Features

Like London, Vienna, and Venice in the Old World in times gone by, the San Francisco Bay Area is a treasure trove of creative music talent, as well as a favored destination for artists from elsewhere. Here’s some of what will be worth going outside classical conventions to get to, during the first half of 2011.

By design, chamber music can be performed anywhere. Bay Area musicians like to perform it everywhere. Here, SFCV’s premier chamber music maven takes on the task of winnowing down this gorgeous superfluity to just five (well, and a few more) hot tickets you can’t afford to miss.

The venues may range from hither to yon, but the early-music concerts on offer this season around the Bay Area will field a dazzling array of stars and novel musical experiences.

More than a few operatic and other vocal diversions may beckon you in the coming spring. Here are just a few of the surprises.

The most prestigious classical music competition in the U.S. isn’t the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, it’s the Naumburg Foundation Competition. As S.F. Performances prepares to host this year’s piano winner, Soyeon Lee, here’s what musicians think of the organization’s enviable track record.

Every season, a few concerts and recitals with “wow” factor come along: rare events that create a sense of occasion, partly because they rarely happen. You know that if you miss them, you’ll probably end up feeling sorry later. Here are a few top recommendations.

Almost every music fan knows that the December holiday season is high tide for choral concerts. But what do about the rest of the year? Only SFCV tracks the winter and spring doings of the Bay Area’s plenitude of choral groups.