Lisa Hirsch

Lisa Hirsch is a technical writer. She studied music at Brandeis and Stony Brook and blogs about classical music and opera at Iron Tongue of Midnight.

Articles By This Author

walkure2_1.jpg
Review

San Francisco Opera Delivers Greatness

Lisa Hirsch - June 12, 2010

Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the second opera of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, opened at San Francisco Opera on Thursday night with a thrilling, deeply moving performance that bodes extremely well for the full Ring to be presented in June 2011.

ades_thomasplaying.jpg
Review

To Paraphrase, Encore

Lisa Hirsch - March 19, 2010
The British composer Thomas Adès has been writing intricately structured and colorfully orchestrated music for nearly two decades now.
ncco2_wide_0.jpg
Review

Serenading the Dancer From the Dance

Lisa Hirsch - March 7, 2010
New Century Chamber Orchestra’s current program, titled “Serenades and Dances,” bookends a pair of shorter, lighter works around a core of two large-scale mainstays of the standard repertory, Antonin Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings and Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings.
benjamin_georgePiano.jpg
Review

From the “Simple” to the Sublime

Lisa Hirsch - January 18, 2010
The San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music concert on Sunday marked George Benjamin’s third and last appearance as the Phyllis C. Wattis Composer in Residence. He was represented on the program by two works, Viola, Viola; and Piano Figures. Both are superb additions to their respective repertories.

Brentano String Quartet

Lisa Hirsch - November 3, 2009
The award-winning, Princeton-based Brentano String Quartet has a proven ability to create unusual programs.This year, the quartet brings to Cal Performances a program of two lyrical masters of the quartet form, in which Franz Schubert's Quartettsatz, D. 703, and Quartet in G Major, D.
marionette.jpg
Preview

Puppets and Gender Bending in the Baroque Style

Lisa Hirsch - September 28, 2009
When is an opera not an opera? When it’s the opening work in a grand entertainment for visiting royalty ...
FallPreview.jpg
Feature

The Season Ahead: A Preview of Fall Concerts

David Bratman, Georgia Rowe, Janos Gereben, Jason Victor Serinus, Jeff Dunn, Lisa Hirsch, Michelle Dulak Thomson, Scott Cmiel - September 6, 2009

With autumn upon us, the Bay Area's classical music groups are tuning up for hundreds of intriguing events. San Francisco Classical Voice asked several of our critics and editors to comb through the performance announcements available to date and pick their favorite choices for September through December.

RacetteLetter_0.jpg
Artist Spotlight

An Interview With Patricia Racette, Coming Home in Three Guises

Lisa Hirsch - September 6, 2009

Soprano Patricia Racette is in town for an important role debut: She’s singing all three soprano leads in Puccini's Il trittico at San Francisco Opera, a feat only a few have tried. She took time out from rehearsals to talk about her career, her plans, and her life with mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton, her partner of many years.

haydnCD3.2.jpg
Review

Hearing Haydn

Lisa Hirsch - June 15, 2009
Over the last couple of decades, René Jacobs has assembled a catalog of recordings as a conductor, a major change from his earlier career as a famed countertenor. The bicentennial of Franz Josef Haydn’s death brings a happy pairing of composer and conductor, on a Harmonia Mundi disc featuring the symphonies No. 91 in E-flat Major and No.
blythe_stephanie.jpg
Review

Navigating Songs

Lisa Hirsch - April 26, 2009
Members of New York’s venerable Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center are spending April touring a program called American Voices. Thursday at Herbst Theatre, the centerpiece of the program, which spans the 18th to 21st centuries, was a new song cycle by Alan Louis Smith, Vignettes: Covered Wagon Woman.