Steven Winn

Steven Winn is a San Francisco-based writer and critic and frequent interviewer for City Arts & Lectures. His work has appeared in Gramophone, Musical America, Opera, Symphony, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Articles By This Author

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Review

Simone Dinnerstein’s Eclectic Variations

Steven Winn - April 26, 2010

Ranging from Bach to Copland to Webern, pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s April 24 recital at Herbst Theatre looked at first glance like a model of eclecticism. In fact, it was a tightly and cannily structured program, with variations as the organizing principle.

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Review

Sanford Dole Ensemble Doles Out Memories

Steven Winn - April 3, 2010

The male and female voices of the Sanford Dole Ensemble chorus, 24 strong, had already made a distinct impression in a Palm Sunday concert at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church. Over a groundswell of somber strings in the first section of James MacMillan’s 1993 Seven Last Words From the Cross, the men burst forth with an urgent “Rex Israel.”

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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

Stunner From Leipzig

Steven Winn - February 22, 2010
Even in a standard-repertoire program, there was something cheeky about the world’s oldest civic orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (est. 1743), putting Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony on Sunday’s opening bill of a two-night stand at Davies Symphony Hall. But by then, after a transportingly good performance of the Chopin Piano Concerto No.
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Feature

Magnificat’s Grandi Discoveries

Steven Winn - February 9, 2010
For anyone who cares about 17th-century music, 2010 is without question a Claudio Monteverdi year.
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Review

Gluzman and the Three Bs

Steven Winn - February 1, 2010

Brimming with earnest and tender melodies by a 20th-century version of the Three B’s — Bernstein, Bloch, and Barber — this BIS recording showcases the abundant gifts of violinist Vadim Gluzman.

Madrigals and Motets

Steven Winn - January 26, 2010
For anyone who cares about 17th-century music, 2010 is without question a Claudio Monteverdi year.
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Review

The Clinch Connection

Steven Winn - January 10, 2010
The Jan. 7-10 San Francisco Symphony concerts were studies in orchestral transformation. What the relatively short program of an hour and 45 minutes, conducted by David Robertson at Flint Center and Davies Symphony Hall, lacked in intensity, it made up for in a rewarding skein of associations.

George Benjamin, the orchestra’s Phyllis C.

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Preview

Up Close and Enriching: The Sounding Off Tour

Steven Winn - January 4, 2010
“This tour is based on the simple idea that high art and accessibility are not mutually exclusive.” So says the German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser, in his straight-to-the-point manifesto for “The Sounding Off Tour: A Fresh Look at Classical Music.”

Moser has joined forces with keyboardist and performance artist Phyllis Chen for a six-city U.S. swing that lands in San Francisco Jan. 19-20.

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Review

Ablaze With Brahms

Steven Winn - November 21, 2009
The bill was all-Brahms on Friday at Davies Symphony Hall, for the first of two reverently anticipated performances by the Berlin Philharmonic.