ArtsSF

New Widmann Work at the S.F. Symphony By Paul Hertelendy artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance Week of June 25-July 3, 2016 Vol. 18, No. 74 First there was Superman. There was Batman. And now we have Widmann, flexing muscles reaching for super powers composing for orchestra. Widmann’s 19-minute “Trauermarsch” shows off all the orchestra’s versatility and extremes. The highest notes, the lowest notes. The loudest sounds and the softest sounds, starting the mighty…

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Berkeley’s Latest Venture: A Concert-Hall ‘Frankenstein’ BERKELEY—Conductor Joana Carneiro, toiling for years leading the Berkeley Symphony, has hit her California breakthrough year. She is also leading the Ojai North program coming up shortly, as well as concerts in the Hollywood Bowl (Hey, size matters too). And next winter becomes the first music director of the 47-year-old Berkeley Symphony to be tapped a guest conductor of the San Francisco Symphony across the bay—a rare accolade indeed for a nearby smaller rival….

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And a New Take on Shostakovich/s Ninth Music-lovers, hyphens have surrounded the orchestral podium. Cleveland has had the Austrian Welser-Moest as its leader for years. Philadelphia has  Yannick Nézet-Séguin. And now, stand back for the youngest comer, the Spaniard Pablo Heras-Casado, 38, a fast-riser already named conductor of the year by Musical America two years ago. Podium guests come and go at the S.F. Symphony with regularity; but a multi-week stint, like his currently,  means that musicians and management both…

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S.F. SoundBox Thrives with Unique Concerts The San Francisco Symphony’s highly innovative SoundBox series has sparked national interest among musicians, concert managers and music critics alike. It’s a seminar in rather unfamiliar live music by a cornucopia of small ensembles, with complementary projections of custom-designed videos created for the occasion, now in its second season. Soundbox tickets sell out in a couple of hours when announced, making this arguably the hottest ticket in San Francisco. They bring in an audience…

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Nagano Accentuates Montreal-Paris Nexus in NorCal Tour ROHNERT PARK, CA—A touring orchestra dares to play a bold all-20th-century program, without even a note of Rachmaninoff or Sibelius? Yes, workable if that music-explorer Kent Nagano is at the helm, with his Montreal Symphony pulling the load. They brought the audience to its feet more than once here with mostly-Parisian servings of Debussy, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. And there’s proximity there: Culturally, Montreal and Paris have long been cheek-to-cheek. And, despite his 10-year…

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The S.F. Conservatory’s Contemporary Concert By Paul Hertelendy artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance Week of March 20-27, 2016 Vol. 18, No. 56 A quintet of living composers provided an ambitious set of instrumental works from a solo to a 40-plus-member wind ensemble knocking the roof off the S.F. Conservatory of Music. Here is the new genre of cross-over composer, of utmost versatility, creating everything from hiphop to DJ electronica to instrumentals to conducting….

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Cherubini Requiem, Alongside New Piccolo Concerto OAKLAND—In symphony concerts, give me the thrill of discovery every time. The Oakland Symphony offered not one but two revelations in a single concert, one very old, the other very new. When, if ever, have you heard a piccolo concerto? Or Cherubini’s Requiem of 1816? Never? Me neither. But then, I’ve only reviewed some 6,500 concerts lifetime. The Italian-French composer Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) was a stodgy symphonist of the early romantic era. In his…

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As Yuja Wang and Encores Bring Down the House The Russian National Orchestra has a field day playing on tour. On the same San Francisco program, they present USSR-era composers who were citizens in good standing (Khatchaturian), citizens who were slapped down and denounced (Shostakovich), and citizens who were deemed taboo as émigrés (Stravinsky). However you feel about Russian politics today, you have to admire their current catholic spectrum coming from varied pan-Russian sources. Also they are inordinately generous in…

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In a Vietnamese Outpouring OAKLAND—Despite very meager attendance on the eve of Valentine’s, the Vietnamese new year, and President’s Day, an alluring Viet lady named Vo saved the day and night for the perennially hard-struggling Oakland Symphony. A helter-skelter concert program and an army of fervent volunteers trolling the aisles for donations didn’t deter from a rousing finale of Vietnamese music that enkindled the faithful scattered around the huge Paramount Theatre Feb. 12. By the time the encore rolled around,…

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But Half a program Saved by Emergency Conductor BERKELEY—A podium substitute saved the day for the Berkeley Symphony when Lisbon-based Joana Carneiro had to cancel on doctor’s orders. Though the music director is still well short of the big four-oh birthday, her health remains a question mark. Management was tight-lipped about when the popular conductor might return to action here. The surprise emergency guest was New Yorker Tito Muñoz, music director of the Phoenix Symphony, making his local debut. His…

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