Reviews

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Review

'Wordless' Speaks of Talent, Opens Doors

Janos Gereben - August 26, 2008
Musiciens Sans Frontières have arrived, musicians without regard to genre frontiers, courtesy of the Wordless Music Series, which premiered at Herbst Theatre on Thursday. On the one hand, regional pride is raising its ugly head: We don't need no stinkin' "New York new music" to enliven our concert life.

Sonatas and Swing

Benjamin Frandzel - August 19, 2008
Joel Fan is a young pianist who has been quickly making a name for himself in the past few years, most visibly as a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. His work as a solo performer has much of that group's spirit of exploration and its canny sense of connection between the standard repertory and more far-flung musical adventures.
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Review

Untoward Titles

Jeff Dunn - August 12, 2008
The final Music@Menlo concert, given last Thursday, was called "Music Now: Voices of Our Time." It should have been called "Recent Music That Pulls Your Heartstrings, Wrenches Your Guts, and Then Beats You to Death." It began with a flat-out masterpiece for piano quintet, superbly performed, Scenes From the Poet's Dreams (1999) by Jennifer Higdon.
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Review

The Strings Have It

Scott Cmiel - August 12, 2008
The Guitar Foundation of America held its annual Convention and Competition in San Francisco this year and presented a week of fascinating concerts, lectures, master classes, and showcases of the work of celebrated luthiers and publishers, as well as this year's most important international classical guitar competition.
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Review

The Sixties Are Alive

Jonathan Russell - August 12, 2008
At the ODC Dance Commons in San Francisco's Mission District, sfSoundSeries presented a Sunday concert centered on works composed for the San Francisco Tape Music Center. Founded in 1961 by composers Morton Subotnick and Ramón Sender, the Tape Music Center was at the heart of the city's musical counterculture in the 1960s.

Three Skyward Missiles, One Burnout

Jeff Dunn - August 12, 2008
Concertgoers are lucky, compared to critics. They can simply like or dislike the music, but critics have to figure out why. At Saturday's Cabrillo Festival concert, after being tremendously disappointed by the clarinet concerto Riffs and Refrains by Mark Antony Turnage, a composer I normally admire, I couldn't put my finger on the reason.

Splashy Mission Travelogue

Jason Victor Serinus - August 12, 2008
"May I ask which paper you're writing for?" asked the lovely gray-haired woman during intermission on Sunday afternoon. First I explained that I was reviewing for the only classical music review–rich publication in the Bay Area, San Francisco Classical Voice, as well as American Record Guide.
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Review

A Midsummer Night's Romp

Janos Gereben - August 12, 2008

There are few plays as firmly in charge of their own stage destiny as Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It's all in the text, of course, but also in the style of the piece, with its shimmering, playful way of intermingling spirits and mortals. Significant alteration is not really feasible, so writers and composers must follow Master William's playbook.

Italianate Journey

George Thomson - August 5, 2008
In the past few years, down at the Carmel Bach Festival, they've made a little addition to the logo. Beside the big "Bach" with its ornate B, the words "and Beyond" extend upward in tiny print — not in the aggressive diagonal of a Soviet propaganda poster, but in the sort of lazy curve a Thomas Kinkade country lane might take. We're bold!

Silencing the Guns of War

Michael Zwiebach - August 5, 2008
Not many musical works present a moral/political position with the power and persuasiveness of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. Advocating the composer's nearly lifelong commitment to pacifism, the work was given a stirring performance by the San Francisco Choral Society on Friday at Davies Symphony Hall.