Jeff Dunn
Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of the National Association of Composers, USA, a former president of Composers, Inc., and has served on the Board of New Music Bay Area. A photomontage enthusiast, he illustrates his own reviews.
Articles by this Author
Festival REVIEW
August 5, 2011
Over 20 years of making new music, Marin Alsop has taken the Cabrillo Music Festival to illustrious heights.
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July 26, 2011
Some fresh Italian air is provided by a new Naxos release of works by a youthful Ottorino Respighi.
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July 18, 2011
A Jennifer Higdon work infallibly delights, on this new Atlanta Symphony Orchestra CD, even without its live-concert visuals.
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July 12, 2011
Did Hollywood success spoil Erich Korngold? Not according to a new CD of his must-hear symphony, with its lush Romanticism.
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July 5, 2011
Christopher Theofanidis’ First Symphony is engaging and emotional, and will give sound systems a good workout.
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June 21, 2011
Andrew Davis’ CD, with goosed-up sonics, journeys to Holst’s overexplored Planets and also contains two less-known works inspired by Morocco and Japan.
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March 12, 2011
A recent BluePrint concert offered a disconcerting, echoing trope in a major new work offered at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, just one piece in a series of experimental works that impressed.
More about BluePrint New Music Series »CD REVIEW
March 12, 2011
The latest release from the Bay Brass, an ensemble made up of some of the best musicians in the S.F. Symphony, Ballet, and Opera orchestras offers attractive compositions and more than belies prejudices often conjured up by brass ensembles, with excellent playing and first rate sonics.
More about Bay Brass »Chamber Orchestra/Orchestra REVIEW
March 5, 2011
The S.F. Symphony and Anne Sofie von Otter dressed up their offerings with immensely enjoyable performances of works by Hindemith, Brahms, and a panoply of Scandinavian composers.
More about San Francisco Symphony »Chamber Orchestra/Orchestra REVIEW
February 25, 2011
Three interpreters at Oakland East Bay Symphony's concert on Friday transformed composers’ dreams into art worthy of both praise and concern.
More about Oakland East Bay Symphony »Chamber Music REVIEW
February 5, 2011
Paul Bowles, once described as “famous for not being famous,” was an allusive artist of elusive categorization. On Saturday, Nicole Paiement’s Blue Print project began its ninth season, with a intriguing focus on Bowles’ music.
More about BluePrint New Music Series »CD REVIEW
February 8, 2011
Our very own San Francisco Symphony have come up with an excellent performance of the most famous symphony of them all. This release is worth making some sublime noise about.
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January 31, 2011
When lauded strangeness becomes vastly public, it may herald a change of fashion. Such seem to be Simone Dinnerstein’s Bach interpretations, which bring elements of romanticism back into baroque performance practice. Bach: A Strange Beauty is will not disappoint her new-found fans, nor will it convince her detractors.
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January 25, 2011
Circus Maximus is a scream, an impressive piece of workmanship, if a debatable work for the ages. In its latest incarnation as a high-definition Blu-ray disk, it’s a first-class device for showing off your latest surround-sound system.
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January 4, 2011
What better way to usher in a new year than to have fun with that funmost of instruments, the clarinet? Those who love William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost reinvention of ragtime will take instantly to the first four cuts of this new Harmonia Mundi release.
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December 8, 2010
Vision and a certain sense of rightness made for an exceptional evening at last Wednesday’s San Francisco Symphony subscription concert: Three masters, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, guest violinist Gil Shaham, and principal trumpet Mark Inouye, provided hole-in-one performances.
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December 2, 2010
Supercharged love ... That’s what Music Director Joana Carneiro programmed in two works for the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. But it was the sultry presence, superb expressiveness, and fine singing of mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway that really heated up the sea of love to bubbly.
More about Berkeley Symphony »Chamber Music REVIEW
November 7, 2010
The French Ensemble Zellig focuses on innovation and experimentation and is fully at ease traveling through time and musical styles. In its West Coast debut on Sunday night it was a breath of fresh air.
More about Cal Performances »Chamber Orchestra/Orchestra REVIEW
October 24, 2010
This symphony orchestra is so old, Franz Schubert is one of the first violinists. So what can be learned from experiencing the first visit from the Dresden Staatskapelle in Davies Symphony Hall on Sunday, an ensemble rated as one of the top five in Europe, with a 462-year-old pedigree, and it lays before you a Schuman-Beethoven-Brahms program right from their sweet spot in musical history?
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October 12, 2010
“Recorded Music of the African Diaspora” is the first release of what promises to be a series in a partnership between Albany Records and the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago. This series starter can be strongly recommended for the Wilson song cycle.
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