Jesse Hamlin

Jesse Hamlin has written for The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications over the past 30 years on a wide range of music and art, covering jazz musicians and symphonic conductors, sculptors, poets, and architects. He has also written for The New York Times, Art & Auction and Columbia magazines, as well as liner notes for CDs by Stan Getz and Cal Tjader.

Articles By This Author

Jesse Hamlin - July 12, 2010

Before their run at the Carmel Bach Festival, the violinist and cellist talk about their tenure at the festival, how it has changed over the years, being married to a musician, and nostalgia for what will be missed.

Jesse Hamlin - April 20, 2010

Melanie DeMore was conducting a dozen young choristers in a downtown Oakland church the other day, getting them to move and groove and fire up the music.

Jesse Hamlin - February 16, 2010
In late 2006, Misha Dichter was visiting his wife’s family in Rio when he sat down at the piano to practice Brahms’ Ballade in D Minor, Op. 10. A simple chord in the second measure stopped him cold. The renowned pianist couldn’t stretch the fingers on his right hand to make the interval of a major sixth. He panicked.

“I have big hands.

Jesse Hamlin - January 26, 2010
Violinist Yin Bin Qian wanted to study abroad after graduating from the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the oldest Western-oriented music school in China. He applied to graduate school at Yale, the Eastman School of Music, USC, and other American colleges.
Jesse Hamlin - September 29, 2009
Last November, as the economy came crashing down, San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley stepped onstage before a matinee performance of La bohème and told the audience how the company was coping with the money crunch.
Jesse Hamlin - July 28, 2009
Every time Robert Geary returns to Giuseppe Verdi’s stirring Requiem Mass, “it’s deeper in my blood, but I have to prepare and rethink it. And that’s wonderful,” says the noted artistic director of the 200-voice San Francisco Choral Society.
Jesse Hamlin - July 13, 2009
Over the last 18 years, Maestro Bruno Weil has transformed the Carmel Bach Festival into a major international event. The seaside festival, which celebrates the music of J.S. Bach and the composers inspired by him, is known for the rich range of its programming and the consistent high quality of its performances.
Jesse Hamlin - May 19, 2009
When Robert Cole took over Cal Performances in 1986, West Coast arts presenters were pretty much booking whatever came through on tour from the East. He changed all that. Cole, who’s calling it quits this summer after a brilliant and fruitful 23-year run, made things happen here.
Jesse Hamlin - May 13, 2009

In his extraordinary 17-year run as music director of the San Francisco Opera, Donald Runnicles has enriched the cultural life of the Bay Area. As a conductor, he has shaped many memorable performances, bringing forth Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs cycle, John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, and Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise with equal passion and acuity.

Jesse Hamlin - April 28, 2009

Like a lot of us, monkeys generally prefer a Russian lullaby to German techno music. But given a choice between music and silence, the apes opt for quiet. It seems their brains simply aren’t wired to enjoy music or pay it much mind. “They don’t care about it,” said Vinod Menon, the noted Stanford neuroscientist who’s deeply engaged in research on music and the brain.