ArtsSF

The timely world-premiere composition by Samuel Adams, which made an agreeable debut with the S.F. Symphony, calls for a detailed essay about the creative process, yet to be written. Because in trying to depict a sunset of our lingering pandemic, Adams revised and reworked his half-hour long opus “No Such Spring” numerous times, adding even a pianist in a prominent new concerto-like post down stage, as current events unfolded. His portrayal of the metamorphosis might be even more interesting to…

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ROHNERT PARK, CA—Get a Frenchman back on the podium, and the fans line up to hear Debussy’s “La mer” (The Sea). That exquisite century-old tone poem has you rocking in the swell and maybe reaching for a lifejacket. At seaside, you hear the waves crashing on rocks and sand, then receding having left just its sound and foam behind. Debussy denied vehemently that he was an impressionist. Fine. But more than any one, Debussy’s master illusion lay in eliminating clear-cut…

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Was Béla Bartók his own worst enemy? He composed his fiendishly difficult Piano Concerto No. 2, in which the world-premiere piano soloist was to be Béla Bartók himself. The net result established him not only as prime modernist/technician/theoretician, ahead of his time composing thus in 1930-31, but also as a paragon super keyboard soloist. It was a Béla Bartók weekend, with the S.F. Symphony in action under Esa-Pekka Salonen, and a block away at Herbst Theatre his chamber music as…

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The nonconformist composer Gabriel Kahane, 41, unreeled a powerful iconoclastic message in Davies Hall, where politics is normally taboo. His abrasive oratorio may have left the walls trembling from the bitterness of his counter-culture poetry. Kahane’s “emergency shelter intake form“ (sic) brought to mind other protest-movement works we’ve run into previously——-from Weill-&-Brecht musical theater, to the incendiary Berkeley rhetoric of the anti-establishment 1960s firebrand Mario Savio, to the gentler saga of John Adams’ “El Niño,” the Nativity story as seen…

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Waves of applause greeted the appearance of beloved conductor emeritus Michael Tilson Thomas on stage, with patrons leaping to their feet willy-nilly in tribute. Great relief for the fans, who had little confidence to believe he’d ever return after his 2021 surgery for an aggressive form of brain cancer. The 78-year-old now walked slowly, traversing steps cautiously. But his leadership on the podium showed no frailty as he brought off a triumphant choral-orchestral finale to a largely French program of…

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Lost in the hurrahs of the San Francisco Symphony concerts this week was emergence of an even more significant course change this season: The unprecedented emphasis on creativity by women and minorities, front and center. Conductors like Xian Zhang, Elim Chan, C.M. Prieto, Masaaki Suzuki, Daniel Bartholomew-Peyser and Jose Hernandez; soloists like Leif-Aruhn-Solen, Conrad Tao, and Sterling Elliott; and composers like Gabriela Lena Frank, Gabriella Smith, Florence Price, Jose Gonzalez-Granero and Elizabeth Ogonek. It’s as if this one season were…

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A leader in symphonic innovation and imagination now for six decades, the Oakland Symphony launched its first full post-pandemic season this month with the first of its music-director candidates out front. And, of course, with an innovative program. Through countless setbacks, the ensemble  keeps emerging again and again like a phoenix from the ashes; its struggles remain a challenge for the future. Has any ensemble suffered greater adversity? It went bankrupt after the off-season death (accidental drowning) of its highly…

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Mahler’s “Resurrection” was a revelation, leaving us in the audience limp and giddy, as if, in a euphoric state of ecstasy, we had just been led through the Pearly Gates into the great beyond. And it was the finest hour yet for Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen in the bows when the orchestra remained steadfastly seated, deflecting the cheers to the conductor himself. The audience too responded with an inordinate five-minute ovation for the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus et al for…

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SANTA CRUZ, CA—Resolute not to let Covid win for the third year in a row, the plucky Cabrillo Festival cobbled together a concert program with half an orchestra to prevent yet another cancellation. After the total washouts of 2020 and 2021, this week Cabrillo found no less than 16 orchestra members who were suddenly Covid positive, leaving it with only tatters of a woodwind and brass section. So with just percussion and a string orchestra intact, Music Director Christian Mãcelaru…

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