Jeff Dunn

Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of the National Association of Composers, USA, a former president of Composers, Inc., and has served on the Board of New Music Bay Area. 

Articles By This Author

ekta2.jpg
Review

Ekta Eclectic

Jeff Dunn - April 6, 2009
Ekta means "unity" in several South Asian languages, or, as more spiritually defined in composer Brent Heisinger's album by that name, "oneness." "Eclecta," however, might have been a better title for the wide mixture of styles and influences reflected in Heisinger's music on this CD.
violin_2.jpg
Review

Into the Abyss, Via Violin

Jeff Dunn - April 6, 2009

"We're part of a bigger thing," declared British composer Thomas Adès in a surprise visit to the stage of Davies Symphony Hall on Friday night. His 2005 violin concerto Concentric Paths, painstakingly and passionately interpreted by soloist Leila Josefowicz and San Francisco Symphony Associate Conductor James Gaffigan, proved just that.

ferrandis_bruno_130.jpg
Preview

Beautiful Tooth

Jeff Dunn - March 31, 2009
Bruno Ferrandis

Live performances of the vast catalog of symphonic music by Russian composer Nicolai Myaskovsky (1881-1950) occur with near-hen’s-tooth f

gaffigan.headshot[margaretKmitchell].jpg
Preview

Civilization Saved by Woodwinds

Jeff Dunn - March 17, 2009
You think things are worse now than in the days of Franz Joseph Haydn?
ladymacbeth2.jpg
Review

The Best and the Beast

Jeff Dunn - March 16, 2009

It has been said that passion arouses the best and the beast in man. On Saturday, visiting conductor James Conlon’s passion for the music to Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District unchained the beast in the music, and let it terrorize listeners in Davies Symphony Hall.

trioconbrio3_2.jpg
Review

Ideas Many, Meals Few

Jeff Dunn - March 10, 2009
The Other Minds Festival of New Music should rightly be proud of its track record of bringing many "other" ideas of composers from all corners of the globe to the musical table. However, an interesting idea for an ingredient is one thing; a decent musical meal, another.
rontgenCD2.jpg
Review

A Significant Find

Jeff Dunn - March 9, 2009
Valentine's day is past, and the bloom is off the rose. Thirty years past my first deep acquaintance with Brahms and Dvořák, after repeatedly relishing in their many sublime creations, and enjoying flings with even the least of their compositions, my Don Juan for them is waning.

Until now.

steelguitar_wide.jpg
Review

Out of the Blue

Jeff Dunn - March 3, 2009

“Things Fall From the Sky” was the theme of Monday’s concert, yet nary a clunker of a composition felled the good spirits of San Francisco Contemporary Music Players attendees. A refreshing eclecticism replaced SFCMP’s usual emphasis on neomodernist and spectralist genres.

constant.jeremy2_wide.jpg
Preview

Musical Poetry to Grace the Marin Center

Jeff Dunn - February 28, 2009
The upcoming performance of two works by British composer Ralph (pronounced "Rafe") Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) has Marin Symphony musicians lavishing superlatives as if they were CEO bankers planning year-end parties during the housing boom.

Other Minds' Finds

Jeff Dunn - February 25, 2009
If there is any man who wants you to participate in Thomas Jefferson's "true secret, the grand recipe for felicity," it must be Charles Amirkhanian, the executive and artistic director of the Other Minds Festival.