Chamber Music

Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds was part of the New York-based quintet’s bright and brash program at the Trianon Theatre in San Jose.

It was the lesser-known of three piano quintets that shone in an inspired performance.

The San Jose Chamber Music Society kicked off its season with a lively program split between Latin American and European composers.

The annual event, which celebrates the diversity of the Bay Area musical community, examines Asian-American jazz for this year’s “Field Report.”

The New Century Chamber Orchestra started off its season with a program that was split between the composer and mostly Russian music.

The young string quartet, the first quartet-in-residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, also performed early works by Webern and Beethoven.

The ensemble’s interpretations of Beethoven’s late quartets at The Berkeley Hillside Club were too temperate.

The event, part of Music@Menlo’s Summer Festival, wasn’t exactly like hanging out with Schubert and friends in a Viennese salon in the 1800s, but it was close.

A trio (plus some friends) provided excitement in a party of French chamber music.

Nuances of the performance were lost to the unforgiving acoustics of the Rodin Gallery at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, but the musicians’ camaraderie shone through.