Classical Music Reviews

Every week, our professional critics attend concerts throughout the Bay Area to let you know what went well...and occasionally what didn't. Let their insights enrich your musical experiences, and feel free to share your own views!

Opera Review
August 12, 2019
West Edge Opera Transfixes With Breaking the Waves
BY Steven Winn

Soprano Sara LeMesh is extraordinary in this gripping production of Missy Mazzoli’s adaptation of the Lars von Trier film.

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Modern Classical Review
August 12, 2019
Tan Dun’s Secret Songs Get an Airing at Cabrillo Festival
BY Lisa Hirsch

The composer’s work, based on a women’s vocal tradition of Hunan Province, dominates the festival’s Saturday concert.

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Modern Classical Review
August 12, 2019
Romanticism With an Electroacoustic Twist
BY Tamzin Elliott

The L.A.-based Sonic Open Orchestra presents a concert of pleasing contradictions.

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Chamber Music Review
August 6, 2019
Sound Wizards in a Small House at the Underwolf Festival
BY Tamzin Elliott

A Brooklyn record label showcases cutting-edge artists for three days at the Outhaus in Los Angeles.

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Chamber Music Review
August 6, 2019
International Contemporary Ensemble’s “Inside Voice” at Mostly Mozart
BY Brin Solomon

Traditional Persian, Hungarian, American, and Japanese instruments and idioms inspire inventive new music.

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Early Music/Baroque Review
August 6, 2019
Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater Shines in Newly Discovered Arrangement
BY Steven Winn

American Bach Soloists perform a version of the beloved score recently discovered in Lyon.

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Chamber Music Review
August 6, 2019
Avast! A New Score Reinvigorates The Black Pirate
BY Ben Kutner

Jack Curtis Dubowsky’s original score accompanies a Douglas Fairbanks silent classic in live performance.

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Opera Review
August 5, 2019
West Edge Opera’s Orfeo & Euridice Comes Alive in the Underworld
BY Steven Winn

A fresh, nonbinary take on Gluck’s opera eschews easy resolutions.

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Opera Review
August 5, 2019
Jake Heggie Premiere at Merola Inhabits a Dark and Shifting World
BY Nicholas Jones

Brilliant Merolini were more than up to the rich challenges offered in the commissioned If I Were You.

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Chamber Music Review
August 5, 2019
Thrilling Performances Lift “Music at the Millennium”
BY Tysen Dauer

Music from the 1990s shows its age in [email protected]’s final festival concert of 2019.

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