April 16, 2016
Oakland Ballet’s 2016 Season
The voice has a body ...
The garden is an often-used motif in the songs of the medieval German visionary and saint, Hildegard von Bingen. So it is no wonder that “Divining”, which had...
Younis Raza
March 11, 2016
Cypress Quartet’s last “Call and Response” program in SF
Celebrating the end of a run…
After 20 years of power and finesse, the Cypress String Quartet announced that they will be retiring as a group at the end of this season. That announcement came at their final “Call and Response” concert last Friday, March 11 at San Francisco’s Herbst Theater.
This quartet, internationally famed for their depth and rich soundscape, is also locally known for their generosity to Bay Area students, and...
March 6, 2016
Island Opera Company performs “La Bohème”
Bohemians in Alameda!
A friend once complained to me that Berlin had four opera houses, as if that were unconscionable. An outrageous waste! It never occurred to me that there could be too much...
March 5, 2016
Renee Fleming and Olga Kern in recital
A bevy of musical beauties
Sweeping onstage in a bright red gown and yards and yards of a...
February 28, 2016
Marin Symphony in “Romance of Rodrigo”
North Bay Symphony promises…
Led by Alasdair Neale, the Marin Symphony delivered a solid and entertaining show last Sunday, Feb. 28, at the Marin Center Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium. In the 15 years that Neale has been their Music Director, this orchestra has established its reputation, and this week they polished that.
Alasdair prefaced the concert, giving a nod to the other event of the evening. “Thank you for attending this Academy...
February 19, 2016
Eugene Onegin at West Bay Opera
Glorious concept, difficult theme
Last Friday, West Bay Opera opened Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theater. Centered on a man who can’t seem to engage in life but skirts the edges, this was not the usual opera fare – grand passions on a tapestry of grand music. Instead we had the straitjackets of society and the drifting purposelessness of a baritone, albeit set to Russian lushness.
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