David Bratman

A concert of small pleasures from the Vertavo Quartet combined a collection of tentative works that came off as quietly riveting. 

The Miró Quartet offered more than a chance to test a theory on "late style" on Sunday in Burlingame, played divergent works with the utmost dedication and coordination, enveloping without overwhelming the intimate space of Kohl Mansion’s hall.

In Music@Menlo's latest concert in this year’s winter series, festivals co-director and pianist Wu Han, Alessio Bax, and Anne-Marie McDermott performed fairly indulgent music from the turn of the 20th century, all of it written for two pianos.

The San José Chamber Orchestra celebrated Johann Sebastian Bach on Sunday and the evening began with a bang.

In a S.F. Symphony performance of John Adams' El Niño, conducted by the composer, revealed itself to be an oratorio for the turn of the new century in a concert of warm Christmas music that was, rightfully, warmly received.

The Peninsula Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Symphonic Chorus can reliably be depended on to present an engaging holiday concert. This year’s was particularly interdisciplinary, offering instrumental works that had no explicit connection to the season but that proved to be cheerfully appropriate nonetheless.

You have probably heard Carl Orff's Carmina Burana before. If you're like me, you've heard it many times. Even so, I have never heard it the way the S.F. Symphony played it on Wednesday.

What music do you expect to hear at a Halloween concert? The Santa Cruz Chamber Players lack the forces necessary for warhorses, so in their concert at Christ Lutheran they were forced to be creative. It made for a festive holiday occasion.

String quartet concerts customarily feature the old masters, or the medium-old masters, and apologetically stick small quantities of modern music in the corners of the program. At Sunday night’s concert at the Kohl Mansion in Burlingame, though, the opposite plan — feature the contemporary works, and stick the old masters in the corner — was enacted by the Lark Quartet.

Symphony Silicon Valley’s showcase of Hungary came in an exploration in the obscure but worthy corners of the repertoire and a young and dazzling solo performer. Three works by modern Hungarian composers of the same generation, plus three by foreigners evoking the country, were saved from being too much of the same thing by liveliness and a riot of orchestral color.