Features

The career path of a professional musician is not standard, by any means. The steps are only loosely prescribed, and the journey is wildly varied. Those who make it create their own opportunities, especially a young string quartet striving to carve out a place in a field with no job description. Meet the Hausmann String Quartet — first violinist Isaac Allen, second violinist Bram Goldstein, violist Angela Choong, and cellist Yuan Zhang — a dynamic young quartet that’s on the way up, pursuing a lifetime of chamber music one day at a time.

San Francisco Classical Voice lost one of its finest writers and an even dearer friend when Heuwell Tircuit died last Monday. His body was discovered in his apartment by his longtime friend Hal Cruthirds on Wednesday. He was 78 years old.

Festivals, unlike single concerts, are full-immersion events with lots of possibilities to explore all at once. In an effort to bring the festival experience closer to our readers, SFCV sent two writers to “blog” for a full day (last Saturday) at the Berkeley Festival. One master class, two concerts, and one exhibition later, enervated by the day’s oppressive heat, they filed this report.

It was an event like no other. Answering San Francisco Opera’s clarion call, on June 13, seven human contestants — two linked by blood — and one irresistible canine of similar Amesian pedigree straggled into the courtyard north of the War Memorial Opera House starting at 11 a.m. or so for SFO’s Wagner Ring Cycle Costume Contest.

Frederica von Stade, the beloved mezzo-soprano, is saying good-bye to her fans. She is in the middle of a series of farewell appearances, winding down a 40-year, Cinderella-like career in opera that began in 1970, when she unexpectedly won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and received a contract from Metropolitan Opera General Manager Rudolf Bing.

As she approaches an as-yet-unannounced date in late 2011 when San Francisco Opera will cosponsor her final official concert, von Stade will begin a new chapter in her life.

As the Summer music festival season approaches, a roundup of recommendations and a few meaningful reflections.