Georgia Rowe

Georgia Rowe has been a Bay Area arts writer since 1986. She is Opera News’ chief San Francisco correspondent, and a frequent contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice, Musical America, San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, and San Francisco Examiner. Her work has also appeared in Gramophone, San Francisco Magazine, and Songlines.

Articles By This Author

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Preview

Vocally Out There

Georgia Rowe - April 28, 2009
Robert Geary
Volti’s motto is “Singing without a net,” and the San Francisco–based vocal ensemble, led by Music Director Robert Geary, does indeed stay on the fore
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Review

Vivacity From Down Under

Georgia Rowe - April 27, 2009

There’s a lot to be said for youthful exuberance, particularly when it’s combined with the kind of stylish and refined playing offered by the Australian Chamber Orchestra Sunday afternoon at Zellerbach Hall.

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Preview

All-Copland in Marin

Georgia Rowe - April 21, 2009
Alasdair Neale
Orchestral concerts often include a single Aaron Copland work as a nod to American music, but this month’s Marin Symphony program gives the gre
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Review

Tepid Carmen

Georgia Rowe - April 20, 2009
Under the right circumstances, Carmen can turn up the heat like no other opera. Opera San José’s serviceable new production keeps it at a steady simmer, but never quite reaches the boiling point.

With opera companies across the country feeling the pinch of the economic downturn, it makes sense to produce bankable hits such as Bizet’s 1875 melodrama.

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Review

Denève’s Smashing Bay Area Debut

Georgia Rowe - April 13, 2009

This is the time of year when San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, for better or worse, yields the podium to a series of guest conductors. Later this month, and in the first part of May, Oliver Knussen, Yan Pascal Tortelier, and Bernard Labadie will take up the baton; this past weekend it was Stéphane Denève’s turn.

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Review

Eyes on the Prize

Georgia Rowe - March 30, 2009

Have you seen La favorita lately? If you live in the Bay Area, the answer is probably no. Even in the best of times, Donizetti's 1840 melodrama has never ranked among the composer's greatest hits, and these days, with opera companies forced to bank on box office certainties, new productions are woefully few and far between.

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Review

Splendor in the Voice

Georgia Rowe - March 29, 2009
Like other great countertenors before him, David Daniels established his career singing works from the Baroque repertoire. Since then, he’s made a point of expanding his horizons — and the public’s perception of what the high male voice type can do — with composers from other eras up to the present.
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Review

Beauty and Danger, in Song

Georgia Rowe - March 23, 2009
Chanticleer was founded in 1978 to explore the vocal music of the Renaissance, but the ever-questing 12-man chorus makes a regular habit of looking to the future. Last Tuesday, at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church, the San Francisco–based ensemble ushered three newly commissioned works into the repertoire, giving each the kind of vibrant, lustrous performance that has become synonymous with t
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Review

All-American Songstress

Georgia Rowe - March 3, 2009

The American song repertoire is often an afterthought for recital singers, but soprano Nicole Cabell made it the centerpiece of her program Sunday afternoon at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. It was a wise choice, one that showed the young artist’s voice to better advantage than the more traditional repertoire that comprised the balance of the program.

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Review

The Sound of Shakespeare

Georgia Rowe - March 3, 2009

With their magical imagery and multiple musical cues, the plays of William Shakespeare have been a constant source of inspiration, for composers from the playwright’s era to our own.