<>             THE S.F. BAY AREA'S BEST IN MUSIC, 2010 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Weeks starting Jan. 1, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 47
             In the extraordinarily dynamic and varied world of music, the Bay Area and environs encountered resonant composers, soloists, ensembles and premieres during calendar 2011. Here is one frequent concert-goer’s roster of highlights,  getting away from the tried and true and emphasizing the more modern slice of the pie.
            The big news is the continued emergence of the woman conductors. There’s Berkeley’s Joana Carneiro, Cabrillo’s Marin Alsop, and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg at the New Century Chamber Orchestra. Plus the guest Alondra de la Parra at the S.F. Symphony.
            The 2010 composer of note? A no-brainer. And an Eastbay figure at that. Berkeley’s John Adams comes closest to being the salient, significant, and unforgettable  composer of our times, with his Latino Nativity oratorio “El Niño,” his neoromantic symphony “Harmonielehre,” and premieres laced around those as well, most often encountered at the S.F. Symphony.
            He was also vibrant in his symphonic profile of L.A., “City Noir,” brought on tour by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the charismatic new leader Gustavo Dudamel. Dudamel looks like the perfect fit down south, combining his podium vitality with his south-of-the-border appeal.
            Another composer of particular note is the fearless, conservatism-be-damned  Englishman Thomas Adès, who is even more rhythm-driven these days than Adams, blending it all with fiery dissonance. The triple-threat figure was heard as piano recitalist in San Francisco, and as composer and conductor guesting with the LAP.
            New to the Bay Area was the fast-rising Mexican composer Enrico Chapela, 36,  whose “Private Alleles” world premiere, based on the genetic fingerprint of his ethnic ID, took the stage of the Berkeley Symphony a month ago. The commission also spotlighted  the BSO’s  young Portuguese maestra Joana Carneiro, who appears no less intent on upgrading and broadening orchestral repertoire than her predecessor Kent Nagano. And the same program included the haunting “Neruda Songs” of Peter Lieberson, 64, with its eloquent orchestral accompaniment.
            Among the hottest composers of vocal music is San Franciscan Jake Heggie. His premiere opera “Moby Dick” based on Melville has been a great success, despite an all-male cast playing entirely on shipboard. It is  featured in at least a half-dozen productions, soon to come to an opera house near you (i.e., the S.F. Opera). The featured Capt. Ahab has been that bear of a tenor, Ben Heppner, who now jokes about David Gockley’s slip of the tongue: “And in the title role, we will have the tenor Ben Heppner.” (And we all thought that the whale would play himself!)
            Two more active California vocal composers to heed: David Conte in the south, with his “Sexton Songs,” and David Carlson in the north, with his sterling new opera “Anna Karenina” at Opera San Jose opening the season.
            Santa Cruz’s Cabrillo Festival unveiled the world premiere of Michael Hersch’s Symphony No. 3, a work bristling in contrasts, but ultimately some of the darkest music since Christopher Rouse. Credit Marin Alsop for picking this one.
            For opera, San Francisco provided goodies with formidable females in “Die Walküre,” “The Girl of the Golden West,” and “The Makropulos Case” embodying Janacek’s bold harmonies. For good measure, Los Angeles Opera revived the all-but-forgotten but hard-hitting tragedy “The Stigmatized” (1918) by Franz Schrecker.
            Pocket Opera meanwhile revived the charming and ambivalent  Polish jewel “Halka” (1848) by Moniuszko.
            In chamber music, the Takács String Quartet remains among our most frequent visitors, coming to Berkeley with the sounds of the Scot James MacMillan, he of the rafter-ringing and inventive sacred music. The most innovative of all remains the Kronos Quartet in its chamber-music-theater; its “Awakening” program at Stanford had Kronos’ elaborate stage lighting, a jammed stage set doubling as percussion instruments, and  arrangements spanning the world, all played seamlessly, without pauses. Heavy doses of prerecorded material blend in. And the Kronos string players have multiple assignments of speech, Indian drone instruments, and even pantomime, as they roam about the stage.
            Among recitalists, Asian artists appeared to predominate at the forefront. The poetic Yuja Wang is clearly the piano artist of the future, violinist Jennifer Koh plans recitals calling for unsurpassed endurance, and Midori lets her violin speak for the moderns.
            The experiment watched with great interest remains the Oakland East Bay Symphony’s multiple commissions from cross-over composers under Music Director Michael Morgan. So far, the two premiere pieces by Brydern and Walden barely harnessed the orchestra in focusing on soloists.  But the idea is potentially rich, bringing and blending with other musical traditions in the symphony hall.
            Some performing groups wisely cut back their seasons and budget a notch, in response to the recession. Others, like the S.F. Opera, postponed expensive productions like “Peter Grimes.”
            But now the concert hall also accommodates TV, closed-circuit  and radio, all going hand-in-hand. Michael Tilson Thomas does the Leonard Bernstein bit explaining the symphony on the tube, while the S.F. Opera does live transmissions into the baseball stadium, and the Metropolitan Opera invades the movie theaters. Pass the remote!
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010

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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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