Jeff Dunn

Halloween has long gone, but Berkeley Symphony music director candidate Paul Haas arrived wearing a disguise Thursday night at Zellerbach Auditorium: that of a competent, careful, and traditional wandsman with barely enough energy befitting his relative youth (37). Appearances suggested someone who would make no waves, do a good job with the three B's, dabble in some contemporary music here and there — and be utterly predictable.

If an often-played masterpiece is a warhorse, what is its opposite? I had just written about the benefits of unusual programming in the pastures of Arizona when, lo and behold, not one but three peacehorses galloped into the San Francisco Symphony’s Davies Hall, two of them bridled by überpianist Emanuel Ax, and a third paraded magnificently by guest conductor Peter Oundjian.

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. The quality of performance is so high, the audience so engaged, the program so engaging within its class, and the charisma so omnipresent that now the only remaining barriers to national celebrity lie in the marketing arena.

The final Music@Menlo concert, given last Thursday, was called "Music Now: Voices of Our Time." It should have been called "Recent Music That Pulls Your Heartstrings, Wrenches Your Guts, and Then Beats You to Death."
It began with a flat-out masterpiece for piano quintet, superbly performed, Scenes From the Poet's Dreams (1999) by Jennifer Higdon. In musically answering her own question, "What kind of dreams would poets have?" Higdon portrays five examples of such with consummate skill.

Three performances that ranged from superb to problematic, three pieces that ranged from problematic to superb — match up the combinations and you come up with Saturday's concert by the University Chorus and the University Chamber Chorus at Hertz Hall at UC Berkeley.
The concert began with a terrific rendition of Steve Reich's 1986 version (reduced strings, no brass) of Desert Music, with the University Chamber Chorus and Worn Ensemble, impressively conducted by David Milnes.

Last Wednesday, it was Laura Jackson’s turn to impress the Berkeley Symphony audience and perhaps follow Kent Nagano as music director. Hugh Wolff and Guillermo Figueroa showed their stuff earlier this season, and three more candidates are going to do the same this fall. How did she measure up? Let’s examine the criteria of programming choices, technique, interpretation, and orchestral management.
Jackson scored high marks for interesting selections.

Charles Amirkhanian, artistic director, Other Minds Festival: "How important is it for you to write something that’s never been heard before?"
Keeril Makan, assistant professor of music, MIT: "Nothing’s been heard before."
To this reviewer, however, everything at the third and final concert of the 13th Other Minds Festival at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Saturday has been heard before, and was heard again and again, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes ad nauseam.

Minimalist procedures from the 1960s and

The guest conductors’ parade began last Thursday.