Previews

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Showcase For Promising Soprano

Lisa Petrie - November 23, 2009
The next San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra performance, like others before it, offers a chance to hear an incredibly talented, select group of students “on their game,” expressing their repertoire with the fresh energy of youth, a willingness to take chances, and the musical chops to carry it off. Yet it is also the embodiment of one individual’s musical journey.
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Florid Christmas Ornamentation

Kaneez Munjee - November 23, 2009
The glorious sounds of choral music for the Christmas season come in many forms, and the California Bach Society’s “Advent in Dresden 1620” concerts, presented Dec.
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Formenti's Aspects of the Divine

Janos Gereben - November 23, 2009

Marino Formenti may be an amazing virtuoso pianist, an "eccentric titan of the keyboard," and "a Glenn Gould for the 21st century," but he doesn't particularly care to be called a pianist. He considers himself a musician, who mainly plays the piano. 

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Middle Ages? Meet Folk Music

Michael Zwiebach - November 17, 2009
A new Anonymous 4 program is always a bright occasion — and not only for those for whom the group’s music represents meditative release. (My wife had Miracles of Sant’Iago on endless loop during her labor with our second child.

Triple Play at Café Du Nord

Jeff Kaliss - November 17, 2009
Two things in common among the three acts to be featured at San Francisco’s Café du Nord at the end of November are telegraphed in the hyphen-heavy of the Classical Revolution event: “A Triple-Bill of Post-Classical Composer Ensembles.” But there’s a third, perhaps more revealing element. All three composers — Matt McBane, George Hurd, and Jack Curtis Dubowsky — have written for film.
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Youthful Infernal Machine

Jeff Dunn - November 11, 2009
Donato Cabrera

For some young musicians just learning to play together, the “infernal machine” can be the orchestra itself.

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Nuccia Focile and David Lomelí in Recital

Jason Victor Serinus - November 11, 2009
Nuccia Focile

She’s a veteran Sicilian soprano who has sung at the Met, Covent Garden, and La Scala.

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Xuefei Yang

Scott Cmiel - November 10, 2009
Xuefei Yang

When Chinese guitarist Xuefei Yang was 15, John Williams heard her play in Beijing and was so impressed that he gave her his own guitar. Yang has g

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At the Symphony: A Real Circus

Jaime Robles - November 10, 2009
Among the cornucopia of holiday events this year, the “Cirque of the Season with the San Francisco Symphony” seems likely to enthrall all members of the family and fill everyone with wonder and amazement.
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Nearing the Finish Line

Joseph Sargent - November 10, 2009
Performing the entire corpus of Joseph Haydn’s 68 (count ’em, 68) string quartets is a feat that some professional string players might equate with finding the Holy Grail, or winning Olympic gold.