Younis Raza

June 21, 2012

Garden of Memory, Piedmont

Celebrating midsummer in a place where time stands still. Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes, a labyrinthine shrine designed by Julia Morgan, is usually as serenely quiet as the tomb, appropriate for a columbarium and mausoleum. Folding in layers down...

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Categories: music

May 6, 2012

California Symphony at the Bankhead Theater

Four-star concert in the Tri-Valley Two huge works were both performed on a single program, overfilling Livermore’s modest Bankhead Theater for an acoustic experience like body surfing. Donato Cabrero led the California Symphony, four fabulous vocalists, the SF State Symphony Chorus and a violin soloist who ranks among her generation’s greatest....

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Categories: music

April 22, 2012

Rossetti Quartet at Kohl Mansion

Illuminating the masters… Burlingame’s Kohl Mansion finished out their chamber music season this Sunday, April 22 with the Rosetti Quartet and the return of a native son. Cellist Eric Gaenslen was born and raised in Burlingame, and began cello there in the first grade, although Julliard was his “finishing” school. He has played with the Rossetti quartet since 1999 and they have been frequent visitors to his hometown with numerous appearances...

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Categories: music

March 4, 2012

Manga Flute at West Edge Opera

Charming and original… One of the great operas of all time, The Magic Flute was one of the last works that Mozart completed before his untimely death at the age of 35. Politically savvy, thoroughly modern and beguiling in 1791, the music remains as timeless as the human emotions it evokes. But the social milieu, despite being cloaked in myth, included assumptions that are now wincingly dated. ...

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Categories: opera