Music Features

"In chamber music, you play the way you are. Are you generous and giving? Are you responding to your friend's suggestions?

San José, as its boosters like to point out, is now the largest city in Northern California. But if it’s the leader in population, it has a ways to go to catch up to San Francisco in cultural influence. Still, San José is far from the cultural desert that its flat sprawling landscape might suggest to residents of hillier, more congested parts of the Bay Area. The lively downtown has a flavor to it that you could find, perhaps to your equal surprise, in places like Sacramento and Santa Rosa.

Philadelphia-born bass-baritone Eric Owens returns to San Francisco Opera this month to sing the role of the King of Scotland in Ariodante. Owens originated the role of General Leslie Groves in Doctor Atomic, received rave reviews in the title role of Elliot Goldenthal’s Grendel directed by Julie Taymor for the Los Angeles Opera, and has been consistently praised for his performances with major symphonies and opera companies throughout the U.S. The Met will hear him next season as General Groves, and as Sarastro in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

I had to look up the date, but the scene itself is still clear in my mind after so many years. In 1982, Calvin Simmons — about to go on stage to conduct his orchestra, the Oakland Symphony — ended an interview in the wings of the Paramount Theatre by saying, "I am here because of Madi."
A few months later, at age 32, Simmons drowned in a Lake George (New York) boating accident, even as his conducting of the San Francisco Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and other major orchestras received high praise around the country.