Michelle Dulak Thomson

Michelle Dulak Thomson is a violinist and violist who has written about music for Strings, Stagebill, Early Music America, and The New York Times.

Articles By This Author

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Review

Gesture Into Sound

Michelle Dulak Thomson - April 28, 2009
It’s a strange sensation, finally hearing in the flesh an ensemble you’ve wanted to hear in concert for a couple of decades. Judging by the friends I met and talked to at the Quatuor Mosaïques’ Bay Area debut Wednesday at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church, I’m not alone in having followed the quartet for decades without having had an opportunity to hear them live.
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Preview

Quatuor Mosaïques

Michelle Dulak Thomson - April 14, 2009
Quatuor Mosaïques

For those who know the quartet through its recordings — more than 20 years’ worth, spanning Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven, and stretch

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Review

Forecast: Wet, Windy, and Warm

Michelle Dulak Thomson - March 23, 2009
When violinist and co-concertmaster Elizabeth Blumenstock takes over the reins of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, as she generally does once a season, the orchestra assumes a slightly different cast, a more intimate one. Part of that comes from the exigencies of leading from the violin rather than the podium.
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Preview

American String Quartet, Menahem Pressler

Michelle Dulak Thomson - March 11, 2009
The American String Quartet, longtime quartet-in-residence at the Manhattan School of Music, has made relatively few recordings (and those mostly for small labels), and it's likely that most Bay Area chamber music lovers are unfamiliar with it.
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Review

Music of Light and Shadow

Michelle Dulak Thomson - March 10, 2009

The seventh season of the San Francisco Conservatory's BluePrint Project had a deliberate political cast to it.

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Review

Jaw-Dropping Talent

Michelle Dulak Thomson - February 17, 2009

We Bay Area concertgoers see a fair number of visiting soloists, but they tend to come playing with either our orchestras or their own accompanists. Violinist Julia Fischer has been here several times before — twice with the San Francisco Symphony, once with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, once in recital, and always as the star attraction.

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Review

Names to Remember

Michelle Dulak Thomson - February 10, 2009

The Bay Area is blessed with enough music-lovers and enough enterprising concert presenters that few musicians spend long at the top rank without swinging through here on some tour or other. Still, I suppose I’m not alone among SFCV readers in anticipating the appearance of musicians I’ve read about (or heard on record), but who’ve not yet performed here.

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Review

Divine Duo

Michelle Dulak Thomson - February 3, 2009
It's not all that easy to maintain an artistic partnership if your primary job is "star." Violinist Christian Tetzlaff, stopping in at Herbst Theatre last Tuesday night under the auspices of San Francisco Performances, had just come from a grueling run of performances of the violin concertos of Beethoven (in Philadelphia, Jan. 8-11), Brahms (Rome, Jan. 17-20), and Berg (Madrid, Jan. 23-25).
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Review

Wistful Sweetness

Michelle Dulak Thomson - January 27, 2009
As a theme for a recital, "the spread of an infectious Italian Baroque style" has maybe a little too much going for it to be genuinely helpful.

Fame to Come

Michelle Dulak Thomson - January 20, 2009
When a young string player reaches the level of fame that can support a recital tour, he or she generally has to cast about for a suitable duo partner.