opportunities for musical expression.

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Review

A Plethora of Amazement

Janos Gereben - March 3, 2009

The North American premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s 2007 Violin Concerto No. 2, In tempus praesens (In the present time), arrived Thursday as an important musical event, revealing a strong, compelling, unusual, and rewarding work.

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Preview

Musical Poetry to Grace the Marin Center

Jeff Dunn - February 28, 2009
The upcoming performance of two works by British composer Ralph (pronounced "Rafe") Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) has Marin Symphony musicians lavishing superlatives as if they were CEO bankers planning year-end parties during the housing boom.
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Review

Shifting the Center of Attention

Steve Osborn - February 24, 2009

Symphony programs often resemble three-ring circuses, organized in time rather than space. In the first ring, the symphony offers an overture or similar fare to whet your aural appetite. Then, in the center ring, comes the main attraction, usually a soloist displaying his chops in a concerto or other showpiece.