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Proof of our good fortune in having Ragnar Bohlin as director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, this tremendous CD demonstrates his overarching sense of line and purpose. In six contemporary works by Swedish and (in the case of Ned Rorem) American composers, Bohlin’s leadership of the 32-person Swedish Radio Choir produces mesmerizing dynamic gradations and shading.

For some it will be an opportunity to hear bass John Relyea, and soprano Patricia Racette, who is one of the artists who could capture my attention even if she was only singing the phone book. But the July 4 concert at Stern Grove with the San Francisco Opera will also present a program of American operatic classics, which are rare on the world's stages.

For many of us, classical music means the deep, melodious sounds created by the strings of a violin or the delicate, dulcet sound of light, nimble fingers swiftly climbing up and down the keys of a piano. These are exactly the conventional notions that the Los Angeles Electric 8 has passionately defied since 2007.

The career path of a professional musician is not standard, by any means. The steps are only loosely prescribed, and the journey is wildly varied. Those who make it create their own opportunities, especially a young string quartet striving to carve out a place in a field with no job description. Meet the Hausmann String Quartet — first violinist Isaac Allen, second violinist Bram Goldstein, violist Angela Choong, and cellist Yuan Zhang — a dynamic young quartet that’s on the way up, pursuing a lifetime of chamber music one day at a time.

San Francisco Classical Voice lost one of its finest writers and an even dearer friend when Heuwell Tircuit died last Monday. His body was discovered in his apartment by his longtime friend Hal Cruthirds on Wednesday. He was 78 years old.

Since her years in the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists’ Program, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has been on the fast track to stardom. In a field already crowded with mezzos, the graduate of Rice University and the Juilliard School has distinguished herself in a wide variety of concert, opera, and recital repertoire. Although her S.F. Opera debut is still several years away — read on for details — Cooke has made a strong impression in three previous San Francisco Symphony assignments.

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann will likely be your tenor of the hour, if not the decade, after you hear his new Decca recording of German arias by Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Wagner. Supported and urged on by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, magnificently conducted by Claudio Abbado, the tenor lavishes as much care, love, and passion on his repertoire as you can ever expect to hear.

Festivals, unlike single concerts, are full-immersion events with lots of possibilities to explore all at once. In an effort to bring the festival experience closer to our readers, SFCV sent two writers to “blog” for a full day (last Saturday) at the Berkeley Festival. One master class, two concerts, and one exhibition later, enervated by the day’s oppressive heat, they filed this report.

And the winner is ... Claudio Monteverdi! He was well-served Saturday night in a Berkeley Festival performance at that city’s First Congregational Church. ARTEK (from The Art of the Early Keyboard), a New York–based ensemble of six singers and seven players of plucked and bowed strings, gave magnificent voice to Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals.