ARTS COME ALIVE IN SAN
FRANCISCO
BAY AREA!
Classical Music, Books, Theater, Dance
The life of a zine is about a minute
---San Francisco Chronicle headline.
But clearly, they weren't talking about the arts-review 'zine
artssf.com!
Welcome to the TWELFTH
season
of: www.artssf.com, the independent, non-commercial observer-critic of
the arts, your best source in the San Francisco Bay Area for reviews.
With weekly reviews on WHAT'S NEW on the arts scene: Modern
music
(non-commercial), premieres, theater reviews, dance, rarities, and
new-book reviews
involving
Northern California authors or themes. At times, even a review or two
from
far-off lands. Also some reports from the major symphonic,
chamber
and operatic concerts, all emphasizing new or modern creativity.
Read the reviews first on artssf.com. Reports are compiled by veteran
Bay
Area critics Paul Hertelendy, D. Rane Danubian, Carol Benet, V.I.
Hambleton, J. Charles, Georgia Rowe, Alix
Schwartz,
Karl Toepfer et al in a vast (?) staff
of a good (very good!) six-to-seven
collaborators. Then there's our secret-weapon time machine: roving
London
critic Steven Emanuel, who scouts theater, thespians, books and
other themes in the British bailiwick, anticipating hits that may
cross
the pond our way next year.
The eleventh season had again featured more than 100 reviews in toto
from
the above
contributors---126, to be exact. The Greater S.F. Bay
Area remains a
bellwether
in new works and modern approaches, as stimulating as ever, fed by an
audience thirsty for the fresh, novel and profound.
CURRENT REVIEWS and news follow,
starting
with the most recent:
-- (MUSIC) A retrospective concert for Berkeley composer Herbert
Bielawa, 80---plus a world premiere.
-- (SYMPHONY & CHORUS) A new orchestration of Ives' massive
"Concord Sonata" makes waves and crashing surf out west.
-- (THEATER) Shannon Koob's versatile solo stint in "The Syringa Tree,"
at Walnut Creek.
-- (MUSIC) The resourceful violinist Midori does it all---education,
performance, panels, and a spotlight on new music.
-- (CHAMBER MUSIC) The intensity of sirocco wind
propels a Viñao opus, stirring up Mozart and Dvorak.
-- (OPERA) In "Wozzeck," is he the victim or the perpitrator? The
touching drama of the outsider, in a new intimate treatment.
-- (THEATER) Fugard peruses the South African drama of the AIDS
epidemic; at Berkeley Rep.
Earlier
reviews and interviews include:
-- (NEW MUSIC) The influence of digital permeates the style of new
compositions at the SFCMP.
-- (BALLET) A local Walnut Creek troupe lights up the night in a busy
dance week.
-- (SYMPHONY) Is wear and tear getting to Yo-Yo Ma, 54? Ma plays
Shostakovich at the San Francisco Symphony.
-- (BALLET) The pricey San Francisco Ballet gala---insanity, intensity,
proficiency. And nuttiness in the lobby.
-- (SYMPHONY) San Francisco Symphony residency by the noted
British composer George Benjamin, gutting out a rough start.
-- (MUSIC) 2009 was not a great year, but a good one, for serious music
in the Bay Area, chockablock with surprises.
-- (BALLET) We all know about opening nights. But are last nights as
good, as in the S.F. Ballet "Nutcracker?"
-- (CHORUS) The sacred music of Christmas, in eight languages: nowhere
better than at Chanticleer.
-- (CHAMBER) Kronos Quartet for once delves into both nostalgia and
novelty. And it was moving.
-- (BALLET) Two Bay Area cities get creative, pool resources for one
effective "Nutcracker."
-- (THEATER) Alfred Hitchcock's oldie "39 Steps," revived with new
chuckles.
-- (THEATER) The War Between the States seen cheerfully, in Palo Alto's
"Civil War Christmas."
-- (SYMPHONY) San Francisco's stimulating all-Viennese program,
spanning from Beethoven to Webern.
-- (CHORUS) Is the vaunted Tallis Scholars' crown slipping a bit to the
side? A Renaissance rollercoaster ride in Berkeley.
-- (SYMPHONY) The ingratiating sounds of Steven Stucky, and Stravinsky
adventures. At the Berkeley Symphony.
-- (SYMPHONY) The elite of the elite, the Berlin Philharmonic, glows in
its all-German program under Simon Rattle.
-- (SYMPHONY) The renaissance of Western music in China is exemplified
by the Shanghai Symphony, with Yuja Wang.
-- (CHAMBER ORCHESTRA) Berkeley is a crucible of ideas and musical
currents: Tuition protests, sports, Bolcom-Strauss.
-- (SYMPHONY) The latest Russian fire-eating pianist, Nikita Abrosimov,
21, triumphs at Stanford as a concerto sub.
-- (OPERA) The world premiere "Dark River" in a tiny Oakland venue
ambitiously tackles a history of civil rights.
