Reviews

Paul Goodwin's conducting debut with S.F. Symphony was welcome, if belated, while soprano Lydia Teuscher stole the show.

The Empyrean Ensemble presented new works by Pulitzer Prize-winner Melinda Wagner and UC Davis composers at the 2015 Music and Words Festival.

The Lamplighters Musical Theater production of Candide has a lot going for it, along with a few unavoidable flaws.

Powerful American tenor Matthew Polenzani knocked a delightfully eccentric program out of the (First Congregational) Church in Berkeley Saturday night.

Noe Valley Chamber Music returned after four years off to draw the largest audience in its 22-year history in San Francisco on Sunday, in a performance hosted by SFOO cellist Emil Miland.

One of SFCV’s emerging writers takes you into the world of contemporary master Wolfgang Rihm in a premiere with the National Symphony Orchestra.

ABS did a terrific job with the most winning of Handel’s theater works, introducing a fine soprano in the process.

Tobias Picker's opera is revived by the adventurous, if shoestring-budgeted, Los Angeles company.

Meeting the challenge of Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony is a struggle for both orchestra and audience, but the OEBS made it look easy.

Continuing on from Infinite Jest, John Adams continues to mine Beethoven for musical ideas.