Anna Carol Dudley

Chora Nova made a "Voyage of Discovery" Saturday night to the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, introducing its audience to composers usually encountered mainly in Baroque music workshops. Under the sure hand of Director Paul Flight, and assisted by an excellent chamber orchestra, the chorus ushered in the Christmas season with Johann Kuhnau's Magnificat, Mary's wondering reaction to the news that she will become mother to the Son of God.
Kuhnau (1660-1722) would never be taken for Bach, Handel, or Telemann.

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 Thomashefskys are back.

Felicity reigned Thursday night at Herbst Theatre as San Francisco Performances presented a concert by two superb musicians, soprano Felicity Lott and pianist Graham Johnson. The program, German in the first half and mainly French in the second, grouped songs according to the lyrics: settings of particular poets. The German songs started with settings by Gustav Mahler of poetry by Rückert, and ended with poems by Goethe set by Hugo Wolf. In between, a group of songs by Robert Schumann used poems by both poets.
Lott's singing of this repertoire caught the mood of each song beautifully.

Cleopatra, in the person of Isabel Bayrakdarian, stormed into the First Congregational Church of Berkeley Saturday night, in the company of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Opera found its way to Germany in the early 18th century, and Cleopatra was a favorite character, sharing the stage with one or the other of her famous lovers, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
A grand overture from Carl Heinrich Graun's Cleopatra e Cesare opened the concert.

For 21 years, the Coro Hispano de San Francisco has been singing to accompany the Three Kings who make their annual Epiphany trip 12 nights after Christmas. Saturday's "Concierto del Dia de los Reyes," the fourth of five performances around the Bay Area, was held at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley.

When, in the winter of our discontent, carols are pressed into the service of commerce in stores and TV commercials, it is refreshing to hear a concert focused on peace, the core of the original Christmas story. Such a concert was provided Saturday by Voci Women's Vocal Ensemble, at St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Berkeley. Titled "Voices in Peace VII: Winter Stillness," the program made many references to the darkness, cold, and stillness of winter.

Two extraordinary treble choirs joined forces in a concert Monday at Holy Names University: Carmina Slovenica, from Slovenia, and the Piedmont Choir Ensemble from the Bay Area. Their collaboration, called Project Attacca and featuring mostly new music, had begun in June with workshops and rehearsals in Croatia, continued with performances in Croatia and Slovenia, and culminated in Monday's concert.
The combined choirs began with two pieces set to Latin texts, conducted, in turn, by the music directors of the two choirs, Karmina Šilec and Robert Geary.

In a celebration of its 30th anniversary, Chanticleer is singing a concert titled "My Spirit Sang All Day," all this week. The program starts in the Renaissance, where Chanticleer began 30 years ago, then skips to the 20th and 21st centuries. There was no Schubert this time, but still plenty of variety.