Rebecca Liao has produced several classical music performances in the Bay Area. A lawyer by day, she is currently working on an essay collection about contemporary classical music theory.
At the age of 21, Ray Chen has charmed critics all over the world, but never quite as emphatically as last week when John von Rhein at the Chicago Tribune named Chen’s CD, Virtuoso, his “CD of the Week.” Born in Taiwan, raised in Australia, and trained at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the young violinist has made a global footprint that’s only getting larger.
At a recent bar mitzvah in New York City, I found myself with a difficult choice: eating a plate of pickled herring in cream sauce from Barney Greengrass or dancing to the klezmer music. A friend was puzzled about why I could not do both; she obviously had never had that much vinegar in her stomach before. I chose the fish, and left the party feeling a little regretful — until now. It turns out the Bay Area has a legit klezmer band of its own.
Shanghai as the Paris of the East is the irreplaceable myth of contemporary China. For Western movies and fashion, Shanghai in the 1920s and ’30s still defines Chinese glamour. The opium dens, shady nightclubs, and all-inclusive absorption of foreign cultures are all the more alluring because their exoticism represents a lacquered newness to familiar pleasures.
When I watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, I waited to hear an iconic line to match the first film’s “Greed is good.” Gordon Gekko got teary, and I lost hope — until Bretton James (played by Josh Brolin) delivered the aphorism “Every man should have a mentor and a protégé.” Ironically, it is the completely well-intentioned San Francisco Academy Orchestra (SFAO) that acts on this fortune-cookie advice in the Bay Area. On Oct.
Minority groups have the unenviable task of celebrating their uniqueness while demonstrating that they have a great deal in common with everyone. Small wonder, then, that classical music and the LGBTQ community found each other. The partnership displays its accomplishments again on Sept. 25 at the San Francisco Conservatory as the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (BARS) opens its 2010-2011 season with the ever-popular Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Daniel Glover as soloist) and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.
Thursday night’s concert at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts had all the markings of Bay Area fusion — a combination that works through pure juxtaposition, rather than synergy. The quartet of musicians from the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra was the wasabi mustard on the folk music group Trio Chaskinakuy’s burgers and potatoes. Benjamin Simon, SFCO’s music director, attempted a connection by emphasizing the folksy, gypsylike second movement of Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54, No.
Back in the days when the piano ruled and recordings didn't exist, a lot of music for four hands (one piano, two players, as opposed to two pianos) got written or arranged for the home market. But today it's hard to find players who specialize in this intimate style.
Anselm Kiefer’s monumental sculpture Seven Heavenly Palaces gave birth to Ludovico Einaudi’s latest album Nightbook in an almost physical way. In 2006, Einaudi performed among Kiefer’s mythically imposing towers and subsequently wrote music inspired by the awareness and feelings of transcendence aroused by sitting at the comparatively tiny grand piano. The album, released in January, has already been consumed by Einaudi's fans via iTunes and Amazon. But downloading can't compare to the live experience at the Palace of Fine Arts, where Einaudi will appear on March 15 as part of The Nightbook Tour.
Have you heard? Barneys is opening up an additional store in the Mission District for more cutting-edge customers.
OK, I’m kidding. But the imprint of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on the exciting Berkeley Symphony Orchestra concert coming up Dec. 3 is a lot like finding a stash of Balenciaga in an independent boutique. The program is a minireproduction of the Philharmonic’s 2007/2008 season, unofficially known as the “Season of Steven Stucky,” featuring his Radical Light, juxtaposed (as Stucky intended) with Jean Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony and “Elegy” from August 4, 1964, followed by Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.
Despite the name, there’s nothing old school about Old First Concerts. Set in the Old First Church in the heart of San Francisco, on Sacramento at Van Ness — an intimate, old-world setting with no bad seats and acoustics that hint at the place’s celestial connections — the concert series has become a favorite venue for a wide variety of musical events, from classical chamber music and recitals to jazz, avant-garde, blues, folk, and multicultural performances. The San Francisco Guitar Quartet’s concert on Nov. 20 is a great example of Old First Concert’s philosophy.
For its inaugural concert of the year, the Oakland East Bay Symphony will take us to a “Night at the Opera” on Friday, November 13. OEBS Music Director Michael Morgan has selected a large group of the most promising young singers in the Bay Area. With such a big cast, there is often the danger that each individual member will not receive his or her full due. But with Morgan in charge there are no worries on that score.
On most weekdays, you can probably hear a collective groan on Interstate 80 from commuters traveling to and from the Sacramento area. Chances are, they just heard KDFC’s long-time host Dianne Nicolini announce that a perennial listener favorite was coming up, with the line, “But first, here’s Haydn [or his brother, son, nephew, second cousin twice-removed].” On Oct. 28, however, braving the commuter soundtrack to drive to the Mondavi Center at UC Davis (or simply staying put if you live near there) will be worth it, because the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg is presenting a piece that is both by Haydn and a favorite.
Warhorse has become a dirty word, synonymous with tired and predictable. If a musical warhorse is included in a concert program, particularly one as important as the season opener, its function is to appease those who did not love the aural and intellectual assaults that preceded it. So it’s fitting that the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, a gay and lesbian volunteer orchestra whose enterprise is based on daring, would disregard the trend with an opening night lineup featuring one very short contemporary piece and two warhorses.
A small crowd gathers at the corner of Folsom and 23rd streets in San Francisco Thursday night, waiting to be let into Classical Revolution’s chamber music performance at the Red Poppy Art House. A man passing by recognizes the signs of an event and stops to ask someone in the crowd what’s going on. They talk at length, but no luck; the man leaves.
At the age of 21, Ray Chen has charmed critics all over the world, but never quite as emphatically as last week when John von Rhein at the Chicago Tribune named Chen’s CD, Virtuoso, his “CD of the Week.” Born in Taiwan, raised in Australia, and trained at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the young violinist has made a global footprint that’s only getting larger.
At a recent bar mitzvah in New York City, I found myself with a difficult choice: eating a plate of pickled herring in cream sauce from Barney Greengrass or dancing to the klezmer music. A friend was puzzled about why I could not do both; she obviously had never had that much vinegar in her stomach before. I chose the fish, and left the party feeling a little regretful — until now. It turns out the Bay Area has a legit klezmer band of its own.
Shanghai as the Paris of the East is the irreplaceable myth of contemporary China. For Western movies and fashion, Shanghai in the 1920s and ’30s still defines Chinese glamour. The opium dens, shady nightclubs, and all-inclusive absorption of foreign cultures are all the more alluring because their exoticism represents a lacquered newness to familiar pleasures.
