Features

With autumn upon us, the Bay Area's classical music groups are tuning up for hundreds of intriguing events. San Francisco Classical Voice asked several of our critics and editors to comb through the performance announcements available to date and pick their favorite choices for September through December.

Newcomers to the job market often quickly become aware of the Catch-22 phenomenon: You can't embark upon your dream career unless you're experienced, and you can't become experienced unless you can get experience. Nowhere is this truer or more impossible than among aspiring conductors. You not only have to have the chops to conduct the orchestra, you have to have the orchestra.

Newcomers to the job market often quickly become aware of the Catch-22 phenomenon: You can't embark upon your dream career unless you're experienced, and you can't become experienced unless you can get experience. Nowhere is this truer or more impossible than among aspiring conductors. You not only have to have the chops to conduct the orchestra, you have to have the orchestra.

You have to be a bit of a high-stakes gambler to be an opera composer. You spend a long time, probably several years at least, carefully putting together a project, writing and revising it, and seeing it through to performance (assuming it's been accepted for production).

You have to be a bit of a high-stakes gambler to be an opera composer. You spend a long time, probably several years at least, carefully putting together a project, writing and revising it, and seeing it through to performance (assuming it's been accepted for production).

This article is excerpted from the new book Why Classical Music Still Matters (University of California Press, 2007).

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Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet begins with a consummation. The solo instrument gleams forth over murmuring strings in a single harmonious tone. It melts into a lustrous shimmer, gleams anew, and shimmers again.

This article is excerpted from the new book Why Classical Music Still Matters (University of California Press, 2007).

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Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet begins with a consummation. The solo instrument gleams forth over murmuring strings in a single harmonious tone. It melts into a lustrous shimmer, gleams anew, and shimmers again.

The cellist David Finckel remembers the first time he heard the Escher String Quartet. It was on an audition DVD. Intrigued, he arranged to watch them play. "I thought, 'Wow, they are very young, but they sound good. We can work with them,' " says Finckel, who codirects the summer festival Music@Menlo with his wife, the pianist Wu Han.

The cellist David Finckel remembers the first time he heard the Escher String Quartet. It was on an audition DVD. Intrigued, he arranged to watch them play. "I thought, 'Wow, they are very young, but they sound good. We can work with them,' " says Finckel, who codirects the summer festival Music@Menlo with his wife, the pianist Wu Han.

The eminent Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos raises his baton on opening night at Symphony Hall in Boston. Before a single note sounds, a cell phone rings. Frühbeck's shoulders slump, and he waits appropriately for a new starting point. As he raises his baton once more, the same cell phone rings again.