Reviews

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Review

Youth Has Its Triumphant Day

Heuwell Tircuit - January 20, 2009
Contrary to my apprehension, Sunday’s festival of youth orchestras went smoothly in Davies Symphony Hall, via a grand display of musical talent around Northern California. Under the banner "Bay of Hope 2009," the concert presented six youth orchestras playing major and often virtuoso music by six composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Pedals, Portamentos, and Pianolas

David Bratman - January 20, 2009
The battle of the musicologists broke out on Friday afternoon in Stanford University's Campbell Recital Hall. Joseph Horowitz, noted author of several books on the history of classical music in America, played a 1932 recording of Leopold Stokowski conducting the slow movement of Beethoven's Fifth.
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Review

San Francisco's Symbiosis

William Quillen - January 20, 2009
As the economic crisis imperils arts organizations large and small, it was wonderful to see a near-capacity crowd fill Davies Symphony Hall on Saturday evening for the San Francisco Symphony's performance of works by Tilson Thomas, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, featuring pianist Garrick Ohlsson as soloist and conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.
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Review

Sweet Suite

Scott Cmiel - January 20, 2009
The young American guitarist Jason Vieaux is an exceptionally communicative artist. On Saturday he presented an interesting, well-shaped program, with expressive playing and friendly, informative spoken introductions, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall.
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Review

B Minor Mass in a Major Performance

Janos Gereben - January 20, 2009

In a more perfect world, today's Presidential Inauguration would take place in balmy San Francisco, the event concluding with Dona Nobis Pacem (Give us peace), from J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor. This majestic and heartrending expression of yearning for peace and the good of all humanity would be performed, in my fantasy concert, by the American Bach Soloists, under the direction of Jeffrey Thomas.

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Review

Jesus Chronicles

Anna Carol Dudley - January 20, 2009
The Chalice Consort brought its remarkable sound and splendid musicianship to St. Monica Catholic Church in San Francisco Saturday night, in an a cappella concert ably led by Matthew Walsh.
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Review

Hope Reborn in the North Bay

John Lutterman - January 20, 2009
Perhaps my expectations have been colored by the approaching inauguration, but Sunday night's performance by cellist David Requiro with the Marin Symphony, now in its seventh year under the able stewardship of Music Director Alasdair Neale, left me with unanticipated though unmistakable feelings of hope for the future of symphonic music-making in the Bay Area.

A Beautifully Voiced Recital

Jason Victor Serinus - January 20, 2009
Soon into tenor Brian Thorsett's benefit recital Friday in Calvary Presbyterian Church, I could not help but reflect on the arc of a singer's maturity. Some artists emerge at a young age with voice, technique, and intelligence so fully developed that one can only marvel as they continue to grow and mature.

Hail to Haydn

Dan Leeson - January 20, 2009
The beautifully restored California Theatre in San José — thanks to the generosity of David Packard — was the site for Symphony Silicon Valley’s fourth of eight programs in its 2008-2009 season. Sunday's was a brilliantly performed program, but one of such mixed styles, content, and format as to raise eyebrows. The opening work, using a reduced orchestra of 40 players, was the Haydn Symphony No.
Review

Marvel in Mill Valley

Michelle Dulak Thomson - January 13, 2009
Admirers of the Takács Quartet have had it good these past several years, due to the ensemble's two-concerts-a-season relationship with Cal Performances. The quartet's first Bay Area visit in 2009, though, wasn't to Berkeley's Hertz Hall but to Mill Valley's Mount Tamalpais United Methodist Church.