ArtsSF

BERKELEY, CA—The Berkeley Symphony seeks to carve out a role on the forefront on equality and social-justice issues.  And it is well on the way. Disregarding the Asian players in the orchestra, this week I counted more players of color (two) in the ensemble than in nearly all the professional orchestras around. Furthermore, on Jan. 31 all the guest artists were black: Conductor Joseph Young, actor Michael Asberry, and the English composer Hannah Kendall, 34. And Kendall’s world-premiere opus  was…

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Before we all wax euphoric over the new S.F. Symphony maestro—which the sold-out house did the other night—let’s pause and look at the bigger picture. Esa-Pekka Salonen, who becomes the music director in fall, 2020, got a standing ovation before he had led a single note guesting Jan. 18. He’s dashing and elegant, all right, 60 but looking like 39, and he led a marvelous set of tone poems before an enraptured audience. But no real judgment on a maestro…

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Performances of Bruckner symphonies can get reactions ranging from whee to a wheeze. The current stab at Bruckner’s Fifth certainly elicits no whee of delight—Z-z-z-z’s more than whee’s—-but the concert by the S.F. Symphony fortunately offered a first-rate Mozart Clarinet Concerto by way of compensation. As the Mozart soloist, Carey Bell made a strong case for being placed in the league of the top actives in clarinet like New Yorker Anthony McGill. His arpeggios are like waterfalls, his legatos are…

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However much the musical treatment of diarist Anne Frank might lean to positives, the reality of her legacy lies in the subliminal tragedy of her life and fate. Composer Michael Tilson Thomas’ musical readings in the 40-minute “From the Diary of Anne Frank” are eloquently understated. In sound and style, the music director has clearly drunk from the same well as his mentor, the (symphonic)  Leonard Bernstein. The orchestra interspersed phrases around diva Isabel Leonard’s narrations of Frank’s writing excerpts….

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An all-Eastern-European program added variety to the S.F. Symphony’s current-season offerings, focusing on suppressed music of the century 1850-1950. The three works could hardly have been less alike. At the center-point stood the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, with a dazzling performance by violinist Karen Gomyo of Berlin. Despite her stunning evening gown, I couldn’t take my ears off her performance as she  played virtually nonstop 40 minutes in the highly challenging opus from 1948. The  high virtuosity and limited…

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A sold-out house greeted the most powerful conductor in Russia, Valery Gergiev, with his elite Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg, a group he has led for 30 years. Several things stood out right away: This is a crack orchestra, with a younger ensemble than expected (only a few gray hairs showing). Unlike so many of our orchestras, they don’t tootle on stage beforehand; they enter together, tune up, and play. And the group had 22 women on stage Oct. 22,…

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The Phoenix of the Moment Leads the Way ROHNERT PARK, CA—Inspiration from the Santa Rosa Symphony is smoothing the long winding trek back to a vibrant life in fire-wracked Sonoma County. Music’s healing force has been much needed, particularly for those imperiled symphony-goers who fled for their lives at 3 AM to escape the Tubbs wildfire and experienced destruction of  their dearest belongings. Some 44 died. To mark the one-year anniversary on the first weekend of October when the renewal…

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There’s a notable changing of the guard on area symphonic podiums. Two of the new figures are Asian-American, perhaps destined to follow the earlier Northern Californian paths of Seiji Ozawa and Kent Nagano. While Francesco Lecce-Chong  starts his tenure at the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony hosted guest Ming Luke for its opening concert Oct. 4. Luke stepped in to a vacancy unique in music history, caused by departing Music Director Joana Carneiro missing most of the past two…

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If ever there was a super nova explosion to radically realign the orderly world of music, it was Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” currently the focal point of the S.F. Symphony’s Stravinsky Festival. Over the past century, it has lost that sting originally setting off what’s called the biggest concert-hall riot in history. But it has lost none of its impact, bringing the audience to its feet, not clubbing nearby patrons as in the Paris world premiere, but this time cheering…

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The S.F. Symphony’s Stravinsky Festival spotlights the mercurial composer who flew like a brilliant comet from Russia to Paris to America, launching new musical expression while changing music forever. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) reminds me of the legendary prince who cut through impenetrable thickets and brambles to reach his prize, revealing a beauty of a different sort. The composer took out the lush undergrowth and cleared the footing, to where the new modern prince could gallop through with puckish delight  and…

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