Previews

Quartet San Francisco is definitely not your grandmother’s string quartet. While other ensembles stick to classical masters like Beethoven and Brahms, this ensemble’s tastes also lean toward blues and bluegrass — not to mention jazz, pop, funk, and even tango.

“Forecast: Sunny, With a Chance of Song.” With this meteorological conceit, the program for San Francisco Choral Artists’ concerts around the Bay Area in March features a full spectrum of great modern choral compositions from the beginning through the middle of the 20th century, with two commissioned pieces dating from last year — one composed by SFCA composer in residence Brian Holmes, the other

In a time when natural disasters in Haiti and Chile have many people mobilizing their charitable impulses, the musicians of Voices of Music are lending their own helping hand.

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.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but the larger part of classical music as we now know it was written for use and even entertainment, not for musing on the abstract and infinite.

In March, San Francisco Renaissance Voices presents its initial concert (titled “Songs of War and Peace”) in a series of three programs that present music inspired by war.

Chamber Music San Francisco is starting its season with a bang.

Right off the bat, tenor saxophonist Stephen Pollack describes the conundrum the New Century Saxophone Quartet (NCSQ) has faced ever since he cofounded the quartet a quarter century ago. “It’s real common when we tour for well over half the audience to have no idea what it means to be a saxophone quartet.

2010 isn't even two months old, and already it's shaping up to be a banner year for Claudio Monteverdi, thanks to the 400th anniversary of the composer's towering Vespro della Beata Vergine. But if you take your Monteverdi a little less monumental, the California Bach Society's next concert set may be just the ticket.