Reviews

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Review

All About the Strings

Scott Cmiel - September 30, 2008
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.
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Review

Over-the-Top Glories

Jason Victor Serinus - September 30, 2008

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.

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Review

Secret Love

Georgia Rowe - September 23, 2008
Aida isn't Verdi's longest, or most ambitious, opera, yet it's become the opera most often associated with big productions.

Nagano Bows Out

Benjamin Frandzel - September 23, 2008
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.
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Review

Bernstein on Parade

Heuwell Tircuit - September 23, 2008

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?

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Review

Taking Flight

Anna Carol Dudley - September 23, 2008

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.

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Review

Bicultural Opera's Grand Spectacle

Janos Gereben - September 16, 2008
"These are the things I know," begins Amy Tan's novel The Bonesetter's Daughter.

New Star on the Horizon

Jeff Dunn - September 16, 2008
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.

A Wonderfully Troubling Ninth

Michelle Dulak Thomson - September 16, 2008
If you had been in the audience for Saturday's Michael Tilson Thomas–led San Francisco Symphony concert, and had opened the printed program at random, more likely than not you would have hit the page of bios for the soloists in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which are just at the midpoint of the booklet.

Lessons in Love

Georgia Rowe - September 16, 2008
The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra opened its 28th season in an amorous frame of mind last weekend in Berkeley.