Reviews

Georgia Rowe - April 20, 2010

Second nights are notoriously difficult to pull off, whether they’re in the theater or the concert hall. But David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony blazed through the second of two programs Sunday at Davies Symphony Hall, sustaining the excitement they had generated on the previous evening and elevating even the most familiar repertoire to the level of the sublime.

Thomas Busse - April 20, 2010

OK, I’ll admit it: I am addicted to the cable reality show Project Runway, a competition for fashion designers. The charm of the show lies in observing the designers’ genuine creativity. They are encouraged to be unique and innovative and to express their point of view as a designer while satisfying their clients and facing difficult design challenges.

Michelle Dulak Thomson - April 20, 2010

Word of the Kuss Quartett preceded its actual appearance here. That’s pretty much how things do happen in the Bay Area with string quartets that haven’t actually been born here, but in the case of the Berlin-based Kuss Quartett it wasn’t “word” so much as whispers.

Rebecca Liao - April 19, 2010

Thursday night’s concert at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts had all the markings of Bay Area fusion — a combination that works through pure juxtaposition, rather than synergy.

Heuwell Tircuit - April 19, 2010

I’d been hearing rumors about the American clarinetist Jon Manasse for years, but at this, my first hearing, his new Harmonia Mundi release containing two concertos confirmed all those rumors. He’s a paragon of musicality.

Jason Victor Serinus - April 19, 2010

Hard to believe, given the slew of awards she has received in the last 10 months, but soprano Leah Crocetto’s Schwabacher Debut Recital in Temple Emanu-el’s Meyer Sanctuary on Sunday afternoon was her first full-length classical recital anywhere. Despite her inexperience, the results were mind-boggling.

Jeff Dunn - April 19, 2010

For Music Director David Robertson, it’s his rubber-man upper torso and windmill arm gestures. For violin soloist Gil Shaham, it’s a puckish crouch that enables instant flitting between positions within an inch of the conductor, the first-chair violinist, or the front edge of the stage.

Jonathan Rhodes Lee - April 13, 2010

To say that Nicholas McGegan has earned an international reputation for his George Frideric Handel interpretations is a bit of an understatement. Indeed, the world actually seems to follow him wherever he goes, so long as he is traipsing hand-in-hand with Handel.

Kwami Coleman - April 13, 2010

Bobby McFerrin is one of the few certified, international crowd-pleasers alive today. His effect on San Francisco on Saturday night was no exception; the audience at the Nob Hill Masonic Center had to be warned by McFerrin himself, after almost two uninterrupted hours of singing, that the stagehand union reps would come in and start arresting people if folks didn’t start to leave.

Jeff Dunn - April 13, 2010

“Courageous and psychedelic” wowed one patron. “It wasn’t the Four Last Songs” (of Richard Strauss), belittled another.