VIRTUAL TRIP TO A VERY DIFFERENT SPACE

VIRTUAL TRIP TO A VERY DIFFERENT SPACE

Let yourself go, depart from traffic-choked urban reality, and immerse yourself in a nebulous world of modern art and sound. It’s Audium, the Shaff family’s Other-Galaxy experience, going strong over nearly half a century, mostly 100 times a year. On the surface, Audium is an hour-long sonic foray into a latter-day musique concrète , first created by the Frenchman Pierre Schaeffer in the mid-20th century—a combination of found sounds and electronic ones. But it’s delivered in total darkness, with all smartphones switched off….

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MUSIC TO RECALL PAST DETENTIONS

MUSIC TO RECALL PAST DETENTIONS

The Old First Church in San Francisco provides an intimate but intense concert series with low-price tickets, and some real surprises—like world premieres. On July 1 the timely new work was a hard-to-define, 23-minute multi-media opus, with music, theater, dance, narration, and pre-recorded percussion tracks having considerable political-historical significance. “Gateway—Stories from Angel Island” is the most unorthodox performance piece I’ve run across in years, cutting across  many disciplines and cultures. It recalls the isle in S.F. Bay serving for decades…

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COMING OF AGE WITH THE MAHLER SYMPHONIES

COMING OF AGE WITH THE MAHLER SYMPHONIES

We’re not the world leaders in music education, but we’ve evolved rather incredibly in concert maturity. Between the two world wars Grandma would proudly attend the afternoon musicale concerts at a Washington, DC club and rave about the Pilgrim’s Chorus or the Strauss waltz she had heard. It was virtually the only classical music in the nation’s capital apart from the symphony with its mediocre conductor, playing in a huge hall. One of the musicians later reported that at the…

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POWER LUST AND POLLUTION IN WAGNER FINALE

POWER LUST AND POLLUTION IN WAGNER FINALE

You can blame us music critics for all the long, uncut Wagner opera performances, as in the four “Ring” works currently on the boards. Whenever cuts are actually made in five-hour-long operas, you can bet that some one will complain in print. Well, the Wagner operas can benefit from cuts, which are made even at the holiest of the holy, the Bayreuth (Germany) Wagner Festival. These works are clogged with static narration, particularly recounting of the drama that had gone…

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VALKYRIES GALORE, ‘CHUTING OUT OF THE SKY

VALKYRIES GALORE, ‘CHUTING OUT OF THE SKY

Of the four Wagner “Ring” operas, “The Valkyrie” (Die Walküre) the one with the Valkyries is the most popular and most played. Not because all those fetching female deities come tumbling out of the sky, but because it has very compelling love scenes, both sexual and familial. I mean, those evil sorcerers and gods and giants and dragons and dwarves running wild in the other operas can only take you so far. They’re stunning, but with emotional limitations. In addition…

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LATEST RUSSIAN PIANO SENSATION AT THE SYMPHONY

LATEST RUSSIAN PIANO SENSATION AT THE SYMPHONY

Nearly a month at the S.F. Symphony’s season end is currently devoted to music and artists from Finland and Russia, blending new and old congenially. The last of these shone the spotlight on the versatile and resourceful pianist Daniil Trifonov, 26, in that legendary knuckle-buster, Rach3 (Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto). Trifonov is a unique figure, reveling in such supreme virtuoso tests, a man smiling the whole time where others might well resort to a Rasputin-like scowl. He offers an amiable…

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THE WAGNER ‘RING:’ THE GREATEST SHOW

THE WAGNER ‘RING:’ THE GREATEST SHOW

The greatest show on earth? Now that a certain circus is no more, the greatest show is arguably Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, 17 hours of potent song and drama spread over four nights. Though presented at the S.F. Opera every decade or so, the audience for these masterful 19th-century operas seems limitless. Going to the first-night “Rheingold” June 19 I was impressed that the Opera House was once again sold-out. The gent next to me had actually flown in for…

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MUSCOVITES ARE BACK WITH GLOOM AND DOOM

MUSCOVITES ARE BACK WITH GLOOM AND DOOM

The dearth of Russian opera in these parts has been addressed, not by the S.F. Opera but rather the S.F. Symphony. And it’s high time. For the most candid view of Russian culture, tumultuous history and power-grabs, there’s no better place to start than Mussorgsky’s gloom-and-doom opera “Boris Godunov,” launched a century and a half ago. Despotic rulers, the poverty-stricken mobs of the oppressed, the focal role of religion, they all feed into this epic nationalist drama having no hero,…

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INFALLIBLE CHORUS: FINALLY FALLIBLE

INFALLIBLE CHORUS: FINALLY FALLIBLE

DANVILLE, CA—Thanks, Chanticleer. The chorus did us all a huge favor in their latest concert and restored my faith in humanity. I’ve heard this elite all-male chorus do many hundreds of selections over the years. Usually quite flawlessly. Paragons of perfection. One began to think they were robotic in their pursuit, with great pitch (lacking any accompaniment guidance), command of many languages, and a breadth of notes spanning almost four octaves. It’s as if every work were ready to record…

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CANCELLATIONS AND EAR-OPENERS, AS WOMEN DOMINATE

CANCELLATIONS AND EAR-OPENERS, AS WOMEN DOMINATE

A symphony program featuring exotic Eastern-European moderns, substitutes and  women-at-the-forefront provided a late-season highlight at the San Francisco Symphony, where the street might still be resounding from the unaccustomed claps and cheers of both musicians and audience. And once again Susanna Mälkki was on the podium, clearly a strong prospect to be the S.F. Symphony’s next music director, with a big IF: provided she could be wrenched away from the current podia of Los Angeles, Helsinki and the Metropolitan Opera in…

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