Features

The Pathfinder

Georgia Rowe - October 14, 2008

We tend to think of composers in groups, whether by era, country, school, or style. Meredith Monk, however, has always stood apart from the crowd.

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Mission Blue's Small-Town Values

Jonathan Rhodes Lee - October 7, 2008

The Bay Area must be one of the few places where fledgling classical music presenters can find support in an already teeming marketplace. Now you can add another newcomer to the list of those you’ve heard of: Live at Mission Blue, a relatively young chamber music series, which opens its fifth season this Saturday evening.

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A Musical Heritage Rediscovered and Celebrated

Lisa Houston - September 30, 2008

On Saturday, October 4, at Herbst Theatre, Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian will mark the beginning of a "Remembrance Concert Tour". She will be joined by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Anne Manson.

Mission: Unusual

Jeff Dunn - September 23, 2008

Is it like this for you? You go to the market. A Whitney Houston clone is on the Muzak — again. You want to scream. Do you feel the same way when you go to the symphony and discover Brahms' Second, Dvořák's "New World," or Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto on the program? If so, there's hope for you — if you move to north Phoenix.

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The Man Who Built Bridges

Michael Zwiebach - September 16, 2008

If you're a dead white male composer, you probably envy Leonard Bernstein. It used to be that full-career retrospectives were reserved for major anniversaries, but New York City's cultural institutions stage one every 10 years in Bernstein's honor. In 1998, the Lincoln Center Festival produced one.

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New Century, New Vibe

Michelle Dulak Thomson - September 9, 2008

Have you seen Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg yet? If you read The San Francisco Chronicle, you probably have. She smiles out at you from full-page ads in the last several Sunday "Pink Sections," not to mention smaller, but still eye-catching ads in the occasional weekday edition (sometimes even in the first — that is, the national news — section, rather than the arts pages).

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Close to the Bone

Georgia Rowe - September 2, 2008

At first glance, The Bonesetter's Daughter seems unlikely source material for an opera. Amy Tan's 2001 novel spans two continents and three generations, encompassing contemporary American life, ancient Chinese myth, ghost stories, family secrets, and the search for personal identity.

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'There's a Place for Us, Somewhere'

Janos Gereben - August 19, 2008

The wistful lyrics from West Side Story must have had a special meaning for David Gockley as he contemplated the lack of appropriate performance venues in the city. It was a couple of years ago, and Gockley had just arrived as the new general director of San Francisco Opera.

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My Love Affair With Internet Radio

Jeff Rosenfeld - August 12, 2008

On the day my lifelong infatuation with classical radio died, I hardly realized it would be revived by the Internet just a year later and become better than ever — so exciting that my CDs are quickly becoming superfluous, forgotten on their dusty shelves. Studio recordings simply can't compare to the magnetism of the great live performances on Internet radio.