Reviews

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Review

Mariinsky, Minus the Chemistry

Steven Winn - March 23, 2010
On a clear spring night that tempted concertgoers to linger outside Davies Symphony Hall until the last moment on Monday, the musical weather that followed inside was prevailingly murky.

The second of two San Francisco programs by St.

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Review

Zesty Little Masterpieces From S.F. Bach Choir

Heuwell Tircuit - March 23, 2010
For its 74th season, Director Corey Jamason and the San Francisco Bach Choir and Baroque Orchestra programmed five highly unusual Bach compositions for their Sunday program in Calvary Presbyterian Church.
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Review

Stellar Singing by Ian Bostridge

Anna Carol Dudley - March 23, 2010
Ian Bostridge is a master singer of German lieder, and he brought Schubert’s Winterreise to UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall Sunday afternoon, splendidly partnered by pianist Julius Drake. Experiencing Schubert’s intimate, searing song cycle would be more satisfying in the intimacy of Hertz Hall, where we last heard Bostridge.
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Review

Trpčeski and Petrenko Play Rachmaninov, Uncut

Heuwell Tircuit - March 22, 2010

Two major young stars of the music world, pianist Simon Trpčeski and conductor Vasily Petrenko, have begun a new CD cycle of all of Sergei Rachmaninov’s piano-orchestral works, for Avie Records.

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Review

Cantare Chorale: Graced by New Poetry

Jerry Kuderna - March 22, 2010
From the hauntingly tentative first notes, or rather the first words of a poem prefacing the Brahms Requiem sung Saturday by the powerful but always beautifully balanced and expressive Cantare Chorale led by Artistic Director David Morales, I knew I was about to have a unique experience. I was to have a window not only into Johannes Brahms’
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Review

Where Comes the Sun?

Jeff Dunn - March 22, 2010

Did the Santa Rosa Symphony on Saturday night live up to part of a public-school student poem, by “Cristobal,” posted in its concert-hall lobby?

Sounds frightful, amazing, destructive.
Beethoven, great composer —
Music as powerful as the sun.

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Review

Dreamy Recital of Romantics

Georgia Rowe - March 22, 2010
In a year that marks the bicentenaries of Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann, it can’t be easy to decide which composer to celebrate.
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Review

San Francisco Ballet Star Shines Under the Sea

Rachel Howard - March 22, 2010

“This is for her,” another critic said to me Saturday during the rapturous standing ovation that greeted the U.S. premiere of John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid at the San Francisco Ballet.

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Review

To Paraphrase, Encore

Lisa Hirsch - March 19, 2010
The British composer Thomas Adès has been writing intricately structured and colorfully orchestrated music for nearly two decades now.
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Review

Going It Alone

Michelle Dulak Thomson - March 16, 2010
Unaccompanied violin recitals are sufficiently rare that the image and bio of Jennifer Koh’s longtime recital partner, pianist Reiko Uchida, made it into the printed program of last Tuesday’s Herbst Theatre recital before San Francisco Performances staff realized their mistake. It would be misleading to say that Uchida (a very fine pianist) was not missed.