Younis Raza

February 12, 2017

Horszowski Trio comes to the South Bay

A triumphant return to Kohl Mansion. After a poetic performance at Kohl Mansion in February of 2015, the Horszowski Trio was invited to return to the Great Hall of that Burlingame mansion, and on Sunday, Feb. 12 they again delivered a concert that was by turns light-hearted and powerful. Composed of pianist Rieko Aizawa, violinist Jesse Mills and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, this is a threesome as smooth as it gets. Aizawa, though small in stature, is a...

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Categories: music

January 30, 2017

Earplay opens new season

The colors of air Earplay, the Bay Area’s premiere contemporary ensemble, performed a fiercely intelligent concert at Herbst Theater last Monday, Jan. 30. This is their 32nd year – and it is hard to believe they have been commissioning and playing edgy music for 32 years – in a season titled “Air, Wind, Water.” Each of the three concerts includes works by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, whose work is masterful in its colors and...

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Categories: music

January 22, 2017

“Don Pasquale” in Alameda

When life mimics opera The Island City Opera, now in its third season, brought an accomplished production to Alameda last Sunday, January 22, held at the imposing Elks Lodge Ballroom, where oak thrones and red velvets and elk horns create a space that encourages the suspension of disbelief. And that was perfect for Don Pasquale, a comic opera tossed off by Gaetano Donizetti in just 11 days in 1842 but considered to be at the top of the buffa...

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Categories: opera

January 11, 2017

Pacifica Quartet at Menlo-Atherton

Beyond technique: finding the narrative A passionate performance was rooted in deep interpretation last Wednesday, Jan. 11 at the Center for the Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton. The Pacifica Quartet, one of the top string quartets of our time, picked three gems of the repertoire for their concert, any one of which would have been the anchor of a normal program. Hosted by Music@Menlo’s Winter Series, (an expansion of their three-week-long summer festival),...

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Categories: music