August 6, 2011
Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz
Stalwart Festival keeps its edge
Santa Cruz’ noteworthy Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music opened its 49th...
Younis Raza
August 2, 2011
Music@Menlo Concerts 3 and 4
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July 26, 2011
Discovering Brahms in Menlo Park
Creating the context…
Johannes Brahms is often named as one of music’s gifted “three B’s.” But his musical genius was not isolated. It was stoked by Bach’s gift for counterpoint, Haydn’s wit, Mozart’s breathtaking lyricism, Beethoven’s daring and power, and Robert and Clara Schumann’s romantic intensity, along with a host of others. And...
July 24, 2011
Festival del Sole Ends with Glitter
Scottish media sensation Susan Boyle aside, most well known performers were pretty sharp even when they...
July 15, 2011
Mendocino Music Festival turns 25
Opera in the Redwoods
The Mendocino Music Festival opened July 9 for its 25th season on the headlands of Mendocino, in the artistic heart of the North Coast. Erected in the meadow was the festival tent, an enormous structure measuring over a quarter of an acre, tent poles festooned with orange banners, and with smaller tents selling beverages from the local wineries and breweries.
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June 28, 2011
SF Opera Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold and Die Walkürie
Forging the Ring
The San Francisco Opera undertook Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle this summer, a mammoth production feat with fifteen hours of vocal pyrotechnics and brass fanfares.
It was mythic in more than one sense, especially the underlying mythos, the Icelandic Volsunga Saga and the Norse and Germanic Eddas. And it was a myth-making event for the Bay Area, with a new production by Francesca...