Younis Raza

Stars Shine in Castle Courtyard— Joshua Bell headlines talent-rich cast at Napa Festival Built two years ago in Calistoga out of 14th century stones, bricks and beams, with reinforcing and modern amenities tucked out of sight, Castello di Amorosa is a faithful representative of an ancient Italian castle. Sentries wearing the garb of ushers forsook their crenelated guard towers to guide us into the Great Hall, a stupendous beamed chamber which would comfortably hold my...

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  ‘Garden of Memory’ Festival draws performer/composers in Oakland This year’s solstice celebration, Garden of Memory, was again held at the Chapel of the Chimes, a Julia Morgan designed columbarium and mausoleum whose...

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Earplay explores limits of form in end-of-season concert Earplay, a mainstay of the Bay Area contemporary music scene, ended their 23rd season with “Intricate Inventions,” a program which samples the last 30 years of musical evolution. Just as art movements question their basic tenets, exploring perspective and ground, reality and ownership, these modern composers argue with conventional uses of texture, tension and found-form. Nor...

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Greenberg and the Alexander String Quartet explore Haydn and Carter What could Franz Josef Haydn and Elliott Carter possibly have to say to each other across a 200-year divide? More than you might think, according to educator and composer Robert Greenberg, at a Saturday morning matinee in Herbst Theatre. Standing alongside the Alexander String Quartet, long-time collaborators in the “Inspiration” series of...

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Alexander Quartet tunes strings to songs of death Robert Greenberg and the Alexander String Quartet teamed up for their last joint presentation of this year’s “Inspirations” series, four lectures and concerts drawing parallels between older and modern works. Their Saturday morning concert on May 17 focused on Franz Schubert’s String Quartet in D minor, D.810 (“Death and the Maiden”), and George Crumb’s modern use of that piece in his string quartet,...

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Brahms Festival a knock-out at Davies Symphony Hall Ah, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. There is a reason Brahms is elevated as one of Western Music’s masters--his truths are human truths. His delicacy has a restraint born of love and his grandeur speaks of the inevitability of time. And the deep sadness and arresting beauty of his themes? Perhaps it derives from a fin de siècle view of life’s hopes wedded to mortality. The San Francisco Symphony has dedicated...

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Categories: music