Reviews

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Review

All Hail Henry Cowell

Brett Campbell - November 17, 2009
Lou Harrison called him “the central switchboard for two or three generations of American composers.” John Cage said he was the “open sesame” of American music. Yet Henry Cowell’s significance to American music remains unappreciated, even by most classical music fans.
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Review

Sound Garden

David Bratman - November 16, 2009
Some ensembles offering contemporary choral music specialize in the extreme “listener-friendly” end of the spectrum. Not so the San Francisco chamber chorus called Volti, which is interested in something more challenging, both to perform and to listen to.
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Review

Putting It Together

Jason Victor Serinus - November 16, 2009

Pictures Reframed, a multimedia presentation of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition that unites the pianism of Norway’s Leif Ove Andsnes (b. 1970) with the graphics and film of South African visual artist Robin Rhode (b. 1976), is a stunning achievement.

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Review

Try a Little Tenderness

Heuwell Tircuit - November 16, 2009
The normally high standards of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra were only dimly in evidence Sunday afternoon in Davies Symphony Hall.
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Review

Sweetness, Light, and Power From Nuccia Focile

Anna Carol Dudley - November 16, 2009
Soprano Nuccia Focile, singing Verdi and Puccini in her native tongue for an adoring crowd Sunday afternoon in Berkeley’s Hertz Hall, shared the performance with tenor David Lomelí. Focile has sung in most of the world’s famous opera houses, and Lomelí, a recent Adler Fellow in San Francisco, is at the beginning of what promises to be a brilliant opera career.
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Review

The Wizard of Menlo Park

David Bratman - November 16, 2009

What makes Henry Cowell such a fun composer to listen to is that you never know what he’ll do next. A whole bunch of the tricks up his sleeve were on display at a mash-up concert of his chamber music on Thursday, the first and more adventurous of two concerts last week sponsored by Other Minds. 

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Review

Soldiering Through at the S.F. Symphony

Steven Winn - November 13, 2009
From the first downbeat of Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5, conductor Semyon Bychkov and the San Francisco Symphony exuded the confidence and anticipatory pleasure of travelers setting out on a familiar journey. The audience at Davies Symphony Hall was warmly invited along for the ride.
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Review

Passion and Fireworks From Joyce DiDonato

Jason Victor Serinus - November 10, 2009

By the time she completes the first astounding 50-second musical statement of “D’Amor al dolce impero” (To the sweet rule of love), mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has delivered her calling card.

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Review

One Voice, One Mind

Michelle Dulak Thomson - November 10, 2009
If there’s anything common to great string quartets, it’s that they have collective personalities much as great musicians have individual ones. What inflects a quartet’s performance of a work becomes, at some undefinable but high level of accomplishment, not only four individual wills but also, seemingly, one composite one.
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Review

Viva Verdi! Viva Luisotti!

Olivia Stapp - November 10, 2009
Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello is the final production of San Francisco Opera’s fall season. The opera might be more commonly performed, but it makes strenuous vocal demands on the protagonist and it's difficult to find singers who have mastered the role. Fortunately, Johan Botha, a South African dramatic tenor, is more than up to the job.