contemporary music Reviews
May 6, 2008
Musical Fragrances in the Air
S. F. Contemporary Music Players present San Francisco nights, French dances, and Argentinian sands.
April 29, 2008
Mystic Rapport
Percussionist Evelyn Glennie and guitarist Fred Frith conjure sonic possibilities in their dual recital.
Souvenirs of Spirituality
The Adorno Ensemble goes on a world tour in search of often-exotic spirituality.
April 22, 2008
April 15, 2008
April 8, 2008
Opening a Bag of Tricks
Rock guitarist/composer Steve Mackey mixes it up with a percussion ensemble.
April 1, 2008
March 11, 2008
February 26, 2008
February 12, 2008
Out There … But Where?
The Bang on a Can All-Stars join forces with jazz-fusion artist Don Byron and vocalist Iva Bittová.
Grand Tour of the Unorthodox
The Earplay ensemble presents a wide-ranging program of music both new and seasoned, with some surprises.
February 5, 2008
Musical Alchemy
San Francisco Contemporary Music Players premiere Jorge Liderman's Furthermore …, along with a range of other transcendent pieces.
Joyous Eclecticism
The Del Sol Quartet ranges through works for didgeridoo, clarinet, and birdcalls in an exhilarating recital.
January 29, 2008
Sounds Like This
Mills College presents the avant-garde music of its composer-in-residence, Helmut Lachenmann.
January 22, 2008
Eclecticism on Parade
Adesso presents an intriguing mix of rhythmic grooves, ragtime, and percussion.
January 8, 2008
Overtones From Across the Border
Quinteto Latino performs haunting, intriguing music from Latin America.
December 11, 2007
Homecoming to a Different World
The San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra masters one of John Adams’ most difficult and glorious symphonic works.
December 4, 2007
Postclassical Entertainment
Alarm Will Sound premieres John Adams' Son of Chamber Symphony, but the music gets lost amid the dance shuffle.
Warming Up to the Recent Past
Lucy Shelton, Stephen Gosling, and Cynthia Mei bring world-class artistry to a program of 20th-century art songs.
November 27, 2007
Digging for Swedish Truffles
The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players unearth new music from Sweden, but find few aural delicacies.
November 20, 2007
Happy Birthday, Jorge Liderman
A prolific composer's 50th birthday is celebrated in a concert of his works performed by some of his favorite collaborators.
November 6, 2007
Taking a Chance With Chance
Other Minds presents Amelia Cuni's thoroughly modern and classically Indian realization of John Cage's score.
Taking the Pulse of Italian Music
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble shows how modernist Italian music has left melody behind, while retaining a sense of rhythm.
October 23, 2007
October 16, 2007
Sight and Sound
The imaginative BluePrint series blasts off again at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Two Pianists, One Voice
In a benefit concert for the Other Minds Festival, the duo of Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa produce a singular expression of sound.
Wealth of Duos at Mills
Graeme Jennings and Christopher Jones explore the world of influences in Darius Milhaud.
October 2, 2007
Chambered Glass
An intimate concert of Philip Glass' chamber music reveals the emotion locked within his unique compositional structure.
September 25, 2007
The Modern in Wayne Peterson
Age and beauty combine in an Earplay concert celebrating the Bay Area composer.
July 24, 2007
May 22, 2007
Taming the Beasts
Where the wild things are: A recital to celebrate composer Elinor Armer.
May 1, 2007
Double Trouble
A concert highlights recent works commissioned by the Empyrean Ensemble.
April 17, 2007
The Multilingual Kronos
Kronos Quartet offers a fluent translation of the world's musical traditions.
Truth Is Inconvenient, Music Isn’t
The "Cozy Concert for Climate Concerns" settles into San Francisco for a little musical consciousness-raising.
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- CD (4)
- chamber music (43)
- chamber orchestra (12)
- choral music (39)
- contemporary music (38)
- dance (8)
- early music (30)
- festival (35)
- musical theater (2)
- opera (47)
- recital (59)
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For reviews older than March 27, 2007, please refer to the Archives.