Reviews

David Bratman - July 27, 2009
In an ideal musical world, there would be a law: Whenever two string quartet ensembles collaborate on a concert, they must perform Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings in E-flat, Op. 20. It’s that good a work. The St.
Scott MacClelland - July 27, 2009
Festival namesake Johann Sebastian Bach constitutes roughly 18 percent of the current Carmel Bach Festival’s total programs, now spanning just over two weeks, down from three weeks over the last several years.
Janos Gereben - July 27, 2009

The Festival del Sole concert Thursday in Napa’s Castello di Amorosa was an exception to the conventional structure of a concert. It consisted of two unrelated sections, each featuring a big star, and felt like two separate musical events. The two featured performers could not have been more different, not that there is anything wrong with that, but the concert was indeed unusual.

Dan Leeson - July 24, 2009

In two programs Wednesday at the Carmel Bach Festival, Schubert and Mozart came to the fore. In the first concert, an afternoon performance at the Church of the Wayfarer in downtown Carmel, baritone Sanford Sylvan and fortepianist David Breitman presented a program of Schubertiana, consisting of three lieder and two impromptus for piano.

Jeff Dunn - July 21, 2009
“What have you been smoking?” you say. But I saw the following with my own eyes at last Saturday’s San Francisco Symphony concert:
  • A sold-out Davies Symphony Hall where I could find only four people over 50 who were not employees or ushers. Almost everyone was under 35.
Georgia Rowe - July 20, 2009
With its feast-for-the-senses blend of performance, art, and culinary events, Festival del Sole has become an attractive summer destination for music lovers throughout the Bay Area and beyond. The annual Napa Valley extravaganza, a spinoff of Italy’s Tuscan Sun festival, has also turned out to be a great place to experience the work of up-and-coming conductors.
Jessica Balik - July 20, 2009
The contemporary chamber music concert that I attended Sunday evening was refreshingly free of gimmickry. For example, it took place in the ODC Dance Commons in San Francisco’s Mission District: a humble, but also accommodating, performance space. The program, by sfSound, also did not boast any flashy title or unifying theme.
Scott MacClelland - July 20, 2009

The search for a new Carmel Bach Festival music director is already under way, even while Bruno Weil has one last Festival to lead in 2010. One local wag lately suggested in a letter to the Monterey County Herald that Weil might give serious thought to a mostly-Bach program next year.

Janos Gereben - July 20, 2009
John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony is an orchestral reduction, the soundtrack in a sense of his 2005 opera.  The work presents episodes from the opera, with three movements titled “The Laboratory,” “Panic,” and “Trinity.”
Heuwell Tircuit - July 20, 2009

Levelheaded dedication flashed on Friday evening at the San Francisco Conservatory’s concert hall, as conductor George Cleve opened this season’s Midsummer Mozart Festival with a display of brilliance. If anything, it all went to prove how much variety Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produced in his all-too-short lifetime.