Jason Victor Serinus

Jason Victor Serinus regularly reviews music and audio for Stereophile, SFCV, Classical Voice North America, AudioStream, American Record Guide, and other publications. The whistling voice of Woodstock in She’s a Good Skate, Charlie Brown, the longtime Oakland resident now resides in Port Townsend, Washington.

Articles By This Author

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Review

Accepting Carmen's Challenge

Jason Victor Serinus - October 21, 2008
Why do so many folks disparage Bizet's Carmen? While certain pre-Freudian elements of its plot strain credulity, like Corporal Don José's instant obsession with the Gypsy woman Carmen and her final quest for death, Henri Meilhac and Jacques Halévy's libretto is far more believable than many.

An Evening of Beauty

Jason Victor Serinus - October 7, 2008
Sometimes the act of artistic creation is more involving than the music itself. On the first stop of a coast-to-coast “"Remembrance Concert Tour” that will culminate in Carnegie Hall, soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian graced the stage of Herbst Theatre on Saturday night.
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Review

Ever Wonderful

Jason Victor Serinus - September 30, 2008

Chanticleer celebrates several musical milestones this fall. The men's chorus' opening program of the season, titled "Wondrous Free," honors the 250th anniversary of America's earliest surviving secular composition, Frances Hopkinson's My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free. The concert program, heard last Thursday, was a marvelous gambol through five centuries of the repertoire Chanticleer so frequently champions, choral music of the Americas.

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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

The Angela Gheorghiu Show

Jason Victor Serinus - September 9, 2008
Welcome to the Angela Gheorghiu Show! I make three costume changes, one of which leaves precious little to the imagination. To complete the spectacle, I present two radically different hairdos designed to set off my runway model figure and beautiful countenance. And for this special occasion, the entire San Francisco Opera Orchestra accompanies me, conducted by Marco Armiliato.

Reaching for the Godhead

Jason Victor Serinus - August 26, 2008
Bless San Francisco Lyric Chorus' collective heart for programming heavenly music during the worst of summer's classical concert lull. While Lord knows how many singers and musicians were hiking Yosemite, SFLC's music director, Robert Gurney, took his musicians on a trek to the firmament.

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.

Ordo Virtutum With All the Trimmings

Jason Victor Serinus - August 5, 2008
It was a very San Francisco affair. This is, after all, an area where no urban sophisticate blinks an eye when a photo of three leather-clad, motorcycle-mounting Barbies graces the cover of The San Francisco Chronicle's Pink Section.
Feature

The Adventure Continues

Jason Victor Serinus - July 29, 2008
It goes without saying that the Cabrillo Festival is going to win next year's ASCAP annual award for the most Adventurous Programming of Orchestral Music by a festival. It has won every year since the award was initiated in 1982. Some might argue that winning the ASCAP award does not signify cutting edge programming.

Striking Distance

Jason Victor Serinus - July 29, 2008
Suffering hath no season. Perhaps that’s why, on a beautiful summer’s day just warm enough for short sleeves, the Carmel Bach Festival programmed baritone Sanford Sylvan performing, in shirt sleeves, Schubert’s chilling song cycle, Der Winterreise (Winter’s journey). It was no small challenge, on such a lovely day, to conjure Schubert's bare, desolate, emotional landscapes.