In its three years of existence, the Escher String Quartet has built a reputation as a highly intellectual ensemble of mechanical perfection but one that, at its worst, plays aridly without genuine emotion.
Saturday night's concert by San Francisco's full-range men's vocal ensemble Clerestory witnessed a rare occurrence in the world of concert music — a set of new works by local composers that were both the strongest pieces on the program and the best received by the audience.
Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, winner of the gold medal at the inaugural Christopher Parkening International Guitar Competition, gave an exhilarating San Francisco debut recital Saturday at the Veterans Building's Green Room.
If you only know Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die tote Stadt (The dead city) from its unforgettably haunting duet, "Gluck, das mir verblieb" (Joy, sent from above), prepare to be stunned. That gorgeous melody, sometimes referred to as "Marietta's lied," is one of the few moments of lyrical repose in an otherwise astoundingly lush, powerhouse score in which protagonists and orchestra vie for first place in both volume and impact.
One of the Bay Area’s most remarkable musical partnerships marked its ending on Thursday night at Zellerbach Hall. After 30 years of shared artistic growth, the Berkeley Symphony offered its final concert with Kent Nagano at the helm as music director.
On paper, last week's San Francisco Symphony program honoring Leonard Bernstein looked like a hopeless mishmash. But no, it turned out to be a triumphal success that had been brilliantly planned. Of course, that it was honoring "Bernstein I" and conducted by what amounts to "Bernstein II," Michael Tilson Thomas, didn't hurt. But who knew the man could sing and conduct at the same time?
Schola Cantorum San Francisco, having lost its founding director John Renke to retirement, is fortunate to have in Paul Flight an able successor. Friday night's concert in St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley, well programmed and beautifully sung, featured English music from the time of Henry VIII. Said Henry, he of the many wives, turns out to have been not only a strong patron of the arts — especially music — but an able musician and composer himself.
The New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO), with its inspired choice of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg as its music director, has remade itself in such a way that its biggest problem is one that most musical organizations would be envious to have: too many syllables.
![escherqrtet[TristanCook]2_wide.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_image_400x275/public/images/archive/escherqrtet%5BTristanCook%5D2_wide.jpg?h=55541bb6&itok=WrBjtq5T)