-- (SYMPHONY) A cellist's late cancelation brings on many changes, many
questions at the S.F. Symphony.
-- (OPERA) Verdi's masterpiece "Otello," with the bigger-than-life
tenor Johan Botha in the title role.
-- (CHAMBER MUSIC) Even the floor vibrates with the fiery play of the
Borealis String Quartet.
-- (SYMPHONY) Rachmaninoff's popular Symphony No. 2 amd his cantata on
Poe, "The Bells."
-- (THEATER) David Mamet's "November:" a farcical look at a
fictionalized White House. Georgia Rowe reports.
-- (NEW MUSIC) What's this? The chips accompany the guitar, and a watch
ticks on Irish time.
-- (THEATER) A new Kushner collection in Berkeley, still needing trims
and edits.
-- (DANCE) Alonso King's Lines Ballet with his new work, work, work,
plus a Moroccan theme.
-- (SYMPHONY) With the style of a champion boxer, conductor
Osmo Vänskä shows a surprising
Nordic persona.
-- (SYMPHONY) What doesn't Lorin Maazel do? He's conducting,
composing, guesting. Report from Washington, D.C.
-- (SYMPHONY) Poles apart geographically, a Brazilian orchestra
collaborates with the
British superpercussionist Evelyn Glennie.
-- (SYMPHONY) Under Joana Carneiro's baton wizardry, the Berkeley
Symphony sounded like some elite Euro import.
-- (CHAMBER/WORLD MUSIC) The Kronos Quartet, with 10 works from almost
as many lands, and unseen cohorts.
-- (S.F. SYMPHONY) A modern Australian gives a vivid, almost fiendish
perspective of composer Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613).
-- (MUSIC) The S.F. Contemporary Music Players unveil a new song cycle
by John Harbison, 71.
-- (SYMPHONY) The symphony in Oakland tries out a revamped high-camp
site, the Fox Theater, amplified.
-- (THEATER) The hilarity of spouse-swapping in Aronson's new play,
"First Day of School."
-- (DANCE) A brilliant new Lincolnesque dance-theater piece from Bill
T. Jones' company.
-- (SYMPHONY) Mahler's Fifth, paired with Scelsi's unlikely "Hymnos"
meditation.
-- (THEATER) Noel Coward's classic love story, "Brief Encounter," with
modern theater technology added.
-- (CHORUS) Chanticleer keeps changing repertoire and personnel while
maintaining its a cappella excellence.
-- (SYMPHONY) Broken-field running, musicologically,
in a skilful
lecture-concert by MTT opens up insights on Gustav Mahler.
-- (THEATER) Can Judas Iscariot make a comeback? A San Jose theater
entertains the idea implausibly.
-- (OPERA) Puccini's odd triptych "Il Trittico" scores with "Gianni
Schicchi" at the S.F. Opera.
-- (OPERA) The opera strikes out to the ballpark with "Il
Trovatore"---and strikes out.
-- (DANCE) Mark Morris' "V" is a stunner, in an otherwise uneven
program given at Berkeley.
-- (THEATER) "American Idiot," a rock band with theater, premiering at
Berkeley Rep.
-- (SYMPHONY) The S.F. Symphony's Mahler First explores freedoms
unheard in ages, to immense acclaim.
-- (THEATER) The poles of art and religion power a new play, My Name Is Asher Lev,
in Marin County.
-- (SYMPHONY) A so-so symphony gala is saved by the pianist Lang Lang
from China, who loves every minute on stage.
-- (DANCE) Take Courage---particularly their newest piece, "but you
can't hide," brimming with vitality absent elsewhere.
-- (CHAMBER ORCHESTRA) A new Charles Griffin dance suite almost bursts
the walls at the San Jose Chamber Orchestra.
-- (SYMPHONIC) Cabrillo finale: Neo-postromantic composers, out in
force, and raising the roof.
_-- (SYMPHONIC) Cabrillo's new-music orchestral fest scores with
MacMillan, Lindberg, via Marin Alsop's baton.
-- (THEATER) Dysfunctional can be entertaining, in Letts' Pulitzer
play.
-- (CHORUS) Donald McCullough's song cycle on Blake, premiered by the
S.F. Choral Society. With Verdi added.
-- (OPERA, SANTA FE) Passions as hot as the weather---the colonies had
it all, as the arresting world premiere shows.
-- (CHAMBER MUSIC, SANTA FE) Neikrug's world premiere was leaning on a
green statue.
-- (BALLET, SANTA FE) Can a ballet have a foot in different states?
Aspen and Santa Fe say YES.
-- (CHAMBER MUSIC) A full moon, a bit of wine, and the "Kreutzer"
Sonata---this were paradise enow.
-- (CHAMBER MUSIC) Music@Menlo recitalists grapple with Brahms---but on
different wavelengths.
-- (THEATER) Yasmina Reza's intriguing play of dialogues and
monologues, in tiny San Francisco venue.
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Label your e-mail "letters to the editor" in the subject space).
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Box 505, (note new box number!)
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