UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in Russian program

Under the leadership of music director David Milnes the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra has come a long way from a time when attending its concerts was something done as much out of a sense of civic duty as in the expectation of great music-making. And the evidence was surely on display in performances of Rachmaninoff’s daunting Symphonic Dances over the recent Halloween weekend. The Dances, the composer’s last numbered work, truly comprise a magnum opus,...

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Oakland Symphony at the Paramount

A "letter from the Front.” So I get up in the morning and find that the first thing I want to do is not write a review of the concert I attended the night before. Which is to say I don't want to get up and immediately assume the pontifical role of critic. Let the sleeping dog lie a little while longer! But it seems a natural thing simply to write you a note about the concert. And there's this—I find that my memory of such a thing the morning after is a truer impression,...

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