Younis Raza

Of cherry blossoms and nonsense songs… Robert Commanday, one of the Bay Area’s more beloved music critics, passed away last Thursday, Sept. 3. A font of wisdom and wit, he was a reviewer for the SF Chronicle for three decades and the founder of San Francisco Classical Voice, an influential online magazine. You can find tributes to him in several obituaries, but it seems appropriate to add one story that I find extraordinary. In the...

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A classy phenomenon held for three weeks on the peninsula, Music@Menlo is devoting this year’s summer festival to the short and prolific life of Franz Schubert. Their fifth main concert program, titled “The Setting Sun,” perused chamber works from the last two years of his life including the powerful Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major for piano, violin and cello. Friday’s concert, on July 31, was an opportunity to hear his natural exuberance tempered by ill...

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Sonoma finds a sweet spot The sleepy town of Sonoma is celebrating the inauguration of a new music festival this year. Sited in a bucolic vale but easily accessible to the Bay Area, the Valley of the Moon Music Festival is the brainchild of a well-known East Bay duo, pianist and composer Eric Zivian and cellist and early music enthusiast Tanya Tomkins. ...

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On the fog-shrouded coast of Mendocino one can find half-hidden troves of berries, small and surprisingly flavorful. And like coastal berries one can find artists and artisans, singers and music lovers who emerge each summer to support their beloved Mendocino Music Festival, now in its 29th year. And another surprise of the North Coast is the hospitality of the locals, who open their homes to house 90 musicians for three weeks every summer. ...

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